But for the Breaks It Could Be Shattering

You don’t think a basketball season is a fragile thing?

If not for a play, or a gut-check moment, or a momentum swing, half the schools in this year’s Sweet 16 might not have even made the NCAA tournament.

Consider:

* Temple: The Owls were 18-12 entering the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament and probably needed to reach the final to make their 12th consecutive NCAA appearance.

After beating Dayton in the Atlantic 10’s opening round, Temple trailed George Washington by two points in the final seconds when Lynn Greer, standing beyond the three-point arc, leaned into a defender and coaxed a foul and three free throws. George Washington Coach Tom Penders was so irate at the call he had to be physically restrained by conference Commissioner Linda Bruno.

Greer made all three shots, Temple won, 77-76, defeated Massachusetts in the conference championship and, two wins later, faces Penn State Friday night in a South Regional semifinal.

* Penn State: The Nittany Lions were 17-10 entering the Big Ten Conference tournament, coming off a 7-9 conference season that included an ugly loss at Northwestern.

Conventional wisdom held the Nittany Lions had to defeat Michigan in the first round of the Big Ten tournament to clinch an NCAA bid.

Penn State won, 82-80, when Gyasi Cline-Heard caught a teammate’s airball and scored the game-winner in the waning seconds. Only that play, perhaps, enabled Penn State to rubber-stamp its NCAA entry with a second-round win over Michigan State.

* Gonzaga. Forget that the Bulldogs are one of only three teams to make the Sweet 16 the last three seasons, and that the others are Duke and Michigan State.

Had Gonzaga not defeated Santa Clara, 80-77, in the West Coast Conference championship game, America’s Sweetheart would not have made the NCAA tournament. Here’s the thing about that WCC title game: Gonzaga was losing, 26-16, in the first half and the score was tied, 48-48, in the second half.

* Maryland. Sure, the Terrapins look good now, but this was the University of Blown Gasket on Jan. 27 after Maryland blew a 10-point lead against Duke at home and lost in overtime. After the game, analyst Dick Vitale brushed by Coach Gary Williams and said, “See you in the NIT.”

Bad vibes?

“I know how I felt walking out of the gym that night,” Williams said Wednesday. “That game wouldn’t go away.”

Maryland lost four of its next five, bottoming out with a deplorable Feb. 14 home loss to Florida State. The defeat dropped Maryland to 15-9 overall and 6-6 in Atlantic Coast Conference play.

“When we lost to Florida State, we knew we were going to have to turn our season around or we weren’t going to the NCAA tournament,” guard Juan Dixon said.

Maryland has lost only once since, by two points to Duke, in the ACC tournament.

* Georgetown. The Hoyas were leaking oil as late as Feb. 17. They had recently been pulverized at Providence, 103-79, and followed up with a home loss to Villanova, dropping the Hoyas to 6-5 in the Big East. A subsequent road defeat at lowly Rutgers might have spelled the death of Georgetown’s tournament run.

It almost happened.

Rutgers guard Todd Billet had a chance to tie the score with a three-point basket but, before he could shoot, Anthony Perry poked the ball loose and Georgetown won, 76-63.

Georgetown was still on shaky NCAA ground until an important March 4 win at Notre Dame.

* Cincinnati: How good were the Bearcats this season?

“There were moments I thought we wouldn’t win another game,” Coach Bob Huggins said.

One moment came Jan. 24, when Cincinnati was booed off the floor in the wake of a 63-54 loss to Louisville, ending the Bearcats’ 34-game winning streak at home.

“Coach said we deserved it,” Bearcat guard Kenny Satterfield said of the boos. “After that game, we sat down, as a team, looked at each other and said we have to give our all as a team. That’s what we’ve been doing ever since.”

Cincinnati responded three days later with a season-saving, 78-72 overtime win at No. 9 Wake Forest.

Cincinnati was 12-6 after the Louisville loss and is 13-3 since, including two lopsided wins over Brigham Young and Kent State to reach the Sweet 16.

* USC: It’s the Sweet 16 now, but do you recall Sour 17? We speak of Feb. 17, the dreadful day the Trojans suffered a 44-point home loss to Arizona. USC then followed with a lethargic, 15-point loss at Oregon State.

Coach Henry Bibby was apoplectic. He wouldn’t allow players to talk to the media, reportedly after forward Brian Scalabrine said, “We may be afraid of success.”

The Oregon State loss dropped USC to 17-8.

