More tourney moments

I tried. I tried to pick out the dozen top tournament moments since the NCAA launched all the Madness more than 60 years ago. But I missed too many -- or so you've let me know since I visited the subject in the last The Hoop Life.

That's why I'm filing this addendum to the list. Where to start? Perhaps with Christian Laettner's other shot -- the one in the 1990 East Regional final, which involved him inbounding from the sideline, taking a return pass, and banking home the game winner in overtime against UConn.

Or with the Huskies' Tate George a round earlier, fielding a pass that covered nearly the length of the court, then beating Clemson with a heave from deep in the right corner.

Or with the left-handed game winner in the lane from Indiana State's Bob Heaton, a righty, to defeat Arkansas and send Larry Bird and the Sycamores to the 1979 Final Four. (Thanks, Michael Harding, for reminding me.) Heaton's was a great moment because it came so unexpectedly, in a superb regional final, and involved neither of that game's two great players, Bird and Sidney Moncrief.

Speaking of off-handed shots, for a fusion of emotion and basketball few can top Bo Kimble's left-handed free throws in honor of his late Loyola Marymount teammate, Hank Gathers, during the 1990 tournament, as reader Matthew Slaughter points out.

Then there are the shots that weren't quite buzzer beaters but remain burned on the mind just the same, including the Michael Jordan jumper that led North Carolina past Georgetown in 1982, and Scotty Thurman's rainmaking rainbow that pushed Arkansas past Duke in 1994.

And there are the individual performances, like Bill Bradley's 56 points in the 1965 third-place game against Wichita State; and Bill Walton's 21-for-22 against Memphis State in the 1973 final -- which gets mention in this week's Sports Illlustrated as one of the 10 greatest individual achievements in college sports history, yet didn't make my original Top 12.

With an oversight like that to my discredit, it's time to call in more voices on the subject:

I've got one play that should be added, even if it's only a few weeks old: that drive down the lane, capped by a dunk over three guys, by UNC Wilmington's Stewart Hare against USC with 55 seconds left in overtime in their first-round game. Just when UNCW looked like it was going to turn the ball over on every possession in overtime, a sub on a 13th seed from some sad little conference stands out as one of the biggest, most dramatic plays ever. Add it to your list. It's the only thing to do.
—Mike Wherley

Consider it done, Mike. I didn't hold it against Dane Fife that his boneheaded foul on Jason Williams took place in this year's tournament; Fife made the list of Most Ignominious Moments. So I'll hold nothing against Stewart Hare.

No dispute with moment No. 1. But I have to say that Bryce Drew's shot for 13th seed Valparaiso to beat No. 4 Mississippi in 1998 was incredible.
—John Young

That it was, John. I think the most mesmerizing thing about Drew's shot -- and why it may be one of the most replayed moments in tournament history -- is the sequence that preceded it. Valpo ran a sort of football flea-flicker to get the ball up the floor and into Drew's hands. It was as if the ball was destined to be delivered into the basket, and the Crusaders were a kind of courier service.

With respect to Loyola's title in 1963, I think Jerry Harkness' mad rush to the basket to tie at the end of regulation was the play to remember. That game was also the first final where the majority of the starters -- seven of 10 -- were black.

I might have also added Mississippi State's 1963 "escape" from the state of Mississippi, in violation of state law, to play a regional semifinal against the integrated Ramblers.

I've always thought 1963 was the watershed year for the integration of college basketball, far more significant than 1966 and that Texas Western-Kentucky game.
—David Robinow

Here's to you, Mr. Robinow -- you're an astute student of history.

Many of you were more astute, I dare say, than me, particularly all those readers who pointed out a mistake in the last column. I'd said that John Wooden quit as the Bruins' coach because a boorish UCLA booster came up to him after the 1975 title game and said, "That makes up for your letting us down last year." In fact, the Wizard had announced before the game that he'd be leaving Westwood. What that comment did, in fact, was confirm for him that he'd made the right call.

Of course, there's little danger of finding a spoiled fan at this Final Four, where all four coaches are hunting their first national title. May the Madness resume. And let it lengthen our list.

SI senior writer Alexander Wolff is author of Big Game, Small World: A Basketball Adventure, which is available online and in bookstores everywhere. He can be reached at http://www.biggamesmallworld.com.

 

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