I think former Houston Oilers coach Bum Phillips has best described Rick Pitino's coaching prowess, when he commented on the coaching ability of coach Don Shula, by saying "He can take his' and beat yours'n and take yours'n and beat his his'n." No matter the level of talent that Pitino has had, he has been succesful, especially in the NCAA tournament. Although he had never won it all before this year, he has been close several times with less talented teams. So it was not suprising at all when he was able to take this obscenely loaded Kentucky team and destroy everybody in their path to become the most dominant team in NCAA tournament history. However, the problem with this approach was that everybody else began to emulate them in this year's NCAA tournament. Most of the games were over by halftime. The average margin of victory was thirteen points. The only other thing more automatic in this year's NCAA Tournament than Kentucky was that was that anybody but Purdue was going to come out of the West Region. Syracuse became the benefactors of the ridiculous seeding of Purdue, and now is obligated to send gifts to the selection committee members. The only traditionally tough tournament team they faced before the Final Four was Kansas. And then once they got to the Final Four they got to face the other cinderella team in Mississippi State. Again the Big Ten was a Big Flop, and next year has a lot to prove. The record of the Southeastern Conference is evidence that the conference overall was not down, Kentucky was simply in a higher class than anybody else in the country.
Two things stood out about this tournament as keys to being successful; good, sound guard play and veteran leadership. Every team who had any kind of success in the tournament had one or both of these key ingredients(not coincidentally, these are two ingredients that Michigan did not possess). Why are these facets so key for success? A good solid backcourt is imperative because the better the backcourt the better you are able to feed the people who need to get the ball down the stretch. More importantly they are also the ones who must adjust to the numerous different defenses thrown at them. In the NCAA Tournament you must face teams who you most likely have not seen all year throwing every defense possible at you, and you must face this without the benefit of in-depth scouting because of the short preperation time. If you advance in the tournament you must face at least one team with just one day of preperation, and in all likelihood that team will throw something new at you that they have never done before. Since guards handle the ball ninety-percent of the time, guards who make sound judgements and don't turn the ball over are at a premium. Two excellent examples of this are the backcourts of Massachusetts and Syracuse. Although neither backcourt is spectacular, they did not turn the ball over, and they kept an even keel throughout the game no matter the situation. Massachusetts backcourt of Padilla and Travioso simply played within themselves and calmly faced the likes of such presses as Kentucky's and Georgetown's. Which leads us to the next thing a team must have for success. These backcourts are also veteran backcourts. Veteran leadership gives teams the necessary experience to not get flustered down the stretch or during the sometimes devastating runs that can occur in the NCAA Tournament, when everything is turned up a notch. Every Final Four team had that senior leadership that becomes so crucial during tourney time. With the exception of the Fab Five coaches realize that they must keep players around for their junior and senior seasons to have any kind of chance for success in the NCAA tournament.
This premium on veteran leadership leads us to another problem facing college basketball. Although the top blue-chip recruits have tantalizing talent, in the current world of college basketball its likely that they will be around at most two years, which gives coaches some tough decisions to make. Should the top programs so actively recruit only blue chippers or should they maybe try to get one, and instead focus on getting lesser players who have potential, but need more years to develope. With the success of Syracuse and Massachusetts among others, it was very popular to stress the importance of staying in school and maturing rather than leaving early for the NBA draft. However, it seems that again this theme has fallen on deaf ears. Already several underclassmen have declared themselves elgible(Stephon Marbury, Lorenzen Wright) with more expected. This has no doubt hurt college basketball and left a vacuum still felt at Tournament time. Regular season and Tournament ratings are down because the stars leave, and people everywhere are left thinking what if. What if North Carolina had Jerry Stackhouse and Rasheed Wallace, what if Maryland had Joe Smith, would Kentucky still have won the National Championship. These are legitiment questions; but what can the NCAA do to prevent these underclassmen from leaving. They should start by giving players a stipend every month which would end at least some of the hypocrisy of the one billion dollar contract CBS pays for the NCAA Tournament. Although this would certainly not end the problem, it might help prevent at least some players from leaving early.
Although the Tournament may have been less exciting this year because of all the blowouts and the loss of key underclassmen in last year's draft, it should continue to dominate the March sports calendar. The overabundance of regular season games combined with the tremendous media hype has diminished its excitement a little, but it still remains the most exciting event in sports. Next season should include a new class of contenders because of the expected loss of some key underclassmen on the elite teams. Also some young teams with a lot of talent (see: Michigan, UCLA) should develope with more experience and become legitiment title contenders. But one thing is for certain, Rick Pitino's Kentucky Wildcats will be there fighting for a National Championship once again.