The NCAA Tournament Is Famous For Them: Cinderella Stories

The sad part of the NCAA tournament is how the good stories have to leave just when you’re getting used to them.

It always works that way in life. On the cross-country airplane trips, you get stuck between a snoring man and a wailing baby. When you take the quick flight to San Francisco, you’re seated next to a fascinating old man who has traveled all over the world, but before he can tell you half of his tales and share his knowledge, it’s already time to touch down.

So it goes with Miami of Ohio. Now that we’ve finally learned how to spell and pronounce Wally Szczerbiak’s last name, discovered that he actually has teammates, and cozied up to the coach with the heart defibrillator in his chest, it’s time to say “B’bye.”

If the 10th-seeded RedHawks don’t lose to third-seeded Kentucky in the semifinals of the Midwest Regional on Friday, the probable matchup against top-seeded Michigan State will do them in.

For all the talk about how much parity has come to college basketball, the Final Four is the domain of the elite more than ever before. Teams seeded fifth or lower reached the Final Four 11 times in the first 10 years after the seeding process was introduced for the 1979 tournament. Since then, only two Final Four teams have been seeded below No. 4--No. 6 Michigan in 1992 and No. 5 Mississippi State in 1996.

That’s fine by Miami. Who would have expected it to last this far? Who would have predicted it would outlast the other Miami, from Florida?

After the RedHawks beat seventh-seeded Washington and second-seeded Utah in New Orleans over the weekend, people all over the country are kicking themselves for not taking Miami in their NCAA office pool. Or for not picking Szczerbiak, who has scored 67 points so far, in those pools where you draft players and try to accumulate the most points. (Personally, I’m more upset that I didn’t take “Less than three weeks” in the When Will Dennis Rodman Whack Out Pool.)

The easiest prediction of the month is that members of all four teams in the Midwest Regional will sit on a dais in St. Louis today and say how happy they are to be there. It happens every place, every year.

There’s a genuine quality about the RedHawks, though, as forthright as Szczerbiak’s toothpaste ad-worthy smile.

You don’t think any coach in America was more appreciative than Miami’s Charlie Coles after his second-round victory over Utah on Sunday?

“I was a week out of the hospital this very day last year,” he said.

Coles suffered a cardiac arrest during the Mid-American Conference tournament quarterfinals Feb. 28, 1998. Quick work by doctors at the arena probably saved his life. When he came to in the hospital hours later, with a tube stuck in his throat, he grabbed a pen and paper and scribbled, “We won?”

Yes, the RedHawks won the game.

As soon as he was given medical clearance, there was no question that he would return to the sidelines for the 1998-99 season. This is a dream job for the Ohio native, who played at Miami from 1962 through ’65 and took over as head coach there in 1996. Now he is the first coach in school history to win two games in the same NCAA tournament.

“I feel blessed,” Coles told reporters in Oxford this week. “But I would have felt blessed regardless, because I’m getting to spend time with kids I truly love.”

Reminders of the fragility of the body’s most important muscle abound. A man in the lobby of Miami’s hotel in New Orleans suffered a heart attack. Friday, Coles faces a Kentucky team that just lost a top high school recruit to heart failure.

So Coles can be excused if he celebrates the good times. He ran onto the court after Miami beat Washington in the opening game, looking like a poor man’s Jim Valvano. When Kansas Coach Roy Williams teased him about it when they crossed paths at practice sessions the next day, Coles recited the old story about the coach who told a running back who celebrated a trip to the end zone too much to act as if he’s been there before.

“I told Roy, ‘I don’t get there very much,’ ” Coles said.

For a guy who scores a lot, Szczerbiak still punctuates key baskets with a little thrust of the fist. Still, he looks like the type of guy who would help old ladies take their groceries out to their cars. And even after he took 33 of his team’s 55 shots in the first game, he was quick to credit the help of his teammates for setting screens and getting him the ball. None of them complained about the disproportionate number of shots, either.

“We don’t care who scores,” guard Damon Frierson said. “As long as we win.”

“We’re a team,” Coles said. “Even though sometimes it doesn’t look like that.”

Not at first glance.

Their point guard didn’t score his first points of this tournament until five minutes remained in the second game. But Rob Mestas had 10 assists and only two turnovers in those two games.

The bench didn’t score at all against Washington. But one of the players who caught the eye of Utah Coach Rick Majerus came off the bench in that game. It was Mike Ensminger, whom Majerus referred to as “the bald-headed guy who sets all those screens.”

The RedHawks play a smart, clean style of ball. Low number of turnovers, low number of fouls, low in saturated fat.

They’re not too tall, but their big guys are strong. Problem is, they just aren’t as deep as Kentucky. If they should lose, as happy as they were to have lasted this long, I can say it felt just as good to have them around.

J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: j.a.adande@latimes.com.