EMBRACE THE DELIGHTFUL WRECKAGE OF THE WEIRDEST FINAL FOUR EVER
Connecticut will restore normalcy if it stampedes to an expected national title, but for now, why have bluebloods when we can have new blood — first-timers Florida Atlantic, San Diego State and Miami?
The lunatic is not in your head. But it certainly exists, an accomplice in the mutilation of all brackets in the NCAA tournament. Should Pink Floyd rewrite? Confirming that nothing is predictable and anything is possible in a 2023 world, the craziest Final Four on record — Florida Atlantic, San Diego State, Miami and Connecticut — could have been picked only by the wayward paws of a feral cat on a sheet that blew into a mud puddle.
“It’s a year unlike, well, any other,” said Jim Nantz, dropping a variation of his pet phrase, unable to restrain himself.
So why not embrace the delightful wreckage of a concluding weekend that will have no No. 1, No. 2 or No. 3 seeds but will have a No. 4, two No. 5s and a No. 9? Even if UConn looks the part of inevitable champion after beating its last four opponents, including Mark Few and Gonzaga, by a 22.5-point average and a 17-point second-half differential? We didn’t want Brandon Miller and the alleged Alabama murder weapon — thank you, karma, for limiting him to 19.5 percent shooting, 28 points and 10 turnovers in three games — anywhere near that domed stadium in Texas. We didn’t want Sean Miller, John Calipari and other convicted coaching cheats. We didn’t want a Kansas repeat. We didn’t want once-exiled Kelvin Sampson, he of the 577 impermissible recruiting phone calls, owning home advantage in Houston with university alum Nantz gushing all the way. We saw Drew Timme, in all his headbanded rec-league aplomb, kind of lose us when he said, “We cannot be the team that f—s this one up,” then proceeded to do just that in Gonzaga’s tear-filled blowout.
Who needs bluebloods when we can have new blood? Who needs sameness when parity — a result of the transfer portal, the NBA’s G League and pandemic fallout — can render parody? Who needs the SEC and Big Ten and Big 12 and Pac-12, with 27 combined bids and no remaining teams, when you can have Conference USA and the Mountain West? Of the four survivors, only UConn has won a national championship — its last, in 2014, not preventing the ugly firing of coach Kevin Ollie. The other three teams are in their first Final Fours, and if Miami’s run is aided by NIL money — transfer Nijel Pack is an $800,000 player and Isaiah Wong is in six figures, thanks to billionaire booster John Ruiz — at least the Hurricanes are paying sums legally after a sleazy football history.
We wanted reasons to play “One Shining Moment.” We have four, while also blasting “Helter Skelter.” No one is playing it louder than FAU, aka WTF, which I’ve passed often on the road out of Boca Raton to I-95 and noticed it only when football bad boy Lane Kiffin was cleansed there. Now it’s the home of the latest in-your-dreams reality show, Loyola of Chicago without Sister Jean, the new VCU, George Mason and Wichita State. Whether FAU becomes the next Butler and advances to Monday night depends on the Saturday pushback of San Diego State, which is not NIL-funded by the splurging owner of the baseball Padres — the Aztecs ride in middle seats on Southwest Airlines flights — but, like Peter Seidler, there is talk of slaying dragons.
Assuredly, Florida Atlantic is not a dragon. The Owls are here thanks to the coaching prowess and recruiting hustle of Dusty May, once a student manager for Bob Knight at Indiana, who is faring far better at a commuter school than the Hoosiers or the would-be Florida behemoth he left behind as an assistant. Did you notice 7-foot-1 Russian Vladislav Goldin — Charles Barkley called him the best player on the floor — as he punished Kansas State in the East Regional final at Madison Square Garden? May found him in the portal, the same access available to any other coach, after Goldin played only 10 games at Texas Tech during the 2020-21 season. All he knew was Goldin came from a prep school, Putnam Science Academy — in Connecticut, of all places, more interesting if FAU meets UConn for the title. Such is the work ethic of a coaching lifer who, at 46, has bounced from stop to stop to attain his fantasy.
“(Putnam) had all their stuff online, so we studied him thoroughly and knew how good he was,” said May, who unearthed guard Bryan Greenlee via the same portal, aware of his scant playing time at Minnesota.
