Underdogs Left With Little to Chew On

Stop the Oklahoma State Cowboys and the Connecticut Huskies if you’ve heard this before ... and for Saint Joseph’s and Alabama in the fourth round of the NCAA tournament Saturday, that was precisely the problem.

Oklahoma State last reached the Final Four in 1995. In order to get there, the Cowboys had to win a regional final in East Rutherford. Same site as Saturday, same assignment for Oklahoma State, same result -- much to the dismay of Phil Martelli, Philadelphia and pretty much everyone with a soft spot for top-seeded 30-1 underdogs everywhere.

Connecticut reached its first and only Final Four in 1999. In order to get there, the Huskies had to win a regional final in Phoenix. Same site as Saturday, same assignment for Connecticut -- and Alabama, despite knowing all this, still showed up in time for tipoff, which is about when all hope of victory ended for the Crimson Tide.

A different tide is carrying this tournament to San Antonio, inevitable and unstoppable now.

Oh, Xavier and Georgia Tech today will try, but in Duke and Kansas, they are lining up against two programs that have time shares in the Elite Eight. Duke and Kansas have each been to the final eight 17 times. Xavier has never been this far before. Georgia Tech has been here four times, but not since 1990.

The longshots were fun while they lasted, but when the final shot of Jameer Nelson’s Saint Joseph’s career fell short in New Jersey, you could almost hear another old Cowboy named Don Meredith crooning off in the distance, “Turn out the lights, the party’s over.”

Manhattan was a momentary diversion. Pacific was a pause from the predictable. Nevada introduced an exciting new brand of gaming to the Reno casinos, Alabama Birmingham sent ol’ Kentucky home and Alabama not only took out the 2003 champion, Syracuse, but also the team once voted most likely to succeed the Orangemen, Stanford.

But in the end, it was all in vain.

The power conferences are packing for San Antonio.

The intriguing warmup acts have been thanked for their time and handed their parting gifts.

Billy Packer and Dick Vitale will get to say they told us so.

Yes, Saturday was a depressing day, on many counts.

The tournament will miss Martelli, whose verbal sparring with Packer became a metaphor for little guy jousting with the Establishment. Saint Joseph’s lost by a basket to Oklahoma State, 64-62, but not before Martelli and his team had made their point, which was: It is possible to play influential, successful basketball without being stamped with the ACC or Big East or Big 12 seal of approval -- and captivate a country without bowing at the knee of CBS.

Oklahoma State, of course, was Packer’s pick for the No. 1 seeding that went instead to Saint Joseph’s. How could the Hawks, armed with only a dynamic backcourt and Atlantic 10 credentials, stand up against the superior inside heft and pedigree of Oklahoma State, whose standout guard, John Lucas III, is the son of former ACC star John Lucas?

Well, man does not live in March on rebounding alone. As expected, the Cowboys outrebounded the Hawks by a good margin, 41-22. Less anticipated, Saint Joseph’s lifeline three-point shooting was off-mark, the Hawks hitting barely 30% of their long-range attempts. But defense and desire went a long way for Saint Joseph’s. The Hawks scored 16 points off turnovers in the first half and were up by six at the break. And they led in the final 30 seconds, 62-61, after Pat Carroll sank a top-of-the-key three-pointer.

That sent Oklahoma State scrambling through its final possession, with Cowboy forward Joey Graham nearly losing the ball to a diving lunge by Carroll, barely flipping the ball to Lucas, who lined up the winning three-pointer with 6.9 seconds on the clock.

That set up the kind of finish Martelli would have agreed to had it been on the table in November: down by two at the end of the regional final, the ball in Nelson’s hands near the foul line.

The best player on the tournament’s best story took his best shot. They can’t always be true. Nelson’s jumper was short, grazing the front of the rim, and in the blink of an eye, Saint Joseph’s run was done.

The ensuing close-up of Lucas running into the arms of his father for an emotional post-victory embrace is one CBS and ESPN will air from here to San Antonio. It was a classic scene, climaxing a classic game.

The tournament needed it too, if only to serve as a temporary distraction from the mounting obvious: Connecticut ought to be cutting down the nets on April 5.

The Huskies received only two points from center Emeka Okafor, who played only 19 minutes after a first-half collision left him with a painfully pinched nerve in his right shoulder. They still won with ease, rolling over the Crimson Tide, 87-71.

Connecticut Coach Jim Calhoun called the performance “probably as good a basketball as we could possibly play.”

Alabama Coach Mark Gottfried said he had become a UConn believer. The exact point when this occurred is difficult to discern. It might have been on Ben Gordon’s 36th point. Or maybe Rashad Anderson’s 28th. Or, perhaps, Taliek Brown’s 10th assist during a 39-minute effort that yielded only a single turnover.

For the remaining contenders, the good news is that Okafor’s personal injury list continues to grow. First an aching back, now a shoulder stinger.

The discouraging news for them is that Okafor doesn’t have to play again for a week. For what it’s worth to Duke or Xavier, Okafor will be waiting for one of them in San Antonio, rested and ready to prove how well time can heal.

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Will Tradition Win Again?

Saturday’s regional finals were won by teams with coaches with glossy NCAA resumes, Oklahoma State’s Eddie Sutton and Connecticut’s Jim Calhoun. In today’s regional finals, Duke and Kansas are expected to add to their impressive credentials:

SATURDAY’S COACHING MATCHUPS

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