Friday, March 19, 1999
Maybe St. John's can duke it out
BY PAUL DAUGHERTY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Five days after St. John's sent Bob Knight trout fishing, with a 25-point win in the second round that was Indiana's worst defeat ever in the NCAA Tournament, the Red Storm handled second-seeded Maryland easily, 76-62.
The Johnnies aren't Duke. Nobody is Duke. I'm beginning to think that during the week, the Blue Devils are the Lakers. As a No.3 seed, St.John's isn't exactly a sleeper. But in our neverending quest to find a team to at least give Duke a game, the Johnnies — who took the Blue Devils to overtime this year — look as good as anyone.
At least they have in this tournament. Forward Ron Artest had suggested Maryland wasn't much when Maryland wasn't running. OK, he didn't suggest it. He said, “I've never seen them play a solid halfcourt game.”
(How seriously we take Artest is open to debate. After eating some bad dinner Tuesday night, Artest jumped up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and smacked his right foot on the leg of his roommate's bed. He limped through practice Wednesday. I hate it when that happens.)
Artest was half right. Maryland didn't play any game Thursday night. St. John's slapped a 2-3 zone on Maryland midway through the first half. The Terrapins responded the way lots of college teams respond to zones: like they'd never seen one.
Terps crawl back in shell
When we say Maryland could do nothing against the zone, we're not exaggerating. Zoned out, Maryland went the last 8:26 of the first half without scoring.
The Terps added the first 2:02 of the second half, for a scoreless total of 10 minutes and 26 seconds. At that pace, the Terps will be joining the NBA any day.
Meanwhile, St. John's was scoring 23 and leading 41-19, and that was that.
Maryland's best player, junior off guard Steve Francis, moved like he was on roller skates. Francis was the quickest player on the floor. Problem was, he seemed to have no idea where he was going.
The same could be said for his mates, and even for the Red Storm. The difference was, while St. John's was making a living near the basket (11 first-half layups) but missing from the outside, Maryland was missing from everywhere.
The Terps shot 30 percent from the field in the first 20 minutes, St. John's 42 percent. From beyond 15 feet, it was like watching two teams toss softballs at milk cans.
This is new-age hoops
This is '90s basketball. Basketball at warp speed, without gravity. Also, without box-outs and decent shooting. You can't have everything.
Sloppy as it might have been, at least it was a marquee matchup, a No.2 seed against a No.3. It was, in fact, the the only Sweet 16 game involving two top-10 teams, which begs this conclusion:
Upsets are great. They'd be even better if, after the underdogs won, they went home.
It would have been good, for example, if Southwest Missouri State had called it a year after beating Tennessee last week. Is anybody else thinking Oklahoma, a 13 seed, would be loved forever if it made the truly gracious gesture of packing up now?
Come on back, Arizona. All is forgiven.
Quickly: Gonzaga? Or North Carolina or Stanford? Take away top-seeded Connecticut, and the West region is pretty much the preseason NIT.
Woe is the East, where if Duke sending Southwest Missouri back to the Stone Age doesn't wow you, just wait for No.6 Temple and No.10 Purdue.
Six teams seeded 10th or worse were still alive Thursday afternoon. The South was the only region that got it right, the only section where just about nobody in the office ran his pool through the shredder.
“We can play both 94 and 50 feet,” Terrell Stokes, Maryland's point guard, had said in defense of his team's halfcourt offense. “We have players that can fly.”
This is good, because it is a long walk between here and College Park, Md.
Enquirer columnist Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments at 768-8454.
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