It's that time again, college basketball is back. By the time March comes around, you can forget about concentrating on your thermodynamics class. What's really important is filling out your tournament pool. What teams are hot, what players are clutch, what coach can lead his team to the promised land? The answers to these crucial questions could win you ten dollars in the pool. They could also win you bragging rights as the premier college basketball guru in your pathetic circle of friends. These answers, dear reader, lay ahead.
The following is the way this season will unfold. Anyone who doesn't want to know the outcome should stop reading now.
It begins with the Pre-Season NIT. Sixteen teams kick-start the college year with a bang which ends with a champion crowned in the Big Apple. This year's solid lineup of teams witnesses some intense match-ups. Reaching the semi-final round at Madison Square Garden are four of the nation's premier programs; Georgia Tech, Georgetown, Arkansas, and Michigan. Michigan advances over the tuned down Razorbacks while the Hoyas, led by sophomore sensation Allen Iverson, beat out the Yellow Jackets. In the championship final against John Thompson's tenacious crew, the Maize and Blue seem a bit tentative. On the offensive side of the court, turnovers abound; defensively no one can stop Iverson. Georgetown wins the title in an easy 87-73 romp.
Immediately, Georgetown's stock rises in the national polls. The Hoyas reach as high as 3 in the AP poll released in early December. Nevertheless, no one can unseat the all-powerful Kentucky Wildcats from their spot at the top. Rick Pitino is sweating through a brand new set of designer shirts this year as he attempts to finally bring a national crown to Lexington. When he took the job, Pitino promised to stay until U K won it all. Now, seven years later, his kids are getting Southern accents and he's ready to hit the road again. This just might be his year.
The Christmas tournament season is always a good opportunity to find an up and coming program, and these holidays are no different. This year's crop include Mississippi State, Utah, and Virginia Tech. Utah coach Rick Majerus, not afraid to sweat through his share of shirts either, has his Running Utes poised to prove how good of a coach the former Ball State man really is.
With the Virginia Tech Hokies added to the 13 team Big East, no one is questioning which conference is the strongest this year. Georgetown, Connecticut, and Villanova breathe new life into this league many had left for dead. The three big stars in the conference are also the most dominating players in the nation. Iverson, who will have another dominating year in the back court spends his final days under coach/mentor John Thompson this season. By May he will be dribbling and passing in the pre-NBA Draft combines. Joining him in the combines will be top three draft pick Ray Allen from Connecticut. Allen opted to stay away from the Draft and a definite lottery pick last year to play one more season for the Huskies under Jim Calhoun. Despite their rock solid play, neither of these two has the year that the nation's number one player, Kerry Kittles of Villanova, has. Rolly Massimino never had a player with this much talent on his 1985 National Champion team. Now Kittles is out to lead the Wildcats back to those heights. Unfortunately, he will be dissappointed in this pursuit. The meat of conference play begins in January. This year's Atlantic Coast Conference lineup is considerably weaker than usual. This said, the ACC should only be the second or third best league in the country. Duke, unquestionably the strongest program over the past nine years, looks to rebound from a woeful, sub-five hundred year. They do. An early season victory over the Wolverines in Ann Arbor helps Coach K give his team some credibility once again. Dean Smith's North Carolina Tar Heels will have an off year but still make the Sweet Sixteen. Shocking the conference and the country is Wake Forest's immediate demise from a banner 1994-95 season which saw the Demon Deacons win the conference title. Even Tim Duncan, the number one pick in next year's NBA Draft, cannot lead this team back to the Tournament.
It's a rebuilding year in the Big 10. Young stars like Indiana's Andrae Patterson and Michigan's Maurice Taylor will give the league a post-Fab Five image to love. Nevertheless, last year's 1-6 massacre at the NCAA's left the Big 10 looking like a hyped-up version of the WAC. A lot of pride is on the line in the upcoming years for the nation's finest conference. Iowa is everyone's pre-season pick to win the sonference, but it will be the Purdue Boilermakers and Michigan Wolverines who share the crown at the end of the year. One pre-season award that is certain to come true is the Kleenex Tissue Award given to the player who wipes the most tears from his eyes in the course of the season. Indiana's Neil Reid will take his second straight Golden Kleenex this year after setting the all-time mark for most tears shed in a game last year against the Wolverines in Bloomington.
UCLA will win the Pac 10 with relative ease. Stanford and Washington State may take a few games from the Bruins during the regular season but they won't be able to stop the nation's deepest bench from winning their second straight conference title.
After a grueling and intense regular season, the real show begins in March. Kentucky is the number one seed in the Southeast Region and the undisputed favorite to win it all. The other top seeds are Kansas, UCLA, and Connecticut who take the Big East title from Villanova in a thrilling championship final. But beyond the realm of these media propped programs lie the uncharted monsters, the Santa Clara's, who can't wait to knock the Nike contract shoes off of the civilized sports world. When the tournament begins, sanity goes out the window with last week's tuna casserole. First round upsets are often the most fun of the Tournament. Pre-tourney warning: watch out John Calipari, your number three seed Minutemen get shellacked by Wichita State (insert your own Shocker joke here.)
The longer the tourney goes on, the wilder it gets. What's new? Going unnoticed by nearly everyone is a gritty fourth seed team from Washtenaw County. That's right, they're your Wolverines, and they're on a mission. A mission that finally draws attention at the West Region Final where they face up to, and edge out Kansas. Typical of Steve Fisher's teams, the momentum has been gaining all year. What seemed like an unorganized intramural offense at the beginning of the year, now runs like a well oiled V-8 speed machine. After the Jayhawks, the Victors face Pitino's Wildcat's in the Final Four at the lovely New Jersey Meadowlands.
Going into their game with Kentucky, the Wolverines are a twelve point underdog, but neither team leads by more than seven at any point. With thirty seconds to go Kentucky takes a two point lead, but the Wolverines seem reserved as Travis Conlon brings the ball up the court. The ball gets entered into Maceo Baston with five seconds to go. Immediately, the Wildcats collapse on him. From the corner of his eye, Baston sees Jerod Ward shouting for the ball. A quick bounce pass goes out beyond the arc, and with one second remaining Ward lets fly. Swish! Rick Pitino's kids will be saying "y'all" for at least one more year.
The other two teams still alive are the Connecticut Huskies and the Duke Blue Devils. At the end of another barn-burner, Duke's sensational sophomore, Trajan Langdon, buries a turn around fifteen footer to seal the win. The final is set, and it couldn't be more poignant. Michigan and Duke renew their rivalry in a new era for both teams.
Duke grabs a big lead in the first half, but with ten minutes to go, the Wolverines find themselves trailing by only three. The Blue Devils have no one to match up with Michigan's big men, but their guards keep hitting three point baskets to keep them ahead. Regulation ends in a tie 82-82, and both teams head to overtime confident of victory. With twenty seconds remaining and Michigan leading by one, Langdon is fouled shooting.
True to form, he nails both free throws to put Duke ahead. Again, the Wolverines have to pull out a game on their last possession. Conlon takes the ball over the midcourt with fourteen seconds to play and feeds Ward on the left wing. Ward looks to enter the ball to Maurice Taylor but decides not to try to thread it through the double team defense. He swings the ball back to Conlon who hits Louis Bullock on the right wing with five seconds to play. Bullock looks inside and finds Robert Traylor with four seconds. The big man backs Greg Newton all the way under the hoop in two seconds then jams the ball as the buzzer goes off. Sweet revenge, the Wolverines are champions in 1996!
Or maybe it happens a little bit differently, who can say?