To say Knight would be publicly proud of May is a major reach. Knight rarely voiced pride about anyone in his kingdom, in a turbulent career that unraveled with his hand pressed against Neil Reed’s neck on a practice court. But May did ascend to lead a student-manager brigade ordered to break down film, deliver donuts to Knight’s hotel door at dawn and work for the famously cantankerous lout. He dealt with the ogre’s wrath and witnessed his demise. Needless to say, he heeded the best of Knight and left the worst alone, guiding his players with an even-keeled, 21st-century sensibility. But to this day, as a trueblood Indiana native who only wanted to coach a high-school team in the state, he praises the disgraced dictator.
“He’s a master teacher and communicator and makes complex things seem simple. And how he cared about his players,” said May, describing someone the rest of us don’t know. “Obviously, he was demanding. His approach wasn’t mine. But I’ve never worked for anyone who cared more for their players than he did. They had him for life. If you went through that experience, then he would do anything for the rest of your life to help you.”
Today’s nothing-is-preposterous college basketball landscape is made for May. It’s a matter of time before he’s poached by a major program — Indiana, anyone? — but the same can be said for his players. FAU, unlike Miami down the road, isn’t blessed with a powerhouse donor collective to compensate players for names, images and likenesses. How will he keep Johnell Davis, Nick Boyd and Alijah Martin? “Without a doubt, it’s going to be fluid every single day,” May said. “Luckily, I’m still relatively young and have a lot of energy, because I don’t think there’s going to be a day where you can just relax and not fear your phone buzzing.”
He can help his cause magnificently by winning the most unlikely of national championships. Getting past San Diego State is plausible — the Aztecs win with unsightly, muck-it-up defense and shot only 37 percent in nudging by Creighton — but beating UConn would be an all-time upset. When most college basketball casualists were picking Houston, Alabama or Kansas, the smart ones projected the Huskies as potential champions. If Dan Hurley’s monsters could shut down Gonzaga’s top-ranked offense and deliver an offensive clinic in the Elite Eight, what might they do to Miami in the semifinal — and the poor Owls in the final? “We’re playing at a super high level,’’ said Hurley, heretofore the least-known of the famous New Jersey basketball family. “We’re not surprised about where we’re going next, because this is who we’ve been for a large part of the season. We’re an elite defensive team, we’re a top-five offensive team, and we generally beat the other team on the glass. And sometimes, when people are seeing us for the first time, it’s overwhelming.”
And to think Hurley’s job was in jeopardy only last month. Already feeling the weight as the son of Hall of Fame prep coach Bob Hurley and the brother of ex-Duke great and current college coach Bobby Hurley, he thought he’d be fired if UConn was ousted from the tournament early. “Even if you stay off Twitter, your mind is going, you can feel it," Hurley said weeks ago. “You know you’re kind of under the gun.” But he’s a fighter from a family of fighters. After personal storms during a playing career at Seton Hall, where he battled alcohol and depression, he survived the recent firestorm and has his team playing as well in late March as any in recent memory.
“I like to tell people I'm the perfect coach for UConn because I was raised by wolves in a sense where the pressure to perform, the pressure to win, you know it doesn't faze me even a little bit,” Hurley said. “Because I'm from Jersey City and I was raised by tough people.”
Now, his biggest obstacle to a national championship might be Bill Murray, who keeps demanding Hurley to take off his shirt after victories. The comic’s son, Luke, is a UConn assistant. Hurley hasn’t surrendered yet, but his next opponent, Miami’s 73-year-old Jim Larrañaga, has no problem dancing in the locker room, as seen in the past, such as 17 years ago when he led the George Mason uprising. Why wouldn’t he boogie? Ruiz is making wealthy young men of his players, and the team’s best scorer — fifth-year senior Jordan Miller, who masterfully hit all seven of his shots from the field and all 13 free throws Sunday in a comeback victory over Texas — says the team culture is grudge-free. “At the end of the day, everyone is happy for whoever gets whatever NIL opportunity comes their way,” he said.
This won’t be a Final Four for everyone. The college game is diluted for many reasons, mostly NBA-related, and how fascinating to hear Sacramento Kings star De’Aaron Fox say what some are thinking. “I can’t watch a full college game,” he said. “It’s hard. Just the shot-making is obviously not at the pro level. The refs are bad. A lot of the coaching is really bad. … I can’t stand it.”
What’s fun about March is the volatility. I expect April will be about restoring normalcy, in the form of Connecticut. “It’s UConn,” senior guard Nahiem Alleyne said. “They won four (national titles). We’re trying to win five.”
But then, Saturday is April Fools’ Day, isn’t it?
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.