In its first two possessions Sunday in the Elite Eight against Syracuse, Oklahoma used up the 35-second clock each time and got off a grand total of one bad jump shot. I knew at that point, less then two minutes into the game, that the Sooners weren't capable of beating the Orangemen and their 2-3 zone.
I was right. Syracuse is heading to the Final Four in New Orleans.
After the game, I caught an interview with Oklahoma coach Kelvin Sampson, who, while crediting Syracuse for a job well done, also acknowledged the partisan crowd in Albany, N.Y., and judged that his team had played better during the year. Well, of course it had. Oklahoma hadn't played Syracuse during the year.
Let's not assume that playing poorly is akin, in entirety, to shooting oneself in the foot. While the Sooners were bouncing the rock around outside the three-point arc — with no apparent confidence to shoot — or kicking the ball to the pivot man (who then promptly kicked it back out), it was clear Oklahoma was simply not capable of beating Syracuse today. And maybe not any day. They couldn't figure out how to get good shots. And when you don't take good shots, you don't make a lot of them. Simple as that, and the balls wouldn't have fallen any more frequently on a more typical neutral court.
The "we played poorly" misconception was big in January, when, in three straight weeks, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers ran into Michael Vick on a bad day, Donovan McNabb on a bad day and Rich Gannon on a bad day. Tampa Bay did not benefit from good luck; more like those opponents caught the Bucs on a good day. And they deserve all the credit for their Super Bowl march.
And so, today, I congratulate my alma mater on a job well done. It made a No. 1 seed play like shit.
I just returned from three days of debauchery in Minneapolis where my Marquette Warriors toppled Kentucky to earn its first Final Four trip in 26 years. It was the second greatest sports moment for me (my teams historically stink: The Bears, Brewers and Bucks), and my favorite moment was riding the hotel elevator up with Kentucky fans. They were completely dumbfounded as to what had happened to them: Blown out by little Marquette!
Marquette fans took up about 18,000 of the 28,000 seats in the Metrodome, and it was a blast to be an alum in downtown Minneapolis last night.
Congrats also to your Orangemen by the way. Hopefully, both can advance to the title game Monday night!
Posted by Joe DiGiovanni at March 30, 2003 8:37 PM