Atlanta ? Not only was my sister-in-law, a Kansas University graduate, excited about KU reaching the NCAA Final Four near her suburban Atlanta home, she was positively giddy about the storybook Kansas-Maryland semifinal.
“It’s really neat,” she said, “that two brothers are coaching against each other.”
Uh huh? I replied.
“Gary and Roy Williams. I thought they were brothers,” she said. “At least that’s what I heard.”
Not really, I said. They aren’t brothers, although they are brothers of the cloth. Neither has ever won the NCAA championship.
Now they aren’t even that anymore. Not after Monday night. Not after Maryland’s convincing 64-52 victory over a game but overmatched Indiana team that had hoped to join the 1988 Jayhawks as the only team to lose as many as 11 games and still be king of the mountain.
It took Gary Williams a quarter of a century to realize every NCAA Div. I college coach’s dream. Heck, Roy Williams has been trying for only 14 years.
In retrospect, it’s ironic Gary Williams is the man who loomed as the leading candidate to replace Larry Brown at Kansas after Brown had won the NCAA title and skipped back to the NBA where he remains today.
If Gary Williams hadn’t been distracted by some personal issues at the time, he very well could have become Brown’s replacement. Gary Williams wasn’t the right man for Kansas at the right time. Roy Williams was.
Those who believed Saturday night’s semifinal between the teams coached by the two Williams, er, non-brothers was tantamount to the championship because both were No. 1 seeds might have been right.
Even though Maryland clearly had better personnel, the gritty Hoosiers showed enough moxie to snatch a 44-42 lead with about 10 minutes remaining. Then the Terps as champions do at crunch time stepped on the glass slipper and crushed it into a hundred pieces.
Boy, did Monday night’s game ever prove the old adage that defense wins championships.
Maryland’s inside tandem of Chris Wilcox and Lonny Baxter may not be too nifty on offense, but the Terps’ duo neutralized KU All-American Drew Gooden on Saturday night, then nearly vaporized Jared Jeffries, Indiana’s best big man, on Monday night. Jeffries finished with eight points, seven rebounds, four fouls and four turnovers.
“We haven’t really faced a defense,” Indiana point guard Tom Coverdale said, “that could do the things that they did.”
So good was Maryland’s defense that it almost overshadowed the tourney’s most outstanding performer. Almost but guard Juan Dixon was so impressive during the entire tournament he had to be a unanimous MOP selection, and he was.
Dixon, a scrawny 6-foot-3 guard, scored a game-high 18 points and he seemed to do it with as little effort as he did when he drilled Kansas for 33 points two nights earlier.
For what it’s worth, Kansas fans and players may have been crushed by Saturday’s loss to Maryland, but it wasn’t a fluke. The Terps were a team of destiny, a team on a mission to avenge last year’s semifinal loss to Duke.
Will Kansas follow the same scenario next year? It’s possible. Even without the multi-talented Drew Gooden, who is likely to declare for the NBA Draft, and three-point machine Jeff Boschee, the Jayhawks won’t be Spam next season.
And truth would be stranger than fiction if Roy Williams followed Gary Williams to the promised land.