TERRY MOSHER
My NCAA basketball bracket got busted the second Middle Tennessee shot down Michigan State early in the tournament. It got worse from there and by the time Villanova and North Carolina met for the title Monday night I was severely beaten up.
Nova triple finished my March Madness death.
But, hey, if you got to go out there is no better way to do it then to watch a great, great championship game, and that is what Villanova and North Carolina gave us.
Man, the boys from Philly came out from the opening whistle intent to do damage. They were aggressive, quick and right on target as they sought to take away the will of North Carolina.
The Tar Heels would have nothing to do with that. That turned it into a battle of two superheavyweights throwing bombs at each other with no clear evidence of either team struggling with each big hit.
As anybody who has been involved in sports of any kind knows, games are won (and lost) when one team gains an advantage of wills (some call it being in the zone). That was what was going on with these two basketball giants. I thought the Heels had finally gained the edge in will late in the first half when they grabbed a 39-32 edge and got a steal and was going in for a layin that would have given them a nine point lead, the momentum and the edge in wills at intermission.
But, no, it wasn’t going to be that easy. Villanova got a block of the layup, grabbed the ball and went the other way to get a 10-foot jumper in the lane as time expired on the half. So a possible nine-point edge for the Heels was in almost a snap of the fingers down go five points, 39-34.
Nova’s will had not been sapped. The Philly boys mentally were back in the game.
Here’s my explanation on the psychology of wills when it comes to competition. I’ve been on both sides of it. When I was just a young boy I played midget football back in New York State. I was the quarterback of a bad team. I’d get the snap, turn around and be snowed under by what seemed like 11 defenders. And this happen more often than not over an eight game schedule.
In short, our team’s will was defeated before we took the field – except for one game. We were winless after three games. Beaten badly each time when we faced another winless team. For that game, a big kid that was on the high school’s junior varsity came down and played with us at offensive guard. He was an incredible player for that age and I ran every play – yes, every play – right behind him. We were so psyched up. Nobody could stop us that day. We won 36-7 and all of us on the team were just about floating in the air we were so proud of ourselves, so full of ourselves.
We had won the battle of wills, and had done it unmercifully.
That kid played just that one game for us so the next time we played that team we were back to being beaten before we stepped on the field. I was again being snowed under before I could take a couple steps with the ball and we lost 37-6.
Another example of how much will plays in competition. I used to play a lot of Ping Pong in college and over five years I was never beaten. Yes, never beaten!!! And it got so bad – not for me but for my opponents – that when a new foe stepped in against me I could feel his will disappearing. I might be ahead by five or six points and I could feel by opponent’s will was gone, and that’s when I could do anything on the table with the ball, experimenting with different strokes, putting the ball in different places, most of the time just over the net, because I knew the guy could not beat me.
So now we go back to the second half of the Nova-North Carolina game. Nova coach Jay Wright did a good job and had the right inside people to resist what the Tar Heels like to do the best – dominate inside, especially on the offensive end. If you have seen them play before you know the Tar Heels fly above the rim and keep balls alive by tipping them back and forth and then get easy lay-ins, tip-ins or dunks…
If you remember, the Heels did the first half what they seldom had done during the season, and that was to bomb away successfully from the outside. The Tar Heels made seven threes in the first 20 minutes.
But in the second half, Nova took away that and continued to make it tough inside for the Heels to score and started to chip away at the deficit until they had a 10-point lead, the momentum and the edge in wills.
At that point, it looked over for the Heels, but they gathered themselves and made one last run. They weren’t done yet. They cranked up their will and it looked like they were going to force overtime when Marcus Paige made an unbelievable, off-balance three-point shot that rattled in with 4.7 seconds left to tie the game at 74.
With the wills on both sides balanced, Nova got the ball in-bounds and Ryan Arcidiacono, who had 11 second-half points, roared up the court and just about everybody in the house expected this sharp-shooter to take the shot. Except he didn’t. He passed it off to the trailing Kris Jenkins, who soared high in the air and let fly the game winner, swishing his three-pointer as time expired.
What a game!!
What a battle of wills between the two best teams in college basketball at a time when just about everybody thought there was no one dominant team this year. But as Nova and the Heels proved, everybody was wrong: there were two great teams.
Now the question is, what will happen to North Carolina basketball in the football scandal that has dominated the news and raised questions whether players, including in basketball, took classes that didn’t exist.
There is nothing that implicates coach Roy Williams, but I do know some have wondered whether he will continue to coach. Williams, you will recall, showed up in Bremerton while recruiting Marvin Williams, who signed on with North Carolina and helped the Tar Heels win the 2005 NCAA championship over Illinois 75-70 before entering the NBA draft.
Today (April 5), another championship game is being played. That pits powerhouse Connecticut against upstart Syracuse, which dispatched Washington in the semifinals, in the women’s title game. Nobody expects Syracuse to win, but at this point who knows? Maybe the super aggressive Orange can force UConn into enough errors to pull off a stunner.
And maybe the Orange can win the battle of wills.
Wouldn’t that be something?
That’s enough of this. I’ve got to make some calls and go see the vet.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.