Commentary: Wait a minute : or 14:25

By Daniel Brown - San Jose Mercury News     Mar 30, 2007

“Just one minute left, honey.”

Those are the five most dangerous words in sports. Because when it comes to the NCAA Tournament, the clock is a crock.

The final “minute” of a college basketball game is actually a sprawling opera in disguise, a succession of timeouts, fouls, TV ads, referee deliberations – and even the occasional shot attempt.

In preparation for the Final Four, which will begin Saturday in Atlanta, the San Jose Mercury News took a stopwatch to the final minutes of some tournament games. We could have used a sundial.

The final 10 minutes of the Tennessee-Virginia game, for example, took 41 minutes.

The final two minutes took 18:49.

The final minute took 14:25.

The final 35.9 seconds took 14:01.

Hey, there’s a reason March Madness flows into April.

During that final “minute” of the Tennessee-Virginia game, there was just one actual basket – by which we mean an honest-to-goodness field goal.

Most of the time was spent watching the nation’s most graceful young athletes gathered in a huddle or lined up to watch a free throw.

And it could have been worse: Tennessee had two timeouts left. Apparently, the Vols saw no need to slow down the frantic pace.

“It’s just the way the game is played,” said UCLA guard Arron Afflalo, while in San Jose, Calif., last week. “That last minute, when it slows down, is the way it always is, so you get used to it. At that point, you find out how mentally tough you are.”

It can be brutal, especially since the final 60 stilted seconds come after 39 minutes of free-flowing, high-flying action. It’s like going from the 100-meter dash to the line at DMV.

No timeout is needless, no matter the score. When North Carolina hammered Michigan State in the second round, broadcaster Dick Enberg noted during the final minute that coach Tom Izzo had conceded and was asking the Spartans not to foul.

“He’s telling his team, ‘They got us,'” Enberg said somberly.

Then, with 22.6 seconds left, Izzo called a timeout. Michigan State trailed 81-67.

“He’s going to do some coaching right until the final buzzer!” Enberg blared, reversing course.

The early rounds did not include many bracket-busters. But there were plenty of DVR busters. On March 16, anybody who recorded from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. – the time-block for NCAA coverage – missed the finish of the Creighton-Nevada game.

At 1 p.m., there was still 4:28 left in regulation and an overtime period to come. In other words, there were still 35 minutes of airtime before the final buzzer. Only those smart enough to also record the show that followed, “The Price is Right,” saw the final showcase for Creighton-Nevada.

Why did the broadcast drag so late?

Consider that the final 1.4 seconds of regulation took 2:02. If an entire game were played at that pace, it would take 58 hours.

Some games seem that long, thanks to modern technology. With courtside TV monitors available, referees can now spend the better part of an afternoon trying to figure out – irony alert! – how many tenths of a second to put back on the clock.

Of course, college basketball is not the only sport that slows down as the heart rate speeds up. Baseball has a reputation for a plodding pace, what with its visits to the mound, long at-bats, intentional walks and the like.

So, for comparison’s sake, we timed the ninth inning of Game 4 of the 2003 American League Championship Series between the Yankees and Red Sox. That’s the one in which Dave Roberts steals a base and scores the tying run against Mariano Rivera, helping the Red Sox avoid elimination.

The half-inning lasted 17:27.

Then again, it also sailed by without a commercial break, which would be the upset of any college basketball tournament.

Over the final “minute” of the Butler-Maryland game, for example, viewers saw a guy pick up a hitchhiker carrying light beer, two dorks debating computers, Tiki Barber driving his SUV, the NCAA touting its student-athletes and Mark Wahlberg wielding a gun in his new movie.

When stations don’t go to commercial, they cut to shots of well-dressed coaches diagramming Xs and Os for their young charges – although it is often difficult to see the impact.

With 16.4 seconds left in its game against Texas A&M, Louisville gathered to set up its last shot. The inbounds pass went to Edgar Sosa, who dribbled down the clock from the top of the key and jacked up a well-guarded, ill-advised three-pointer with seven seconds left.

Rick Pitino used a timeout to draw up that?

Louisville did find one last chance, getting the ball back with 1.7 seconds to play.

The announcer, however, warned that all seemed doomed.

“Whatever Louisville is going to do,” he said, “they don’t have a timeout to set it up.”

What a pity.

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