Tournament shows parity in the game

By By Stan Torgerson / sports columnist
March 23, 2004
I don't want to hear any more of that who-shot-John malarkey about how the best college basketball in the country is played in the Southeastern Conference. Nor in the Atlantic Coast Conference for that matter, or the Big 12, Conference USA or in any other of the touted leagues. There is no one conference that plays the best college basketball in the country and the 2004 NCAA tournament has proven it.
The SEC sent its two best to the tournament, Mississippi State and Kentucky, plus four others. Neither the Wildcats, seeded No. 1, nor Mississippi State, seeded No. 2, made it out of the second round. What would you have bet on Xavier, a No.7, to beat the Bulldogs? Or the Blazers at No. 9 to edge out the Wildcats? Or how much to parlay the two games?
And what happened to Conference USA's Memphis, Louisville, Charlotte, Cincinnati or DePaul? They too will see the tournament's second week on television rather than close up.
On the other hand, did Gonzaga fans think their second-seeded team was in any danger from Nevada, a No. 10? Did Alabama, at a No. 8, expect to defeat Stanford, a No. 1? Or should the idea of No. 6 Vanderbilt upsetting No. 3 North Carolina State have ever crossed anyone's mind?
Somehow, the game of basketball has changed radically over the last few years, and anybody who does not realize how much hasn't been watching the NCAA tournament.
This was once an east-to-west game. Pass the ball from side to side, work to get a screen and a close-up shot, even a lay up, go back and play defense against the other team doing the exact same thing.
Centers posted up and worked to get into position for a hook shot. This year you can count on your fingers the number of hook shots taken in the entire tournament and not use all 10 of them.
Not anymore. This game is now played north to south, bring it down court quickly and head directly to the basket or fire away from outside the arc and then scramble to get the rebound and head for the basket again.
The quickness of today's game is almost unbelievable. The slow basketball player is as much out of his element as the small lineman is in football. It's not just quick, it's almost frantic. If you saw the UAB-Washington game, won by UAB 102-100, you saw one of the most up-and-down-the-court contests I have ever seen. Then the Blazers came out on one day's rest and played the exact same way against Kentucky. The Wildcats played the first half with little enthusiasm, and even when they came back in the second, UAB outscrapped them. If you're going to play those guys, you'd better be prepared to run for 40 minutes, non-stop.
The ability to take and make the three-point shot is the single most important change in the game. The three-point aspect of the game didn't just slip up on us overnight. It's been there, but we just didn't notice it. The change is that each team once had one, two at the most, long-range shooters. Today, everybody out there can do it. The tournament record for three-point field goals in a tournament game is 21, held by Loyola Marymount against Michigan in 1990. The record for number of three-point attempts is 43 set by St. Joseph's in an overtime game against Boston College in 1997. Kansas State set the record for three-point shooting percentage against Georgia way back in 1987. They hit eight of nine for 88 percent.
So the value of the three-point shot hasn't just been discovered. It's just been emphasized. And re-emphasized.
The selection committee has had its share of criticism over the years. There was less of that this year and, if there had been, the results of the first two round show it wouldn't have been justified. They did their job and did it well.
There is just no way of measuring the ability of one team against another before the game is played. It seemed to me the majority of the teams that played with the most energy in the opening rounds this year won their games.
As for the SEC's Alabama, Vanderbilt and Conference USA's UAB, all of whom battled their way into the Sweet 16, at this point seedings don't mean doodlee-squat. They didn't mean anything last Thursday, either, when the tournament began.