Two days later, USC trailed Oregon, 72-60, with 5:22 left before rallying to win in overtime, almost willed to victory by David Bluthenthal’s 29-point performance.

USC might not have recovered from a loss in Eugene. Instead, USC returned home, played No. 1 Stanford to a two-point loss at home and has since won five consecutive games.

* UCLA. Gee, it’s tough to pick only one off-the-mat moment. What if Steve Lavin hadn’t gone to the full-court press after trailing North Carolina by 19 at the half in December? UCLA lost the game but found an identity.

What if, in the wake of the Rick Pitino-Pete Dalis phone call fiasco, UCLA had not held on to beat USC by five? If these were Lavin’s darkest hours, as has been suggested, would defeat have pushed the program off the ledge?

What if, after a 29-point loss to California on Feb. 1, which dropped the Bruins to 12-6, Lavin had not inserted Billy Knight into the lineup?

Knight scored 22 points two days later in UCLA’s upset of No. 1 Stanford, and the Bruins were back on NCAA tournament course.

ANOTHER COACH GOES, ANOTHER COACH RANTS

Congratulations to the following coaches for leading their teams into the NCAA tournament:

Jerry Green of Tennessee and Brad Soderberg of Wisconsin.

Now, pick up your last checks and hit the turnpike.

Remember when leading your squad to the NCAA tournament meant something?

These days, it’s about as comforting as a football coach taking his team to a bowl game, isn’t it, John Cooper?

Soderberg was told this week he would not be retained as Wisconsin’s coach and, on Tuesday, Green “resigned” at Tennessee.

Last week, Ohio Coach Larry Hunter was canned after a winning season.

The carnage continues in the win-or-else world of college basketball, and Georgetown Coach Craig Esherick--whose job is not in jeopardy despite nearly losing a game at Rutgers this season, is fed up.

Green’s record at Tennessee was 89-30.

“Maybe he was penalized because he didn’t go undefeated,” Esherick snidely said of Green’s forced departure. “It’s amazing to me that the expectations can be that high. I’m certainly glad I have a finance and law degree, I can tell you that. I feel relatively secure with myself, but not secure in my profession, because of what has happened to guys like Jerry Green, the Ohio coach and the Wisconsin coach.”

Wisconsin will no doubt make a hard run after Utah Coach Rick Majerus, a Wisconsin native, but Esherick thinks the school is reaching if it thinks it can expand its scope beyond the defense-first legacy Dick Bennett developed and passed on to Soderberg, his interim successor.

“I think what happened to the guy at Wisconsin is ridiculous,” Esherick said. “How many people in this country grow up wanting to go to Wisconsin? There are some universities in this country that have a national following. I don’t think Wisconsin is one of them. I thought he did a great job.”

LOOSE ENDS

Rick Pitino’s hiring at Louisville suddenly makes Conference USA interesting again after a so-so season in which the league placed only two schools in the NCAA tournament--Cincinnati and Charlotte.

Conference USA now has three heavyweight coaches in Pitino, Memphis’ John Calipari and Cincinnati’s Bob Huggins.

“I think it’s great for the league,” Huggins said of Pitino’s hiring. “He’ll help give our league national exposure. I think it will help all of us.”

Huggins had to face the “graduation” question again Wednesday. According to one NCAA report quoted to him at Wednesday’s West Regional news conference at the Arrowhead Pond, Cincinnati has a graduation rate of 8%. This would be in stark contrast to tonight’s regional semifinal opponent, Stanford, which boasts a 100% rate under Coach Mike Montgomery.

Huggins vehemently denied the 8% figure.

“That’s not true,” Huggins said. “The figures are skewed. I have guys that finish school after playing in Europe for eight or nine years where they make $100,000. I can’t get them a job making that much straight out of college. I will not be self-serving, making them finish school right away to make me look good.”

Penn State football Coach Joe Paterno was in his fifth season as an assistant coach under Rip Engle in 1954, the last time the Nittany Lions won two NCAA tournament games. Penn State lost to La Salle in a national semifinal game, then defeated USC in the consolation game. Two wins in New Orleans last week have put Penn State basketball back in the limelight. The Nittany Lions play Temple Friday in Atlanta in a South Regional semifinal. “As someone who was around when Penn State reached the Final Four, I consider this weekend’s performance in New Orleans as one of the memorable highlights for our athletic program in my 51 years here,” Paterno said in statement.