Monday, April 4, 2005 | 9:37 a.m.
Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at [email protected] or (702) 259-4088.
Illinois vs. North Carolina. No. 1 vs. No. 2. The best team against the best players. The irresistible force vs. the immovable object. Ali in one corner, Frazier in the other.
If you're a college basketball fan, you couldn't have drawn up a better NCAA championship game than tonight's colossal showdown between the Fighting Illini and the Tar Heels, the best two teams in the land.
Or could you?
Am I the only one who remembers this year's Orange Bowl (No. 1 USC vs. alleged No. 2 Oklahoma) and wishes that West Virginia were still around?
This is what happens when Cinderella gets bounced by the wicked stepsisters, especially when the Final Four gets under way with two 15-point blowouts that were about as interesting as a lecture on crop rotation.
The Mountaineers were a No. 6 seed and play in the Big East, which doesn't exactly grant them automatic entry into the Bracket Buster Hall of Fame. But it did mean that West Virginia wore its white uniforms just once in four tournament outings. And had it learned how to insert that little valve into the basketball and take a little air out of it after building a 20-point lead against Louisville in the regional final, perhaps it would still be playing.
Then UNLV associate athletic director Jerry Koloskie (West Virginia, Class of 1980), those who cheer for the little guy (or at least the not-so-big guy) and anybody living in a double-wide would have somebody to cheer for tonight.
It has been 20 years since a seed as low as No. 6 won the NCAA title, which almost makes you wonder if a 65-team bracket is necessary, not to mention the everybody-in, 96-team one I heard mentioned on one of the sportswriters-sitting-around-a-table-talking shows on Sunday.
Villanova was a No. 6 seed in 1985 when it knocked the considerable chip off Georgetown's shoulder, and the Wildcats had to make virtually every shot they attempted to shock Patrick Ewing's world.
On the eve of the Final Four, HBO ran a special commemorating Villanova's near-perfect upset. What are the chances that 20 years from now they'll be putting tonight's game between the Rockerfellers and the Kennedys to dramatic music while some guy with a strident voice does the voice over?
Yeah, I know Illinois is playing in its first championship game. And that North Carolina coach Roy Williams has never won the big one. But if the championship game were a science fiction movie, you could forget about Mothra and Gamera and Rodan and even the Smog Monster (which got knocked off by Bucknell in the first round). This is strictly Godzilla vs. King Kong.
Don't be surprised if when Greg Gumbel, Clark Kellogg and Seth Davis start breaking down tonight's matchup, the audio won't synch with their mouth movements.
No matter how many death rays some kid from Vermont hurls into the basket from another galaxy, regardless of the number of phenoms who declare for the NBA draft after fifth grade and discounting the numerous claims of analysts with slick (or no) hair that parity has reared its mediocre head and stared college basketball right in the eye, the truth of the matter is that March Madness rarely, if ever, carries into April.
Maybe there aren't as many big men on campus as there used to be. But there are still a lot of 6-foot-5 guys who can run and jump and dunk a basketball, the majority of which still wind up running and jumping and dunking at schools that have always specialized in those things.
In other words, it's all relative. Sometimes even literally. A famous father plays at Indiana, a famous son plays at North Carolina. This is just how it works in college basketball.
In that I plan to watch tonight, I hope Godzilla and King Kong will play a triple-overtime thriller that will be decided when a Parade All-American sinks a game-winning, buzzer-beating jump shot over a McDonalds All-American.
But what probably is going to happen is that Godzilla will go on a run midway through the second half and beat King Kong by 13 points. And I'll wind up wishing that the Smog Monster -- or at least that Pittsnogle guy from West Virginia -- was still around to challenge the winner.
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