Hoyas Showed No Surrender in Defeat

It was a cruel ritual, something from Greek mythology, Georgetown’s players standing in front of their bench and applauding continuously as the Villanova players mounted the victory stand, one by one. That was the place the Georgetown players saw for themselves: They were there last year; they would be there again Monday night.

Then the team that was thought to be one of the mightiest of all teams--the team that may still be one of the mightiest of all time--was brought down. Villanova, which had lost 10 times, twice to Georgetown, upset the Hoyas, 66-64, in the NCAA final Monday night. Georgetown had its appointment with destiny and couldn’t keep it. It was not an explanation and not an excuse that Villanova made 9 of 10 shots in the second half, shot 78.6% for the game; it just added to the frustration.

You can argue that the great Groza-Beard Kentucky team of the late 1940s, the Russell-Jones U. San Francisco team of the mid-50s or the Alcindor-Allen-Warren UCLA team of the ‘60s would have found a way to win. Villanova found a way to win the game Monday night and Georgetown didn’t.

And the Georgetown players with their eyes glazed over clapped their hands for Villanova. They kept right on clapping as Gary McLain of Villanova held the big trophy in his hand and did a dance on the victory platform.

“It takes some class to do it,” Georgetown’s relentless defender Michael Jackson said. “It’s something you have to do; not have to do, something you do. Have you ever seen a team stay there like we did?”

Not every team does that, but then it is to be expected from John Thompson’s team. If they are arrogant in victory, they would not show themselves as sore losers. And if it was a cruel ritual, it was difficult for the multitudes to feel much sympathy. The crowd was cheering for Villanova even before the opening tip, bursting with cheers when Villanova did something good, when Villanova caught up, when Villanova went ahead. When the crowd could feel that Villanova could win, it cheered everything. It even cheered a delay game.

They liked North Carolina State upsetting Houston two years ago; they loved what Villanova was doing to Georgetown. “Most of the country isn’t right; most of the country isn’t successful,” Jackson said, repeating a saying coach Thompson had used to account for Georgetown’s image as a bully.

Of course in mythology, he who the gods would destroy they first make angry. Georgetown was angry. Jackson stole the ball from McLain early in the game and moments later waggled his fingers in McLain’s face, as if to say that was one and there would be more.

“I was caught up in the emotionalism of the game,” Jackson said.

Reggie Williams put a forearm to Chuck Everson’s face at the end of the first half. Patrick Ewing, missing a short hook when Georgetown was falling behind, fouled in frustration trying to get the rebound and argued heatedly with the referee.

“I would imagine a little frustration set in,” McLain said of the whole sequence. “Jackson was chastising me, taunting me. They were pushing and shoving a lot. When a team does not lie down and die against their pressure, it bothers them.”

Georgetown still will have to be regarded as a great team. “They’re definitely the better team,” said Ed Pinckney, who had 16 points and 6 rebounds for Villanova. “If we played 10 times, they’d probably win a majority of them.”

They play only one game for the championship. Sudden death. That’s the stunning excitement of it.

This Villanova team may have had only one victory over Georgetown in its being, but it came Monday night. It took the aura off Ewing’s four seasons. He did not dominate the big game; he had 14 points and five rebounds. He blocked one shot. Pinckney was able to get around him, sometimes catching Ewing moving on the wrong foot. As quick as Ewing is, he found the one big man who is quicker.

Dwayne McClain was able to get to the basket. And Gary McLain was able to get the ball up the court in the face of that defensive pressure. “They had a lot of turnovers, didn’t they?” Jackson said.

Villanova turned the ball over 17 times to Georgetown’s 11. But McLain gave it up only twice and when it looked as if Villanova was going to crack, he held things together.

There was the sequence late in the first half when Ewing made a turnaround jam followed by an alley-oop from Jackson and another alley-oop on a halfcourt pass from Williams. Georgetown had a 28-25 lead and that’s how they break games. “When they’re getting those, it seems like they’re sharks smelling blood,” McLain said. “That’s how they put so many teams away.”

That’s what Georgetown felt. “I thought we had them where we wanted them,” Jackson said. “They kept coming back. We’d go ahead and they came back; we went ahead and they got the lead back.”

They looked for explanations that satisfied them. “It wasn’t the defense,” said David Wingate, who had turned off Chris Mullin in the semifinals, and then saw the likes of Harold Jensen make 5 of 5 shots. That was against a defense that surrendered only 39.8% shooting this season and 39.5% last year, both records.

“Teams don’t usually shoot that well under our pressure,” Jackson said. “I was thinking each time, if that goes in, they can’t all go in.”

The team that would be king again doesn’t have shots like that go in against them. Harold Pressley spun through an opening in the defense. McClain spun out of the corner, drove at Ewing and arched his shot ever so softly over the top of the big man’s reach. Pinckney drove across the lane and, as he was falling, put the ball off his ear and into the basket--and was fouled.

“We had our hands in their faces,” Jackson said. “I think they had only one open shot.” It was a lament. In the end it was Georgetown that made the last critical mistake. Villanova had a 61-56 lead, Wingate drove and Jensen stripped him of the ball.

Then there was nothing left for Georgetown but the spirit not to surrender that Thompson had taught. Georgetown never showed a tear.

Ewing took his second-place medal with his long, bony finger extended straight up in his own personal statement. “We might not have won the ballgame, but I still think we’re Number 1,” he said. “I think I’ve had a fine career at Georgetown.” He did, indeed, but he wasn’t able to take his team to the last big victory.

There’s no shame in that. Thompson said he took some faint solace in the fact that it was Rollie Massimino who beat him, and it was Dean Smith three years ago. “I think they run clean programs and work hard as I do,” Thompson said. “There is some consolation in that.”

As the Georgetown players stood applauding, he had toweled his face several times, touched hands with Mary Fenlon, the assistant coach for academics, and then he hugged Ewing for the last time on the basketball court. They’d had a great four years.

He told his team this last game was just another game. “That’s how we approached it,” Jackson said. At the end it was not just another game. It was the game to seal Georgetown’s place in history and it became the championship Georgetown didn’t win.