Sweet Memories and The Sweet Sixteen

In less time than it will take the Buffalo Sabres, New Jersey Devils, or Pittsburgh Penguins to slog through their first-round NHL postseason assignments next month, the NCAA Basketball Tournament will have whittled itself from 65 teams to 4. After this week’s Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight, we’ll know the composition of the 2007 Final Four—less than two weeks after the “Big Dance” commenced.

So, as we wind down our 50th publishing season at TGS, it’s appropriate that the last major event we’ll be covering is March Madness. For in our half century of publishing, we don’t know of an annual sporting rite of passage that has grown as much in stature as the NCAA Basketball Tournament. It’s become a national institution. It differs from many of the over-hyped sports extravaganzas of today (the Super Bowl and BCS Championship football game immediately come to mind), as the Big Dance doesn’t need any artificial promotion, with its momentum and enthusiasm truly generated from within. And March really is a time for college hoop teams and fans to dream. That’s probably because, unlike the college football season in which only a few teams can realistically hope to play for a national title, almost the entirety of Division I college basketball can get involved with March Madness. Remember, as recently as a few weeks ago, practically every team in the nation still had a chance to qualify for the NCAA Tourney.

And we have certainly witnessed some significant changes in the Big Dance. When we began publishing in the 1957-58 season, the NCAA Basketball Tournament was on the periphery of the nation’s sporting conscience. Not only major pro leagues, but events such as featured boxing matches and horse races also occupied a more prominent place in the sports pecking order. That first TGS season, the NCAA hoop tourney consisted of only 23 teams, and was conducted in more or less the same manner until 1974, as between 22 and 25 teams were invited each of those 17 campaigns. And many of the schools that were considered powerhouses in college hoops during our early years of publishing are hardly recognizable in a sporting sense any longer. Seattle University, which downgraded its entire athletic program from Division I status in the mid 1970s, was involved in the first NCAA title game TGS covered back in 1958 (the Elgin Baylor-led Chieftains losing to Adolph Rupp’s 4th and last Kentucky championship side, 84-72). In 1960, the NYU Violets (NYU?) participated in the Final Four. Saint Joseph’s, Loyola-Chicago (which won it all in 1963—more on those Ramblers in a moment), Princeton (led by Bill Bradley), Dayton, and Drake all appeared in Final Fours in the 1960s, and the 1970 Final Four consisted of UCLA and present-day “non-majors” New Mexico State (coached by Lou Henson), Jacksonville (paced by Artis Gilmore), and St. Bonaventure (led by Bob Lanier, who unfortunately missed that Final Four after injuring his knee late in the East Regional finale romp over Jack Kraft’s Villanova).

And the “Big Dance” was indeed more like a sock hop until the late ‘60s, as it didn’t even have a network national TV contract until NBC picked it up for 1969. For most of the 1960s, it was only syndicated in certain parts of the country (Sports Network secured the deal from 1963-68 for national TV rights totaling $140,000), and as late as 1957, the TV “network” for the Final Four consisted of a mere 11 stations. A long way from today’s full-blown tourney coverage and billion-dollar, multi-year deal provided by CBS! So, as we reminisce for perhaps the final time during our 50th season, we’d like to highlight some of the most memorable “Big Dance” tournament runs during our first half century of publishing at TGS.

1) 1983 North Carolina State...In many ways, we think the present-day popularity of “March Madness” might stem from the unlikely and wild postseason ride of Jim Valvano’s Wolfpack that was the college hoop equivalent of Franz Klammer’s thrilling run to the Olympic downhill skiing gold medal in 1976. Prior to the Final Four, the Wolfpack survived a double-overtime thriller vs. Jim Harrick’s Pepperdine team in the West Regional opening round at Corvallis, and a pair of 1-point wins, over Jerry Tarkanian’s UNLV in the 2nd round and, in the Elite 8, another 1-point win over a Ralph Sampson-led Virginia squad at Ogden. Valvano kept rolling 7s along the way, as his unorthodox practice of fouling late in games, even when not trailing, forced foes to confront nerve-wracking one-and-one situations from the charity stripe. In each of the narrow escapes, Valvano’s gutsy tactics worked, most famously in the title game vs. the favored Clyde Drexler-Akeem Olajuwon “Phi Slamma Jamma” Houston squad at the Pit in Albuquerque. The Cougars failed to connect from the FT line in the late going and allowed the Wolfpack to erase an 8-point lead, all preceding Dereck Whittenberg’s famous air ball converted into a title-winning dunk at the buzzer by Lorenzo Charles, and Valvano’s subsequent (and unforgettable) mad dash onto the court. The reverberations of Valvano’s tactics 24 years ago are still felt today. Because of Valvano's strategy, the NCAA instituted a rule change the next season that’s still in effect, limiting the 1-and-1 free throws to only the 7th, 8th, and 9th team fouls before becoming NBA-like 2-shot “bonuses” at the 10th team foul.

