A Season Inside (63 page)

True enough. But the very fact that they were playing on Saturday, with the rest of the Big East and 283 other teams sitting at home, was in itself not exactly chopped liver.

The NCAA picks some very strange places to stage this basketball tournament, but it is hard to think of one stranger than the Pontiac Silverdome.

To begin with, the Silverdome is in the middle of nowhere. It is somewhere outside of Detroit but no one is quite sure where. Is there, in fact, a Pontiac? People wonder. The building itself is a giant white whale. For basketball games, a huge blue curtain is pulled down along the middle of the football field to give the place more intimacy. It’s a very effective strategy, making the place about as intimate as Red Square must be on May Day.

The four teams gathered here for the Midwest Regional didn’t really care about those details. Without question, Purdue, as the No. 1 seed, came as the top-heavy favorite. But Kansas was beginning to suspect that something was going on, something that would lead to something good. And as Purdue’s Gene Keady would later point out, “No team coached by Lon Kruger is going to be scared of anything.”

Kruger was the young Kansas State coach who had taken the Wildcats from the depths of an 11–20 record to the Sweet Sixteen in two quick years, thanks in great measure to Mitch Richmond, his swingman with the butt so wide it brought back memories of Mark Aguirre. Kansas State was Purdue’s opponent.

The opener here matched Kansas and Vanderbilt, the two teams that had squeaked to victories the previous Sunday in Lincoln. Larry Brown respected Vanderbilt but, as he had said to his coaches the previous week, matching up with the Commodores would be a lot easier than matching up with Pittsburgh would have been.

By now, Kansas was playing great defense. Since the moving of Kevin Pritchard to point guard and the insertion of Jeff Gueldner into the lineup, the Jayhawks had become an aggressive, overplaying, attacking defensive team. “If we called zone at this stage,” Brown said, “I think the kids would rebel.”

Actually, the rebellious types were gone. Brown had kicked junior
college guard Otis Livingston and freshman center Mike Masucci off the team before the tournament began for assorted and varying offenses. That meant that, in all, six players who had been part of the team on October 15 were no longer playing.

But Danny Manning was playing—and as long as he was on the court, Kansas had a chance to compete against anybody. The reticence to dominate and to lead that Brown had been fighting for four years was now a thing of the past. Manning understood that, if his team was to win, there were things that had to be done that only he could do. He understood that the other players looked up to him and that he had to lead not just by example but with words. Sometimes he had to shout and sometimes he had to cajole. It didn’t delight him to do these things but losing would have delighted him even less.

Manning wanted to be certain that his teammates didn’t come into the regional satisfied, simply happy that they had gotten this far. While everyone else went around saying, “We’re just glad to be here,” Manning’s message was simple: “We’re here so we can get to Kansas City.” He started the Vanderbilt game by swishing a three-point shot and his teammates just followed him from there.

“That’s probably the first time he’s ever taken a three-point shot without getting yelled at,” Brown said later. “He just had that look in his eye.”

The look didn’t go away. He produced 25 first-half points, taking Kansas to a 41–29 lead, and in the second half the Commodores never got within 9. Kansas won it easily, 77–64. Manning finished with 38 points. When Ed Manning looked at the stat sheet, he did a double take. “He shot 16-for-29,” the father yelled. “I can’t believe my boy took 29 shots in a game. I will have to get on him about that.”

Everyone’s mood was jubilant. Hardly surprising. “It’s hard to believe that it was only six weeks ago we were lining up an NIT home game,” Alvin Gentry marveled. “Now, we actually have a shot at the Final Four.”

They had a
great
shot at the Final Four. As they sat watching the second game, the Kansas coaches were openly and unabashedly rooting for Kansas State. Part of this was personal. They knew the K–State coaches and liked them. But part of it was pragmatic. Matchups again. Kansas knew it could beat Kansas State—it had already done so once—but it didn’t know if it could beat Purdue.

Early on, it didn’t look as if anybody could beat Purdue. The Boilermakers
flashed to a 10–0 lead before the Wildcats knew what had hit them. These two teams had played in late December and the result had been a 101–72 rout by Purdue. Now, it looked like a rerun might be in the offing.

