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Illinois, Oregon may have what it takes Posted: Friday March 08, 2002 11:37 AM
Sports Illustrated senior writer Grant Wahl answers your college basketball questions every Wednesday. Click here to send him a question. Wake me up when Conference Season Champ Gets Screwed Week -- sorry, Championship Week -- is over. ... I tried to watch the Big East tourney on Wednesday, but the games were so brutal I couldn't do it. God, I miss the days of Walter Berry, Harold Jensen and Sleepy Floyd. ... If Butler doesn't get an NCAA bid, it should attack its own conference instead of the NCAA tournament committee. It's folly to think the Horizon League should get two bids, so why doesn't the Horizon ditch its conference tourney and send its best team (i.e., the regular-season champ, Butler)? ... Gonzaga's Dan Dickau should have earned a spot on the All-America team with his sick shooting extravaganza against Pepperdine on Monday. Got a call last week from Dan; his fiancée, Heather Nevenner, got a script in the mail from Disney (!) after her appearance in Sports Illustrated. ... If you buy one CD this week, let it be Manu Chao's Próxima Estación Esperanza. ... Speaking of ridiculous postseason tourneys, shouldn't they have a mini-NIT for all the terrible big-conference teams that couldn't even make their own league tournaments? (See: Oregon State, Washington State, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, DePaul, Southern Miss.) Winner gets to go to the real NIT, of course. ... Ed Hightower is still my favorite referee in the land. ... If Gonzaga receives anything lower than a No. 3 seed, the Zags are getting ripped off. ... Anybody got tickets for No Doubt in Seattle on March 20-21? That sucker is sold out. Questions, questions ... Does Illinois' current seven-game winning streak make you nervous or even make you rethink your hasty decision to scratch the Illini from your Magic Eight?
I'm certain that you are feeling supremely confident of your Magic Eight choices, but heading into the tournament which teams that you left off have you sweating the most?
Well, now that you mention it, Illinois has me wondering. It's really hard to draw any conclusions from Big Ten play this year, though, so let's just say I'm eagerly awaiting the NCAA tournament's opening weekend. I'll be able to let you know after the first game whether the Illini can become this year's Maryland and get to Atlanta. Other non-Magic Eight teams that have me concerned are Oklahoma (not a lot of losses on that schedule), Florida (don't underestimate tournament experience) and Cincinnati (the nation's most fearsome defense). But, no, I'm not worried. As we have discovered, the Magic Eight is infallible. Congratulations. You have done what few people ever do and that is make me irate. How can you still be giving Oregon so little credit?
How do you feel about Oregon's postseason chances?
Sorry, guys. I certainly spoke too soon last week when I took credit for forecasting "USC's Pac-10 title." My bad. To paraphrase the Greatest, though, I ain't got no quarrel with them Ducks. In fact, they're one of the best stories on the West Coast this season, not to mention the top 3-point shooting team in the land. If they get a 2 seed in the West, as I think they will if they win the Pac-10 tourney, then look for a deep run. (Just pray for those 3s to keep falling.) My only questions: When did the Lukes (Ridnour and Jackson) borrow Dan Dickau's hair? Is the team surviving without Joey Harrington and his red mullet at games this year? And when did Chris (Big Hamlet) Christoffersen turn into a force? By the way, I really want "Big Hamlet" to stick. Get it? Christoffersen's from Denmark, and so was Hamlet, and ... never mind. Staying in Portland, Thomas George has a proposal for both livening up the nonconference season and giving smaller schools a break in scheduling: Add two games to the schedule of each Division I team, and, from the entire Division I list, let a computer randomly select two opponents for each team. Play each of the added games at the home court of the lower-ranked team. I'm all for it, of course. Can you see the possibilities? Start with a giant, lottery-style, Ping-Pong ball hopper, have Dickie V draw the teams, and televise the best matchups. Even if Duke's trip to Utah State turns into a blowout, we'll get some great stories out of it -- and, more than likely, a few upsets. Won't ever happen, but it's fun to think about. So after your LeBron James and El Diego pieces, Grant, I have to assume you are more qualified to answer this question than anyone else on the planet: Who will actually show up first, the next Michael Jordan or the next Diego Maradona?
