ATLANTA — The idea was to not miss left. If he did, Tim Henderson would be forced to retrieve the basketball by running down the long ravine that bordered the driveway of his family home, the one sitting on 10 acres of rural Louisville land, the one with a backdrop of nothing but open space and woods, the one where a Final Four hero was born from thousands of jump shots launched into another bright orange sunset.
This is what one coach in tonight’s national championship of college basketball was asked about Sunday:
This is what becomes a common theme in such times: That when you consider what Wichita State did in college basketball this season that it should give hope to hundreds of teams around the country that such a journey is possible.
ATLANTA — He wanted the life of a small town, a place to play basketball and be educated and become a man. His was a goal to experience a calmer, quieter existence when it came time to select a college.
ATLANTA — Syracuse is brimming with confidence, largely because of its suffocating style when the other team has the ball.
ATLANTA — Louisville already had the bigger names, the better team and some unfinished business after coming up short in last year’s Final Four.
Glenn Robinson III is a freshman at Michigan. One of his classes is a humanities course titled “The Cultures of Basketball.” Earlier this year, a certain team was covered in the curriculum, one whose style and attitude altered the game forever.
It took a magic trick by sophomore point guard Trey Burke to get Michigan to the Final Four. To win two more games, he might need to mimic a great escape artist.
The last time Michigan enjoyed Final Four status, its team had single-handedly changed the college basketball dress code and its starters had earned their own media nickname: the Fab Five. That was 1993, two decades ago. It’s also the last time the Wolverines did something truly cool.
In the movie “Steel Magnolias,” which is based on a true story, Sally Field’s character M’lynn recalls the moment doctors pulled the plug on her comatose daughter Shelby. She stayed in the room as her daughter left the world, M’lynn tells her friends, but Shelby’s father couldn’t do it, nor could her husband. Too hard to watch.
Sometime during the second half, Mike Krzyzewski looked for help and found none. He might have reminisced that it was a lot easier coaching a crew of NBA All-Stars in the Olympics.
Odds to win the NCAA championship and proposition bets posted at the LVH sports book.
The Review-Journal’s Adam Hill, Kelly Stewart and Matt Youmans compete against handicappers Bruce Marshall and Ken Thomson in a contest covering two rounds of NCAA Tournament games.
There is no better drama this time of year than the NCAA Tournament, enough to warrant time on any big screen.