But this Kansas State was different from that December team. It was smarter, it was more mature, and it played the game at a much slower pace. Patiently, the Wildcats came back. Coach Lon Kruger’s appearance was best described once by a reporter who wrote that “he has the bearing of a young Republican congressman.” But underneath Kruger was as intense a competitor as anyone in the business. At halftime, Purdue’s margin was 43–34.

“It wasn’t like we were blowing them out,” Troy Lewis said. “But we were comfortable. All year we had been a team that came out in the second half and took over games. It was like we used the first twenty minutes as a warmup.”

But this time K–State turned the tables. Before anybody could say, ‘Look out, Boilers,’ Kruger’s team had screeched to a 12–1 start, William Scott’s two straight three-pointers giving them a 46–44 lead before a shell-shocked Keady could call time with 16:53 left in the game.

“Runs are part of basketball,” Keady said later. “Teams had made ’em on us before. But when I called that time-out, when the kids came into the huddle, I saw doubt in their eyes. I knew then this was going to be a long night.”

Keady’s instinct was right. All year long, it had been so easy for the Boilermakers. They hadn’t put any pressure on themselves to win the Big Ten because they had seen it only as being preparation for March. They had rolled through, then in their first two tournament games they had never really been in trouble.

Now, though, they were up against a team bursting with confidence, a solid, well-coached team that would not self-destruct. The game seesawed for seven minutes until it reached 54–54. Then Richmond hit a three-pointer to make it 57–54. Fred McCoy posted to make it 59–54 and Buster Glover hit a baseline jumper to make it 61–54. Purdue looked flustered.

“All of a sudden it seemed like they were making everything,” Lewis said later. “But there was still so much time left. We just had to stay calm, run the offense and take good shots.” Lewis took one, a three-pointer that cut the lead to 61–57 with 8:20—an eternity—still left to play.

Then came one of those shots that makes a team wonder if someone is out to get them. Closely guarded, Richmond threw up a three-pointer from beyond the top of the key. The shot was way too strong, so strong that it hit the glass and banked in. “I thought then,” Richmond said, “this one is ours.”

When Melvin McCants bobbled a pass a moment later and Richmond hit a leap-and-lean jumper over Todd Mitchell to make it 66–57, it certainly looked that way. But Purdue was too good and too experienced to just roll over and die. Lewis, the coolest man on the court at this stage, hit two free throws. From the bench, the coaches were screaming, “Patience, patience,” because there were still five minutes left. Ron Meyer missed for K—State and Everette Stephens made the kind of play that makes pro scouts drool, taking one giant step down the lane and laying the ball in as he was fouled. The free throw cut the margin to 66–62. There was still 4:34 left.

They traded baskets, then Lewis got his hand on a Scott jumper. Purdue had a chance to cut the lead to two. Lewis found Mitchell inside. He went to the basket—and missed. He went over everybody, rebounded and was fouled going back up. Two shots. Mitchell, an almost 80-percent foul shooter, could cut the lead to two.

Stephens and Lewis, watching their friend line up to shoot, had the same thought: “Lots of time, Todd. Make these and we’re okay.”

Back in January, at Indiana, with a chance to put the Hoosiers away, Mitchell had gone to the line to shoot one-and-one with fifteen seconds left. He had missed. After that game, when someone had pointed out to him that he had played well in spite of the miss, Mitchell had shaken his head and said softly, “Good players play well, great players win games.”

He stepped to the foul line, looked at the rim and shot. It was off left—
way
off. A brick. Mitchell shook his head, wiped his brow and stepped back. He took the ball again, aimed and shot. Off right—and short. Another brick. K–State rebounded and called time to set up its spread offense. As Mitchell ran to the bench, his plaintive cry could be heard clearly several rows back: “
Shit!
”

Good players play well, great players win games.

Shocking as the misses were, the game wasn’t over. Meyer hit one free throw to make it 69–64 but Stephens drilled a three-pointer to make it 69–67 with 1:30 left. After a time-out by each team, K–State ran the clock to fifty-eight seconds before Purdue fouled Charles
Bledsoe. It was one-and-one. He missed. Purdue now had a chance to tie or take the lead. Keady wanted no miscommunications.

