Staggering Intensity: A Night To Remember

It was a night that college basketball fans had waited for all week… and feared as well.

Not allowing for the lengths of the two early games on Friday (Tennessee-Michigan and Connecticut-Iowa State), the tentative tip times for Kentucky-Louisville and Michigan State-Virginia were 9:45 p.m. and 9:57 p.m. Eastern. That’s a 12-minute stagger, which is to say, not a stagger at all. Since Wildcats-Cardinals became a foul-fest and dragged on because of a late replay review in the final 20 seconds, these two contests — the sexiest of the Sweet 16 on paper — ended within a few minutes of each other.

That was the feared part of Friday night in the regional semifinal round of the 2014 NCAA Tournament.

The part that was anticipated ever since the Sweet 16 was set in place on Sunday night?

The action we witnessed on two televisions (or a TV and a computer screen, or one TV screen with a furiously busy remote control).

Kentucky-Louisville and Michigan State-Virginia. 

Big Blue-Lou and Sparty-Hoo(s).

Matchups that look great on paper don’t always match the hype, but these two certainly did.

You can say that Cats-Cards was affected by the whistles of an off-balance officiating crew (it was), but even then, the two Commonwealth rivals covered every inch of the 94′ x 50′ hardwood slab inside Lucas Oil Stadium.

You can say that Michigan State battled its turnover demons for a substantial period of time midway through the second half against Virginia, and you can point out that the Cavaliers missed entirely too many four-footers over the course of the evening. Yet, Spartans-Hoos became the foremost example of a defensive classic in this season of college basketball.

One game in Indianapolis stood out as a story because of the poise of the winning team. The other game in New York’s Madison Square Garden will linger in the public memory because of the heights attained by two expertly-drilled teams that knew exactly where to be on defense… and got punished on the few occasions when they lost focus for a split second.

There was pleasure to be found in two rousing spectacles, unfolding against the backdrops of boisterous crowds while testing the powers of four supremely skilled coaches — John Calipari, Rick Pitino, Tom Izzo, and Tony Bennett.

There was acute pain to be found in the fact that neither game could be enjoyed on its own, given the nonexistent stagger between the two games. We’ll all relish the lack of competing games in the Elite Eight and beyond, but we’ll also beg CBS and Turner to stagger the Sweet 16 next year… by at least 50 minutes if not more.

Friday night’s greatness lay partly in the reality that it was so unbearable to have to pay attention to one possession in Indianapolis, then one in MSG. College basketball fans should not have to be put through such exquisite torture again.

God, it was great, though.

Such was the conflicted nature of the final hours of March 28, 2014, which doubled as the final hours of Louisville’s and Virginia’s seasons.

*

The frozen moment that transformed Kentucky’s win over Louisville — the moment that turned a delicate situation into an optimistic one for Big Blue Nation — occurred with 2:16 left in regulation. Louisville, once up by a 66-59 count with over four minutes left, was clinging to a 66-63 lead.

Kentucky had just preserved a possession by gaining the possession arrow on a held ball with 2:21 remaining and six seconds on the shot clock. Off the inbound, Kentucky’s Julius Randle was walled off by three Louisville defenders. The Cardinals reacted perfectly to the low shot clock and forced a tough seven-footer with one second on said shot clock.

Kentucky-Louisville has always been a game in which both sides fight and scratch for every possession. The rivalry inspires maniacal go-for-broke passion, and this latest rendition of Cats-Cards — which caused injuries to Willie Cauley-Stein (Kentucky) and Chris Jones (Louisville) — was no exception.

An underlying point of emphasis in this or any Kentucky-Louisville matchup is that with all other things being relatively equal (and in this game, they were, with one conspicuous exception…), the team that gets more loose balls in high-leverage endgame moments will probably win.

Once Randle’s errant seven-footer hit the rim with 2:16 left, Big Blue changed the trajectory of the proceedings.

It was one thing for Kentucky’s Randle to rebound his first miss. Louisville did, after all, send three men in his direction, and Randle had more forward momentum to the rim at the time he released his first shot. However, after Randle’s follow-up was blocked by Louisville’s Mangok Mathiang, UK’s Alex Poythress — lost in the thicket of scrutiny that had fallen mostly on Randle and the Harrison twins this season — was able to get a second loose ball, the loose ball the Cardinals have ordinarily snatched over the past three seasons of college basketball.

Hoop.

Harm.

Made foul shot.

66-66 tie.

Louisville had its chances both before and after that three-point play by Poythress. The Cardinals missed entirely too many foul shots (10 in 23 trips to the line), and Russ Smith proved to be just a little too erratic in the final game of his decorated collegiate career. Yet, the Poythress putback — finalizing a sequence in which Kentucky got not one, but two, offensive rebounds — represented the true hinge point.

It’s not as though Wichita State or Louisville played poorly. Kentucky has absorbed the best thrusts of two quality opponents and found enough resources to rise even higher under pressure.

It was reasonable to think that the close loss to Florida in the SEC Tournament final was little more than a tease. Now, it’s well-nigh impossible to view that afternoon in Atlanta as anything other than the moment when this team truly began to believe that it could play to the heights of its capabilities.

It feels a whole lot like 2011 in Big Blue Nation, as the Cats — after struggling to find themselves during the regular season — will play a touted 2 seed in the regional final on Sunday afternoon. (North Carolina was that 2 seed three years ago in Newark, N.J.)

