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College game is still the best
Published:
Thursday, March 25, 2004
Dan McGrath
Chicago Tribune (KRT) Column
CHICAGO - March 6, Marquette beat Louisville, 81-80, in a basketball game that had Milwaukee's Bradley Center throbbing with energy and excitement.
Sort of like a Bulls-Hawks showdown in late December.
Dameon Mason, a Marquette freshman, tied the game on a short jumper with one second remaining. He was fouled on the play and added a pressure-cooker free throw to win it for the Golden Eagles. Jubilant Marquette students stormed the court and carried Mason off on their shoulders.
His megawatt smile as he rode the wave was one of the enduring images of the season.
Other than enhancing their status as an NCAA tournament "bubble team," the victory didn't mean much for the Golden Eagles. They promptly lost to Texas Christian in the first round of the Conference USA tournament and were relegated to the NIT while six C-USA teams headed for the NCAA tournament.
But young Mr. Mason always will have Louisville.
"This is why I came to Marquette - to play in games like this," he said afterwards. "And to win it with a last-second shot ... that's something I'll never forget."
He did not stop smiling as he spoke, and I found myself wondering how many moments of similar euphoria Eddy Curry has known or will know on a basketball court. "Man, that night I got 23 before a half-empty building in Atlanta ..." it wouldn't seem to have the same cachet.
Maybe that's just me. Curry seems happy enough in his north suburban digs with his toys, his ride and his exotic pets. But something tells me he missed out on a valuable life experience by bypassing college for the NBA.
He missed out on a lot of fun.
That's because college basketball is fun, pure and simple. Players bring the best they have every night, and so what if they can't match their NBA counterparts' skill level. They compensate with effort, energy and enthusiasm ... you know, like you saw in that Bulls-Pacers game Monday night.
I saw dozens of college games this year, and not once did I suspect a team was mailing it in or going through the motions. In the postseason (NCAA or NIT) the effort becomes almost maniacal.
When was the last time you came away from an NBA game struck by the maniacal effort? Granted, maniacal effort is impossible to sustain over 82 games, which sets the stage for six weeks of playoffs. But how would you feel if you had plunked down $60 to watch the Bulls and Pacers Monday night? Or the Bulls most nights since 1998? Aren't you entitled to more?
The college game has its flaws, to be sure. It's often overcoached, and some of the slicksters in suits aren't ideal symbols of what's good about sports. The officiating is woefully inconsistent. The talent level has eroded since seniors and even juniors went the way of the center jump, and you find yourself wondering if the exodus to "the league" would be so pronounced if a trickle of those billions CBS pays to televise the tournament found its way to the players.
But it's still a great show, especially this time of year
Better than the NBA? Except for the size of the floor and the height of the baskets, the games are so dissimilar it's really senseless to compare them. Think of alternating meat and fish in your diet. You can partake of both, and the enjoyment doesn't have to be mutually exclusive.
I just find myself preferring fish these days. Maybe I always have.
When I was in college, back in the Bronze Age, Marquette had an All-American point guard named Dean Meminger who was the best I've ever seen at controlling a game. Save for his third-guard role on the Knicks' 1973 title team, his NBA career was undistinguished, but that doesn't detract from what "Dean the Dream" accomplished in college.
Jim Spanarkel, Duke '80, was another one - a terrific college player, maybe a step too slow or an inch too short to succeed in the NBA.
Marquette's Travis Diener and UIC's Cedrick Banks were two of the best I saw this season. I don't know if either ever will draw an NBA paycheck, but they sure have been fun to watch in college.
Why the obsession with "the next level?" Is it strictly financial? DePaul's Andre Brown likes to think of himself as the coolest guy in the building, but watch him try to suppress a smile after slamming home a lob pass from Sammy Mejia. You think he regrets putting in four years at DePaul?
So I'm at an NIT game in Milwaukee last week, and in walks Zach Randolph, a Portland Trail Blazer who left for the NBA after one season at Michigan State. Marquette coach Tom Crean, a former Michigan State assistant, helped recruit Randolph for the Spartans and they remain friends. The Blazers were in town to play the Milwaukee Bucks the next night.
Randolph's party included fellow Blazer Darius Miles, who bypassed college altogether and was the third pick of the 2000 NBA draft out of East St. Louis High School. Despite that status, Miles is with his third team in four years, and a scout from one of those teams told me why last year.
"For a great athlete, he's the worst basketball player I've ever seen," the scout said. "He has no idea how to play the game. He thinks it's all running and jumping and dunking."
Randolph, meanwhile, is enjoying a breakout season, and the Blazers have affirmed their commitment to him by trading that barrel of laughs Rasheed Wallace. There is huge money in Randolph's future if he can handle the responsibility, and he already is dressing the part. Around his neck he wore a huge jewel-encrusted "R" pendant that would have looked at home atop the White House Christmas tree.
"Thirty grand easy," said one observer, nearly blinded by the light from Randolph's bling-bling. "Plus another 20 for the watch and maybe 10 for the ring he was wearing."
Yep, Randolph has made it in a world where wealth too often is mistaken for achievement. Maybe I'm an old fogey, and a cranky old one at that, but I found Dameon Mason's smile more illuminating.
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