He called time with forty-four seconds left. The first time Purdue tried to inbound, it couldn’t and another time-out was called. The second time, the ball came in to Stephens. The play called was “40.” Lewis, after throwing the ball inbounds, stepped in on the baseline as McCants came over to screen for him. But Bledsoe made a quick switch onto him and Lewis threw the ball back out to Stephens.

Now, Mitchell came across the lane and moved into the low post on the right side. Stephens dribbled toward him. But just as he released a pass to him, Mitchell cut away, thinking he was covered, looking to set a screen. Stephens’s pass went right to the shocked Bledsoe, who was only too happy to catch the ball and wait to be fouled with twenty-seven seconds left. But, with a chance to ice the game, Bledsoe could only make the first free throw. It was 70–67. Mitchell rebounded the second. A three-point shot could tie.

Stephens quickly called “Santa Clara,” a play designed to get a three-point shot, preferably for him or for Lewis. On the play, McCants screens for Stephens while Mitchell screens for Lewis. If Stephens isn’t open, he can pass to Lewis. But Stephens never had a chance to make a decision. As he began to dribble left into position, the ball somehow hit his leg. It was a fluke, a once-in-a-lifetime nightmare. Coming around Mitchell’s screen, Lewis saw the ball hit Stephens’s leg and begin to roll toward the sideline.

Horrified, his first reaction was to scream: “
Everette!
” Then, he and Stephens both dove after the ball futilely. It rolled out of bounds with nineteen seconds left. Now, Purdue was all but done. Steve Henson hit two free throws to make it 72–67 with seventeen seconds to go. Stephens—too late—hit a three-pointer with nine seconds left. Purdue was out of time-outs. Richmond was fouled with three ticks left. He only made one but Stephens’s desperation shot from center court was too late—and way off the mark anyway. Kansas State–73, Purdue—70. Final.

This was not the way it was supposed to end for Lewis, Mitchell, and Stephens. Not so soon and not this way. They had won twenty-nine games but the last loss was the one they would remember. In the locker room, Lewis found himself filled with anger. Stephens, the calmest of the three seniors, was telling everyone it had been a great year anyway. Lewis wasn’t buying it. As he walked around the room, too angry to
talk to anyone, Lewis suddenly spotted Keady, who, in the immediate aftermath of the loss, had told the team how proud he was of their season. The coach was sitting by himself in a corner.

Suddenly, all the fights and arguments over the years seemed trivial. All Lewis could think of was how hard Keady had worked to make him, Mitchell, and Stephens into good players. “I wanted to just go over and hug him and tell him it was okay,” Lewis said. “I argued with him and got mad at him so much. I was really mad at him at the start of the year but you know what, he was right about almost everything. Losing didn’t change that and I wanted to tell him all that.”

But when Lewis started to open his mouth, he started to choke up. He would have to tell Keady how he felt later. The postmortems were typical. It was not until two days later that Lewis could bring himself to ask Mitchell what had happened on the free throws.

“How’d you miss ’em?” he asked softly.

“I don’t know,” Mitchell answered. “I just don’t know. I felt good, felt fine and then I just missed.”

Lewis took the loss the hardest of the three seniors, at least partly because he believed because his future as a pro was the most questionable. “It might have been my last game,” he said. “Who knows? Everyone kept telling me it wasn’t that big a thing, that I’m just twenty-one and I still have my whole life in front of me and in the grand scheme of things basketball isn’t that important.

“I understand all that and I know my whole life is ahead of me. But let’s be real. For most of my life, basketball has been
it
. Nothing else has been as important. I haven’t spent as much time on anything else I’ve ever done. You can’t just walk away from something like that and say it was no big deal. It hurts. It hurts a lot and I’m not exactly sure when it will stop hurting.”

Two days after the loss, the three seniors attended their last team meeting. Lewis was the last of them to speak. He didn’t have any great messages except for one thing he wanted to say to the juniors. “Start out next year right away showing people that it’s your team. And when Coach Keady tells you something’s right, believe him, because he knows what he’s talking about. And remember to enjoy it. Because before you know it, it will be over.”

Lewis, Mitchell, and Stephens then left their former teammates with their coach. The Final Four would begin in four days. But for them, all too soon, it was over.