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Pressure points Tourney spotlight can empower -- or paralyze -- playersPosted: Friday March 28, 2003 8:07 PMUpdated: Friday March 28, 2003 8:30 PM
As we venture ever deeper into the NCAA Tournament, players reveal themselves. As immeasurably tough. As lacking in some way that they could never have imagined in dimmer light. Sometimes the process is painful. There is no stage in college sports so large, no pressure quite so great as the one-and-done, televised tension of March Madness. On Thursday night in Minneapolis, Kentucky and Marquette advanced to a Saturday afternoon regional final that should be positively fascinating, pairing college basketball's ultimate royalty against a reborn prince. Kentucky reached the Elite Eight by surviving a brutal battle of styles against underrated Wisconsin. The Big Ten champion Badgers gave Kentucky no easy looks and forced center Marquis Estill to beat them with 28 points -- which he did. Yet the deciding issue in this game was the work of Kentucky sophomore forward Chuck Hayes on Wisconsin senior guard Kirk Penney. Penney was playing his final game for Wisconsin, in front of a crowd so tilted toward the Badgers that the Metrodome felt like Camp Randall Stadium in Madison on a Saturday afternoon in October. He scored 17 points in the first half, creatively finding ways to unload 3-point shots and slashing through the lane in tiny holes. Yet the last three times he touched the ball before halftime, it was stolen or knocked loose by Kentucky forward Antwain Barbour, a spidery junior. At halftime, Kentucky coach Tubby Smith asked who wanted to guard Penney and Hayes replied, "I will."
Penney dropped a trey five minutes into the second half and didn't score again. He only attempted three more shots; two of those were blocked and on the third he was whistled for a questionable traveling call. Hayes was all over him. "I tried to make him catch the ball at half court," Hayes said. Penney not only failed to make plays, he stopped trying to make plays. Part of this was maturity, but part of it also was just being defeated. He submitted to Hayes' will. In the second game, Marquette junior guard Dwyane Wade rose where Penney fell. During one acrobatic stretch of the second half, Wade scored 10 straight points to extend a four-point lead to nine. Later he scored while tumbling to the floor after getting tackled by Pittsburgh's Jaron Brown, taking the life out of the Panthers. Meanwhile, Pittsburgh senior -- repeat, senior -- swingman Donatas Zavackas, the best 3-point shooter on the team, sat pouting on the sideline, angry at having been pulled earlier, while his team failed to make a desperation trey that could have forced OT in a 77-74 loss. Character is revealed under the toughest of circumstances. On Saturday, there will be many other opportunities for players to learn who they truly are. Kentucky will play either without leading scorer and Southeastern Conference MVP Keith Bogans, or with Bogans diminished by a high ankle sprain. Starting point guard Gerald Fitch and Cliff Hawkins, usually the first man off the bench, will have to play with less rest and must make fewer errors without Bogans to occasionally bail them out. "When we're searching for an answer out there," says Hayes, "usually Keith has an answer." A rival assistant coach suggests that Kentucky's one weakness is dangerous 3-point shooting. Without Bogans, that weakness is multiplied. Somebody else must be better. Estill must remain a huge threat inside against Marquette's front line, which is better than Wisconsin's and more likely to double-team him. Together, the entire team must place a higher premium on each possession than at any point during the season. For Marquette, the pressure falls on spindly point guard Travis Diener, who scored 55 points in the Golden Eagles' first two games, but only four in the win over Pittsburgh. Kentucky, even without Bogans, will pressure Diener relentlessly in the half-court game. If Diener turns it over, Kentucky converts in transition. Wade has to be huge again. He has to be the Wade who took down Pittsburgh, not the Wade who shot 13-for-34 in the first two rounds of the tournament. Freshman Steve Novak, a 6-foot-10 3-point specialist, has to knock down his open looks. The stakes are higher now. Higher than they were on Thursday night. The winner goes to the Final Four. On Saturday afternoon, under a Minnesota dome, somebody will find those stakes empowering and somebody else will find them emasculating. That's the tournament. That's what it does to people. Sports Illustrated senior writer Tim Layden is a regular contributor to SI.com. Click here to send him a question or comment.
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