Just in case your wife made you watch "Idol" or "Dancing" or some other horse$#!+ last night:
Duke 61 - Butler 59 = Congratulations to the
DUKE BLUE DEVILS for winning the 2010 NCAA Men's Basketball Championship. Best wishes to the players, coaches, staff, students, alumni, fans, sycophants, and buttboys. Thank you for keeping the banner where it belongs - in the ACC and the state of North Carolina. And although said banner would look better hanging in that state-of-the-art facility a few miles east, it will certainly flutter more in that drafty old firetrap of Cameron. Just so you know, I rightfully celebrated your victory today, first by wearing my Tar Heel cap, and second by smoking a cigar sent to me by our resident Wolfpack fan Jerry (Col. Kurtz).
Now as to the game itself:
Congratulations are also due to the
BUTLER BULLDOGS, not only for making it into the game at all, but for doing their part to make the game about as close as it could be. Despite all their protestations to the contrary, Butler was channelling "Hoosiers" in at least one sense - they wanted one shot to win it for all the little guys who never get that chance. And they got that shot too, albeit a 45-foot prayer just before the horn, which maybe missed by a full inch of banging home. Had it done so, it would have been the single biggest shot in the NCAA final since Lorenzo Charles stuck in that layup of Derek Wittenberg's "pass" back in 1983. Although it didn't, the Bulldog faithful have no reason to feel bad today, as the entire nation (with the possible exception of Durham) views you with nothing but respect.
Now, as for Duke - well, in a nutshell, had they truly wanted to give Butler the crown in the last five minutes, they should have tried just a little bit harder. Even at that, they came razor-close to doing so regardless. On the defensive end they made the same mistakes they did against Purdue and Baylor, gambling with double-teams and traps 30 feet from the hoop. That is fine and good if your players are quick enough to recover or rotate in the help, but Dook's are not that fast. (True, Singler got that one block after he'd been beaten, but if the shooter'd taken it strong to the tin instead of stopping and faking for the short leaner the result would have been, in Kelloggic, the "hoop and harm".) But their errors on the offensive side were even more egregious. Remember, the line was 7 points, and the Devils had a 5-point bulge plus the ball several times, with Butler on its heels and Dook's offense clicking, and the opportunity to take the fight out of the Bulldogs and the crowd out of the mix. And what did they do? They took the air out of the ball instead, and thus deflated their own chances. (Yeah, I hear you snickering - "A Tar Heel's saying this?" Just wait a second.) With only a two-possession lead, and five minutes to kill, and with what you have been doing working so far, you don't do that in this shot-clock era. However, if you DO decide to do so, you run your delay offense the right way. And are you gonna tell me that Coach K did not see the likes of George Karl, Phil Ford, Kenny Smith, or Steve Hale run it often enough to know precisely how to do it? You have to spread the offense, which not only spreads the defenders but splits their attention between their assignment and the ball. Plus, you don't run it from the wing, which ameliorates both those defensive problems - you run it from the center circle. And you don't let the clock get down to single digits either, but rather go with about 12 seconds, giving yourself a chance to either pull it out and start again if it's not there the first time or to make the extra pass or two to hit the open cutter. Now, I don't know why Coach K did not have his guys do this, but were I to guess, knowing what I know of him, I'd have to surmise he'd rather risk losing the game than do anything which looks like something Dean Smith would have done. Hey, tell me if I'm wrong.
Well, all that's beside the main point, and is not meant to detract from Duke's victory. It's just my worthless opinion anyway, as has been the vast majority of this entire thread, and based solely upon my half-century of enjoying the lovely game that is college hoops at its best. This has been some work for me over the previous few months, but I have enjoyed every second of it. Yeah, I wish my boys had done better, but so it goes. I hope you too have found some enjoyment and distraction here, and I thank you for your attention and for your input also. And for those of you I cheesed off here and there, if "sorry"'s not enough for you, then
. I may be back from time to time if any news of interest pops up, but for the main . . . we're done here.
See you next year? Hey, you tell me!