Hewitt Gives Credit Where It’s Due

If Georgia Tech wins the NCAA title, Paul Hewitt would become the fourth African American coach to win, following John Thompson, Nolan Richardson and Tubby Smith.

“I don’t think I’m at the level of a Coach Thompson, those guys, I don’t,” Hewitt said. “But I will say this: I’m well aware that if it wasn’t for a John Thompson, John Chaney, George Raveling, Nolan Richardson, I wouldn’t have an opportunity.

“You look around the South now, you have an African American black head coach at Florida State, Georgia, Clemson, Georgia Tech. I mean, 15 years ago, that was unheard of.

“If it wasn’t for Coach Thompson, what he did, especially winning the championship in ‘84, I don’t have my job.”

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Connecticut players were not about to let Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s Saturday night tirade at the officials -- “You cheated us,” he reportedly yelled at referee Ted Hillary late in the Huskies’ epic 79-78 comeback victory -- take away from their triumph.

“It doesn’t matter to us what he says,” Taliek Brown said on Sunday. “We got the game. We won it and we’re in the championship. It [takes] none of our accomplishments away. We’re real proud of what we did.”

Said freshman forward Josh Boone: “If there was an unfortunate thing that happened, then it happened, you can’t really look back on it because you can’t replay the game. You just have to go on with life.”

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Brown said that defeating Georgia Tech tonight would give his detractors their comeuppance.

“To win the national championship would shut everybody up,” said Brown, who struggled mightily in the Huskies’ 79-78 national semifinal victory over Duke, committing seven turnovers and missing six of eight shots from the field. “And it would be good for me. There’s been a lot of rock-bottom moments.

“I knew one day it would turn around and right now is my opportunity.”

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The last time Georgia Tech played in a Final Four, in 1990, the Yellow Jackets were led by Kenny Anderson, Brian Oliver and Dennis Scott, a high-scoring trio known as “Lethal Weapon 3.”

But while that Ramblin’ Wreck fell short, losing to eventual champion Nevada Las Vegas, 90-81, in a semifinal, this year’s team is playing in its first national title game.

Another difference: Georgia Tech has no flashy nickname.

“We’re just a team,” said junior forward Anthony McHenry. “We’ve been the underdogs all year. We don’t have a main scorer so we’re just a team, that’s all we are. A family.”

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In the understatement of the day, Georgia Tech guard Will Bynum said he had no second thoughts of transferring from Arizona, where he played a season-and-a-half. That doesn’t mean it was easy to leave the Wildcats.

“The decision was a difficult one,” Bynum said. “I didn’t want to leave Arizona. I loved it. I trusted the coach [Lute Olson].”

At the time, it was reported that he was frustrated with a lack of playing time and was about to move on to Oklahoma State.

“At the time my mom was sick,” Bynum said Sunday, “and I had to go where she was.”

Bynum’s mother Rose, a diabetic, still resides in Chicago, slightly closer to Atlanta than Tucson.

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There is a player on the Connecticut team who will not play who started 12 games for Georgia Tech last season. Ed Nelson transferred to Connecticut partly to be closer to family in the Boston area, and is redshirting until he becomes eligible next season.

“This is not the first time seeing Ed on the other team. We saw him when we played in the NIT,” Georgia Tech’s Anthony McHenry said, adding that Nelson had visited the players at their hotel in San Antonio.

“We understand his decision and we’re cool with Ed. He’s still my friend.”

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Marcus Williams, a Connecticut freshman from Crenshaw High who attended Oak Hill Academy in Virginia last year, was with the team for 17 games this season but is being withheld from basketball-related activities because of academic problems, according to the school.

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This is the fourth time, and the second consecutive year, since the tournament was expanded to 64 teams in 1985, that the national championship game will be between teams seeded second (UConn) and third (Georgia Tech) in their respective regions.

The other No. 2 versus No. 3 title games: Kansas and Syracuse in 2003; Kentucky and Utah in 1998; and Duke and Kansas in 1991.