*

Michigan State-Virginia was going to show if the Spartans and Branden Dawson were back. Any questions?

Michigan State-Virginia was going to show if the Spartans and Branden Dawson were back. Virginia posed tough questions Friday night; MSU answered.

The Michigan State Spartans were healthier, but were they really whole?

A team that once again had all of its important players together had lacked the court time needed to mesh.

Whereas Kentucky had a whole team that fell short for the better part of four months, Michigan State (which schooled Kentucky in a neutral-court game in November) fell short over the past few months because Tom Izzo couldn’t put his desired lineup combinations on the floor. In Lexington, the young Wildcats were running short on the amount of time they had in which to improve. In East Lansing, the Spartans had been running short on the amount of time needed to heal and become reacquainted with each other.

Friday night in Madison Square Garden, NCAA tournament preliminaries against double-digit seeds Delaware and Harvard receded into the past. Michigan State encountered the ACC champions from Charlottesville with a “(1)” next to their place on the bracket. Moreover, Virginia’s modus operandi — relentless, patient, physical defense; working possessions at both ends of the floor with acute attention to detail — mirrored Izzo’s own approach to the sport.

When Izzo won his first (and only) national title in 2000, he had to steer his team past the unflinching defense of Wisconsin in the Final Four. The game was ugly, but Wisconsin’s ability to drag down the fully-loaded Mateen Cleaves-and-Morris-Peterson Spartans left an imprint on basketball observers everywhere. The imprint wasn’t artistic, mind you, but it conveyed an important message that endures today.

Dick Bennett, Wisconsin’s coach 14 years ago, showed that while beating an elite team is almost always hard (Rick Majerus and Utah offered an exception when the Utes dismantled one of Lute Olson’s greatest Arizona powerhouses in the 1998 West Regional final), controlling the style of play is a much more accessible goal. This lesson was not lost on Dick Bennett’s son, who took Washington State — of all programs — to the Sweet 16 before resurrecting Virginia hoops to a level not seen since the mid-1990s. Tony Bennett and Tom Izzo are not that different. Moreover, Bennett had just the kind of team that could engage Michigan State in a pure slugfest and not stand at a disadvantage.

When Virginia — playing as well as it could possibly play on defense — limited Michigan State to only five points in the first 9:30 of the second half, it was more than reasonable to question if the recently-reunited Spartans could find the cohesion and concentration they’d need in order to mount a comeback.

When the flow of a game turned in the wrong direction during the Big Ten season, Michigan State often failed to self-correct. Such was the case not just in road games at Wisconsin and Michigan, but in home games against Nebraska and even Illinois. A brief flurry on one weekend in the Big Ten Tournament certainly offered cause for optimism, but as was the case with Kentucky, did a single weekend really suggest that a true turnaround was about to happen?

Alongside Big Blue on this decisive Friday night of Sweet 16 combat, Michigan State showed that it was indeed made of sterner stuff, and that it could flourish before running out of time in March.

The Spartans’ Adreian Payne made this game’s most memorable plays — his soaring blocked shots and, chiefly, a tiebreaking three with 1:31 left that gave MSU the final push it needed. However, with Virginia successfully containing Payne for most of the night, someone else had to step into the breach at the offensive end of the floor for Sparty.

Sure enough, it was the very same man Izzo hadn’t able to put on the court for several weeks.

Branden Dawson had certainly become conspicuous by his absence in February. One could tell that in the midst of Michigan State’s struggles, Dawson possessed the ability to fill in gaps and give the Spartans the components they were lacking. Against Virginia, Dawson’s length on defense and his ability to drive the ball on offense enabled him to play off Payne and lend an extra-dimensional quality to MSU in several facets of competition.

Dawson was not one of the Harrison twins from Kentucky, coming to life after four months of unsteady performances. Dawson had already proven himself as a player, but he needed to show that he — like his team — was fully back, at least to the extent that Michigan State could win a 15-round heavyweight bout previous Izzo giants had owned in the final week of March.

After 24 points and 10 rebounds against a Virginia team that never gave an inch, Dawson answered all the questions that had been thrown to him and the Spartans over the past week.

Virginia helped create a genuine defensive classic, a game in which supreme effort did not rob a 40-minute canvas of its flow or sense of purpose. Yet, while Virginia earned rich praise in a noble defeat, Michigan State — led by Dawson — produced the fuller response to the best defensive duel in this year’s Big Dance.

*

Kentucky’s coming-of-age tale, reminiscent of 2011.

Michigan State’s return to the Elite Eight for the first time since 2010.

National champions dethroned in Indianapolis. ACC champions so narrowly denied in New York.

A full 80 minutes of nothing less than every ounce of maximum effort, poured out in two cities and ending at nearly the same time.

The energy witnessed in Kentucky-Louisville and Michigan State-Virginia was staggering. Let’s hope CBS and Turner can sufficiently stagger these and other Sweet 16 games next March and beyond.

About Matt Zemek

Matt Zemek is the managing editor of The Student Section, covering college football and basketball with associate editors Terry Johnson and Bart Doan. Mr. Zemek is the editor of Crossover Chronicles, covering the NBA. He is also Bloguin's lead tennis writer, covering the major tournaments. He contributes to other Bloguin sites, such as The AP Party.

Quantcast