Even Longshot Still Has a Shot

By CHRIS DUFRESNE

April 1, 1996 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

NEW YORK —

With the coronation of Kentucky lacking only a final score and trophy presentation, Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim can only hope to become another notable exception to someone else’s foregone conclusion.

Politics had Truman and Dewey. Football had the Jets and the Colts. Boxing offered Buster Douglas versus Mike Tyson.

“There’s nobody in college basketball that’s unbeatable,” Boeheim contended Sunday. “Everybody knows that. And it’s as simple as that. It’s a one-game deal. It’s not the NBA, it’s not four out of seven. We don’t think we have to play a perfect game.”

Boeheim’s is not the prevailing opinion. Tonight, at the Meadowlands Arena, Kentucky (33-2) and Syracuse (29-8) play for the NCAA championship in a title game that has that lopsided Super Bowl look to it.

Thankfully, there won’t be two weeks to hype the hapless underdog. This execution should be quick and painless.

Kentucky is favored to win its sixth national championship, unleash delirium in the Bluegrass state and at long last present Coach Rick Pitino with his precious first championship.

Whatever nit-picking doubts remained about the Wildcats were resolved with Saturday’s 81-74 victory against No. 1 Massachusetts in the semifinal.

Kentucky has taken on all comers in the tournament and won in various tempos and styles. The Wildcats hammered opponents that dared to run--San Jose, Utah--and withstood the slow-down tactics of Virginia Tech, Wake Forest and UMass.

The presumption here is that a Syracuse victory would rank in NCAA upset lore with North Carolina State’s last-second victory against Houston in 1983 and Villanova’s upset against Georgetown in 1985.

“I picked Villanova to win that game,” Boeheim said. “Nobody realized that, because nobody asked me at the time.”

Eleven years later, Syracuse will need a similar script.

In 1985, Villanova shot a single-game championship record 78.6% to deny Georgetown a second consecutive championship.

Boeheim can always dream. In some ways, his team bears resemblance to Jim Valvano’s team of destiny in 1983. North Carolina State had to win the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament to qualify for the NCAA tournament, then barely escaped the opening round, needing two overtimes to defeat Jim Harrick’s Pepperdine team.

No one expected much of Syracuse either. The Orangemen were the fourth-best team in the Big East behind Connecticut, Villanova and Georgetown and by far the least likely to make the Final Four.

Syracuse, like North Carolina State, needed some tournament magic. In the West Regional semifinals, Syracuse needed John Wallace’s three-point basket to claim a thrilling overtime victory against Georgia.

Like Villanova against Georgetown, Syracuse will have to steal this game from Kentucky, a team superior in talent and depth. The Orangemen can only hope the emotions spent against UMass sapped Kentucky of strength and focus.

“Last night’s game was as rough and tough a game as we’ve had all year,” Pitino said of the UMass game. “It was like an Ali-Frazier fight.”

Kentucky is a team with everything to lose; Syracuse a team with everything to gain.

Wallace, the Orangemen’s star forward, is using the underdog role to turn the game into Syracuse vs. the world.

“We’ve been the underdogs a lot of times this season,” he said. “Especially in this tournament. This is just another game.”

This hasn’t been a fuzzy-warm experience for Wallace, who was downright crabby during Sunday’s media session.

“You know as much as you should know about me,” he told a reporter trying to gather a little insight. “What, you want me to get up here and get personal?”

Kentucky, conversely, can’t use external vices for motivation. Who doesn’t think the Wildcats are great?

Pressure is nothing new. Kentucky has been favored to win every game it has played this season. The Wildcats’ most vocal critics have been themselves.

“Right now, we haven’t put two halves together this season,” forward Walter McCarty said. “We haven’t played our best basketball yet.”

This is not something Syracuse needs to hear.

Kentucky players aren’t worried about a letdown after UMass.

“This game will be the easiest game of the season because we’re playing for the national championship,” forward Antoine Walker said. “We don’t need any more motivation.”

The Wildcats know what’s at stake in their hoops-crazed state. It’s the same thing that’s at stake every year. It has been 18 years since Kentucky last won a championship and the natives are getting restless.

The reaction back home after Kentucky beat UMass?

“I heard people were running around campus in the nude, going crazy,” Kentucky guard Anthony Epps said. “I was shocked that they would do that. I’m looking forward to winning again to see what they’ll do.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Scouting Report: THE FINAL

THE STARTERS

KENTUCKY:

00 Tony Delk

32 Antoine Walker

3 Anthony Epps

20 Derek Anderson

25 Walter McCarty

SYRACUSE:

3 Lazarus Sims

30 Todd Burgan

35 Jason Cipolla

44 John Wallace

4 Otis Hill

* When Kentucky has the ball: If the Wildcats can score consistently against Syracuse’s zone, nothing else will matter. Nobody puts those 13-2 runs together faster, nobody can demoralize a decent defense more suddenly--and decisively. The three-point baskets get the hype, but the Wildcats’ interior passing and easy inside baskets fuel their barrages--and set up their press--and could bury Syracuse. In theory, Syracuse’s athletic 2-3 zone could take advantage of some Wildcat weaknesses: When Kentucky has lost, it has been when the perimeter players have gotten too shot-happy and the forwards have been uninvolved in the flow of the game. But you can’t zone against a three-on-one fastbreak, and if Wildcat big men Antoine Walker, Walter McCarty and Mark Pope find the range from medium-range and closer, it’s lights out.

* When Syracuse has the ball: Lanky Orangeman point guard Lazarus Sims played a near-perfect game against Mississippi State (nine assists, no turnovers), but can he sustain that against Kentucky’s bumping, reaching, ball-deflecting pressure defense? Probably not--and there’s nobody on the bench to help if he tires or fails (Sims has 274 assists, the next closest Syracuse player is forward John Wallace, with 89). With the Wildcats, it’s almost more of a mental strain: Opposing teams are so drained trying to beat the press, they forget about working for good shots. The Orangemen can’t do that, unless they want to nullify their two best players--post men Wallace and Otis Hill, who have combined to average almost 37 points a game in the tournament.

* The Big Question: How long can the Orangemen, who, at best, are seven deep, maintain the energy level necessary to hold on against Kentucky’s 10-headed monster? Five minutes? A half? Massachusetts, with the best player in the country, held on for 38 minutes before the juice ran out. Even if Wallace is spectacular and Syracuse hangs in for a half or more, one Wildcat explosion--or one Orangeman emotional sag--could turn this into a 20-point game in a blink.

* Coaching: Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim seemed awfully loose Sunday--does that mean he thinks the Orangemen are primed to pull off the ultimate overachievement, or can he already foresee that he has no chance against his old protege, Rick Pitino? Unlike the powerful Georgetown, Houston and Oklahoma teams that suffered major national-title game upsets, in Pitino’s system, even if two or three Wildcats are struggling, there are always versatile, active scorers and defenders ready to sub in at the next buzzer. And the next one after that. And the next one after that.

* Prediction: Kentucky 88, Syracuse 70.

TEAM COMPARISON

Record: Ky 33-2 Syr 29-8

Starters scoring: 60.6 60.7

Bench scoring: 31.3 15.8

Avg. Pts.: 91.9 76.5

Opp. Avg. Pts.: 69.4 68.4

Margin: 22.5 8.1

FG Pct.: .490 .465

Opp. FG Pct.: .412 .409

3-Pt. FG Pct.: .395 .359

3-Pt. FG-Game: 7.3 5.2