COLLEGE BASKETBALL / NCAA MEN’S AND WOMEN’S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTS : There’s More Fun Ahead

Everything worked out for the best in college basketball Saturday, although I still would have liked to see the Irvine Anteaters eat up a couple more ants.

Seven victories over five months? So what? Wouldn’t you like to see the ‘Eaters in the NCAA tournament? Wouldn’t you like to see them leading Duke at halftime with Dickie Vitale yelling: “Irvine is deeeee-vine, bay-beeeee!” Wouldn’t you like to see what sort of Anteater-baiter banner some brainy Duke kid would have drawn up for the TV camera? (“Hey, Irvine! We’re No Formicidae! Go Bug Somebody Else!”)

Maybe next year.

Meantime, things around these parts couldn’t be looking much better.

After a conference coronation Saturday, the UCLA Bruins can go to the tournament justifiably feeling good about themselves. And after a buzzer-beater crowd-pleaser Saturday, the USC Trojans can go to the tournament with enough momentum to fly them to the NCAAs first-class, without a plane.

So, on the off-chance nobody else has remembered to say so, let’s say so:

Thanks, to all of you, for a very special season. Much obliged.

The student bodies at USC and UCLA should hold rallies thanking these guys for providing them with, as David Letterman might put it, more fun than student bodies should be allowed to have.

We’ve seen George Raveling roaming back and forth on the USC sideline like the Energizer bunny.

We’ve seen Jim Harrick open the season by beating Indiana and close the season by beating Arizona, which in Westwood should make him at least a semi-wizard.

We’ve seen Raveling take Trojan basketball exactly where the school wanted it taken, even though he had to do it without Bo Kimble and Hank Gathers.

We’ve seen Harrick do two great things for Bruin basketball--restore it to its former stature and get rid of those ugly gold home uniforms forever.

We’ve seen Don MacLean be cool, be hot, be outstanding, be outspoken, be everything a college basketball player should be, as well as a constant reminder to younger players why they should take their free throws more seriously.

We’ve seen Harold Miner be amazing, be mature, pay proper respect to the basketball heroes of yesterday while copying the styles of the basketball heroes of today, all while being victimized by three long years of overdone “Miner” puns.

We’ve seen Gerald Madkins overcome hardship to show what an athlete can accomplish with hard work, hustle, leadership and dedication to defense, even while technically playing out of position. On an outfit known for its physical abilities, Madkins is the heart and soul.

We’ve seen Duane Cooper turn the Sports Arena into Duane’s World, doing exactly what Madkins does for UCLA, playing the kind of defense that wins games, not just taking aim and firing but taking his shots seriously, and personally keeping Harold Miner on his toes by threatening to turn loose his pet python, which scares Harold a hell of a lot more than Duke does.

We’ve seen Tracy Murray turn up his game another notch, seen him take notes and learn instead of sulking at the Pan-American Games at riding the bench and being considered merely a shooter; seen him move closer and closer to the day when two of the most dependable players in the NBA will be Tracy Murray and this younger dude out there, this high school kid, Cameron Murray. Maybe Tracy’s heard of him.

We’ve seen Yamen Sanders become the kind of unselfish rebounder no championship team can do without, no matter how many Miners or MacLeans they might have; a guy who could have stayed at Central Michigan and become as legendary there as Thunder Dan Majerle, but, luckily for USC, didn’t.

We’ve seen Darrick Martin endure the hardest thing in the world for a big-time basketball player: being forced to watch, after being the man whose 18 points and five steals staked UCLA to its 1990 NCAA victory over Kansas; then the man who couldn’t figure out why nothing went right for him in the 1991 NCAAs against Penn State, the “worst game I’ve ever played.” There’s still one tournament left, Darrick. Make the most of it.

You don’t often find two college teams this good, this close to one another.

Over five months, only three teams defeated UCLA. And one of them happened to be the No. 1 ranked team in the nation and defending national champion.

Another one was USC, which did it twice.

May they meet again.