Solid question, Jerry, and one that's been on my mind for a while. Whether it's the next Jordan, the next Maradona, or the next Beatles, it doesn't make sense. Think about it: If you're transcendent at anything -- sports, music, comedy -- then you're not the next anything. You're sui generis. An original. (For some reason, you don't encounter "The next so-and-so" phenomenon in certain fields. Take playwrights: Did Tom Stoppard ever have to deal with being called "The next Shakespeare"?) One big difference in sports is that Jordan and Maradona wore numbers, so anyone who dons 23 or 10, respectively, is doomed to the comparisons. In the end, I think Argentine superstar Juan Sebastián Verón got it right when he told me that players like Maradona come along once a century, so we've got a while to wait. Same thing goes for heir Jordan. What is a regular week like for you? Honestly, it seems that you live a very Kennedy-esque lifestyle. Covering college basketball in the winter and soccer in the summer, hanging with coaches/players, constantly traveling. All of this on the company dime.
Kennedy-esque, huh? I'm sure the 'Bag Lady would be thrilled to hear that. (FYI, we're back to being called the 'Bag. "On Colleges" was just a little too ... clinical.) Anyway, I love my job. You get to meet some remarkable people and there's a new adventure every week. The travel can get pretty hectic: In the past seven weeks I've been to Akron, Lawrence, Los Angeles, New Haven, New York (three times), Philadelphia, Spokane and Stillwater (a place I love, despite all the nasty-grams you folks sent me). And if your wife is spectacularly uninterested in sports, as mine is, it creates some odd situations. Take last Sunday night. The 'Bag Lady and I were getting reacquainted, watching a video in our Seattle condo, when Roy Williams called. Generally speaking, it's a good thing when the coach of the No. 1 team in the country returns your phone calls. Let's just say that the scowling 'Bag Lady would have none of it. (Keep in mind, though, this is the same woman who calls Lute Olson "that white-haired guy.") Here's a typical week for, say, my recent story on Dickau: Parachute into Spokane first thing Wednesday morning. After going over a few dozen clips, formulate questions and interview players, coaches, family, etc. Transcribe mountains of tape in hotel room. Meet Dickau again at his apartment, try to get a sense of his surroundings. Figure out where your story is heading. Start writing on Friday. Take time out to do radio/TV interviews for previous week's story (in this case, on LeBron James). Take time out with photographer (in this case, the very cool Robert Beck) to find a good local diner (e.g., Arny's, just down Hamilton Street from the Kennel). Go to games Thursday and Saturday nights. Hook yourself up to an i.v. of Red Bull, pull an all-nighter and file 2,000-word story by Sunday at 9 a.m. Eastern. Fly home Sunday afternoon. See your wife for a few hours. (She's in med school and doesn't want to hear your sob story.) Repeat. Soccer is much the same; just replace "Spokane" with "Seoul." I graduated from Penn in 1972 and can recall a distant past when Penn-Princeton contests included the likes of future pros like Brian Taylor, Geoff Petrie, John Hummer, Jim McMillian and Corky Calhoun. Can you describe how the Ivy League could return to such national stature (without accepting former residents of the Dade County Jail)?
Why do the names John Hummer and Corky Calhoun make me start laughing uncontrollably? In any case, the Ivies have had a few pros since those days, from Yale's Chris Dudley (we can call him a pro, right?) to Princeton's Armond Hill to (more recently) Penn's Jerome Allen and Matt Maloney. But you're right; it's a pretty dry hole these days talentwise. Yet there's something brewing in the Ivies that might up the ante: Not long ago, Princeton stopped using loans in the financial-aid process for all students, not just athletes. In other words, once your family makes its tuition contribution (as determined by the financial-aid office), the rest of your tuition money comes from grants. While it's not a full ride, it's also not far from one, and it might start attracting more top-level players who normally would take a full ride from, say, Stanford. Long story short: Harvard and Yale have already followed Princeton's lead. While the idea is to bring more diversity to the Ivy League, it could have a real effect on athletics. WATN: Benoit Benjamin found!Apologies for WATN's disappearance (we had to do a WATN for WATN), but it's finally back -- is it ever. As Josh of New York pointed out in en e-mail, our last unsolved WATN subject, Benoit Benjamin, has turned up: He's been playing for the Harlem Globetrotters and, according to the most recent issue of SI, allegedly was hanging out with Jayson Williams the night a man was killed in Williams' house. That's Benoit for you: the consummate basketball wallflower. Which brings us to a special NCAA tournament WATN: Where in the world is Barry Goheen? See you next week. Click here to send your college basketball question to Grant Wahl.
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