Height Makes Might on the Court

The only thing people want to talk about in college basketball these days is speed. An undersized-but-quick Arizona team wins the national championship in the spring and every college preview magazine in the fall writes that speed is in, size is out.

Not so fast. Size, like blue jeans, will never go out of style.

It was evident again at the Wooden Classic Saturday.

The Georgia Bulldogs can run all over the court. It wasn’t enough to get the job done when they ran into Stanford’s imposing front line. The suspension of Jelani McCoy turned UCLA into a speed-reliant team. A lot of good that did them in a 41-point loss to big ol’ North Carolina last week.

New Mexico’s pretty quick too, and you know what all of that combined speed produced in the Bruins-Lobos game? Fifty-two turnovers and a winning score in the 60s.

Who led UCLA to victory? The 6-8 1/2 J.R. Henderson, who happened to be the tallest man in either starting lineup.

Stanford presented a strong argument for height in the first half of its 76-74 victory over Georgia. With a front line of 7-1 center Tim Young, 6-8 power forward Mark Madsen and 6-7 small forward Peter Sauer, the Cardinal didn’t mess around and worked the ball inside from the start.

Madsen had 16 points in the first half and Sauer added 12. Stanford’s strong inside play forced Georgia to pack in its defense. Against the tight zone, the Cardinal passed the ball around the perimeter--and no defender in the world is fast enough to keep up with a passed ball. So the Cardinal wound up with some good looks at three-pointers and hit five of 11.

Height means second shots--quality second shots. Don’t be fooled by the box score that shows Georgia had 22 offensive rebounds to Stanford’s 13. The Bulldogs were taking mostly outside shots (including 23 three-pointers) and were grabbing the long rebounds that come off missed jumpers. When big guys get rebounds they get the ball inside, in good position to go right back up with a layup or draw a foul and get to the free-throw line.

But if there’s one attribute that transcends speed and size, it’s intelligence. And Stanford showed little of it in the second half.

When Georgia went to a full-court press, the Cardinal panicked and threw bad passes. When the Bulldogs changed defenses and made a concerted effort to deny Madsen, Stanford didn’t have enough patience to wait and work the ball inside to him.

Only three of Madsen’s 14 shots came in the second half. One time when he did get the ball, he had to get rid of it because Young wouldn’t leave the area and take his defender with him.

Not too many brain cells in use by the “smart” school.

Fortunately for the Cardinal, Madsen took matters into his own hands in the final 12 seconds. He tipped in a miss by Sauer for the go-ahead basket. He rebounded a missed shot by Georgia and drew a foul. After making the second free throw with 1.5 seconds remaining, he stole Georgia’s long inbounds pass to end the game.

Everyone talks about McCoy coming back for the Pacific-10 opener against Arizona, but his presence really will be more necessary against Stanford.

Don’t think Bruin Coach Steve Lavin isn’t worried about the mini-Bruins in the interim. He had a little joke about the team’s trip to Disneyland on Friday.

“J.R. was the only one who could go on all the rides,” Lavin said. “Everyone else was too small. We decided to go on ‘It’s a Small World’ just so everyone could go on a ride together.”

The team that rides together, uh, does defensive slides together. It was just UCLA’s luck that New Mexico’s tallest starter was 6-7 Kenny Thomas. The Bruins ganged up on Thomas and he couldn’t do anything, managing just eight points on nine shots.

And on defense Thomas couldn’t stop Henderson, who scored 24 points.

A lot of good this speed did against him.

There’s a saying that size never gets small but speed gets tired.

“You can teach speed to get in good shape, though,” Stanford Coach Mike Montgomery countered.

But as the old NBA adage goes, you can’t teach height. That saying hasn’t been heard much in the speed-obsessed college ranks lately.

People trace this changing of the gears back to UCLA’s championship in 1995. What, Arkansas didn’t use a fast pace to win the championship in 1994 and finish second the next year? But Arkansas did it with big guys like Tank Robinson and Dwight Stewart in addition to pressure defense.

Part of the problem is the Final Four now overshadows everything in college hoops. The best team throughout the regular season was Kansas, which featured that big front court of Scot Pollard and Raef LaFrentz. One loss to Arizona in one game of the NCAA tournament and it’s like the Jayhawk Way was null and void. Please.

I love the up-tempo game and fast guards are my favorite players to watch. But if I’m trying to get to the Final Four, I’ll take a couple of Ford Expedition-sized guys to go with them and let the other teams run around trying to do something about it.