EXPECT AN EXCITING FINAL BASKETBALL GAME TONIGHT
A GREAT TEAM VS A GREAT COACH
March Madness has not been compelling. There have been no huge upsets and only one great game the past two weeks, Connecticut’s final second victory over Duke.
All three games in the Women’s Final Four this weekend were one-sided.
Tonight, however, the UConn-Michigan championship contest may change those dynamics, producing a memorable game.
It features a great team against a great coach.
I’m a political hack journalist who loves basketball but hardly am an expert. But it hasn’t been a terrific tournament for the experts, so why not give it a shot.
I’ve seen both Michigan and UConn numerous times on television and in person for their games against Duke. Michigan is an awesome team, big, quick, deep, talented. On Saturday the Wolverines, with their best player injured for much of the game, manhandled Arizona, who many experts thoughts was the best team in the field.
UConn is really good basketball team with a mixture of seasoned veterans and a star freshman. They are disciplined and tenacious. But they aren’t as big or as powerful as Michigan.
The equalizer is the Huskies coach, Dan Hurley. This is his third trip to the championship game in the past four season Since the John Wooden-UCLA dominance ended a half century ago, the only other coach to achieve that is Duke’s legendary Mike Krzyzewski.
A word about Michigan coach, Dusty May. He took Florida Atlantic to the Final Four three years ago. A year later he was hied by Michigan who had won only eight games that season. He then led them to a Big Ten Championship and, in his second season, to the finals.
He may turn out to be a Hall of Fame coach.
For now Dan Hurley is sui generis, as entertaining as he is brilliant.
He comes from basketball royalty. His father, Bob Hurley, sr. arguably was the greatest high school basketball coach, winning over 1,000 games and 28 New Jersey state championships at a small Catholic school. His brother, Bob Hurley jr was an All-American player at Duke though a less successful coach.
One of my favorite stories out of Indianapolis was an ESPN piece by Ryan McGree who did nothing but track Hurley in the semi-final game. The coach, who head bumped a referee after they beat Duke, dropped a F-Bomb less than a minute into the game. During one “amazing stretch,” McGree wrote, “ Hurley managed to cram a real time on the clock two minutes with 96 steps, one mini-leap, six one-finger points, a pair of two handed calm downs, and a 30 second crouch next to his stool, during which he drank from two cups of water and took seven looks at the play sheet. When he finally stood up he did it with such force that he nearly launched himself backward off the floor into the sunken bench area.”
These antics sometimes overshadow his coaching brilliance, He successfully rebuilds rosters, the intensity of his practices are off the charts, no one is better at in-game adjustments, and he retains the loyalty of his players.
If you want a good taker on tonight check out my two favorite analysts, ESPN’s Jay Bilas or TNT Sports Charles Barkley.
From the amateur seats, at the risk of angering my friend Esther Newberg, a prediction: Michigan 77-UConn 74.