2) 1975 UCLA...Of all of John Wooden’s ten national championships in Westwood, his last was undoubtedly the most exciting. The Bruins had four white-knucklers in their five tourney games that season, including a harrowing overtime escape in the opening game vs. Johnny Orr’s Michigan, an unexpected close call (67-64) vs. Jud Heathcote’s heavy underdog Montana in the Sweet Sixteen at Portland, and a pulsating national semifinal battle vs. former assistant Denny Crum’s Louisville, the Bruins prevailing 75-74 in overtime on Richard Washington’s dramatic baseline jumper in the final seconds. Wooden waited until after the Louisville win to announce his retirement, effective following the finale vs. Joe B. Hall’s Kentucky team (featuring Kevin Grevey) that had knocked off Bob Knight’s then-unbeaten Indiana in the Elite 8. That tense title duel in San Diego wasn’t decided until the final minute, either, with UCLA, playing only 6 men and led by tourney MVP Washington’s 28 points and 24 from Dave Meyers, finally emerging a 92-85 winner, fittingly sending the Wizard of Westwood out on top.

3) 1963 Loyola-Chicago...Thanks to recent Disney movie “Glory Road,” the 1966 Texas Western team has been romanticized, even though the flick embellished various parts of the Miners’ story (it was HC Don Haskins' 5th season, not his first, at the helm; Haskins had been starting five African-Americans for much of the season, not just the title game vs. Adolph Rupp’s all-white Kentucky team; and that finale vs. the Wildcats wasn’t the nail-biter the movie depicted it to be). The fact is that the 1963 Loyola-Chicago Ramblers were the real social trailblazers, as it was coach George Ireland who broke a “gentleman’s agreement” between coaches in the integrated schools that said teams could play as many as three black players at home and just two on the road. Ireland started four black players for the entirety of the 1962-63 season, and when little Pablo Robertson (a subsequent Harlem Globetrotter) replaced a fouled-out John Egan in a game vs. Wyoming, it was the first time a major college team fielded an all-black lineup. Along the way, Loyola's team endured harassment, prejudice, and death threats, but nonetheless accumulated perhaps the most impressive academic records of any championship group in college history.

Those Ramblers, led by All-American Jerry Harkness (who later gained more fame in the ABA for making a 90-foot game-winning shot for the Indiana Pacers), were the nation’s highest-scoring squad, and set a then NCAA-tourney scoring record (and a margin-of-victory mark that still stands) in a 111-42 rout of Tennessee Tech in the first round. A landmark civil rights moment ensued in the Sweet Sixteen win vs. Mississippi State, as the Maroons (as they were then popularly known) competed for the first time vs. an integrated team, dodging a court injunction to do so. And after beating Illinois and Duke, the Ramblers eventually proceeded to the finale vs. two-time defending champion Cincinnati at Louisville’s Freedom Hall. The Bearcats seemed to have a death grip on the game, up 45-30 midway in the second half, before Harkness (held scoreless in the first half) caught fire, and the Ramblers rallied dramatically to force overtime. In the tense extra period, Vic Rouse famously tipped in Les Hunter’s missed shot at the buzzer to give Loyola a thrilling 60-58 win and the national crown.

(For a real kick, go to http://www.ramblermania.com/history.htm to hear Red Rush’s unforgettable call of the frantic final seconds!) And the goose bumps return whenever we recall those and many other unforgettable teams from the past 50 years!

We’d love to keep reminiscing, but it’s time to review recent Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight history. And there have been a few trends worth noting.

In the Sweet Sixteen, dogs have held a slight upper hand the past two seasons (9-6-1 vs. line), which is noteworthy mostly because it comes on the heels of a rather successful period of favorite dominance in this round (chalk 19-12-1 vs. line between 2001-04). Intermediate-priced favorites laying between 7-9½ points are still 7-0 since 2002, however. Some conference pointspread trends in this round are particularly interesting, with Big Ten teams surprisingly 13-5 vs. the line in Sweet Sixteen games since ‘99, and the Big East on the other end of the spectrum at 7-14-2 since ‘98 against the number. More illuminating trends appear in the Elite Eight, where underdogs covered 3 of 4 meetings last year and have recorded a stellar 23-11 spread mark since ‘98 (with two pick’ems), including a 12-3 mark since 2003.

Following are the specific breakdowns (not including pick’ems or pointspread “pushes”) by pointspread category and conferences for the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight since 1998.

Spread record by conference: ACC 9-11-1, Atlantic 10 4-2, Big East 7-14, Big Ten 13-7 (13-5 since ‘99), Big XII 10-7, CAA 1-0, CUSA 3-2, Horizon 0-2, MAC 1-1, Mid-Continent 1-0, MVC 0-3, Mountain West 0-1, Pac-10 7-9, SEC 9-8, WAC 2-1, West Coast 2-2.

Spread record by conference since 1998: ACC 5-5, Atlantic 10 3-1, Big East 4-5, Big Ten 8-4, Big XII 4-7, CAA 1-0, CUSA 1-2, Pac-10 4-5, SEC 4-4, WAC 1-1, West Coast 1-0.

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