A Final Four Cheat Sheet
By KAREN CROUSE, MARC TRACY, ZACH SCHONBRUN and DAVID WALDSTEIN MARCH 28, 2016
Four teams plus four paths equals one Final Four. But what got Oklahoma, Villanova, Syracuse and North Carolina their tickets to Houston? Times reporters who spent the past week with them pull back the curtain to show what makes them tick.
Oklahoma’s players, including guard Buddy Hield, right, celebrated with the N.C.A.A. West Regional trophy on Saturday. Credit Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press
OKLAHOMA SOONERS
This Is What Buddy Hield Came Back For
ANAHEIM, Calif. — At the Honda Center, Buddy Hield had just been named the West Regional’s most outstanding player. But on the makeshift stage at center court, the Oklahoma Sooners were pressing another senior, Isaiah Cousins, to take his star turn. Led by Hield, the Sooners clapped in rhythm until Cousins shyly stepped forward and began gyrating to his teammates’ beat.
The team’s core four of Hield, Cousins, Ryan Spangler and Jordan Woodard had made their 104th consecutive start Saturday, in the Sooners’ victory over Oregon. They have been together longer than many boy bands; long enough, anyway, for the other three to develop an affinity for the Bahamas-born Hield’s beloved reggae music.
“At first they were always saying, ‘Turn that mess off,’” Hield said. “But now when I’m playing it all the time, they’re like, ‘What’s that one song?’ Isaiah loves it. The whole team is involved in it. I’m just happy I was able to start a trend there, show some island love to them.”
For Hield, a 37-point performance against the Ducks was his way of saying, “I told you so,” to all the people who questioned his decision to return for his senior year at Oklahoma. Most people, he said, thought he was making a mistake by not declaring for last year’s N.B.A. draft. In front of a small group of reporters the day before the Oregon game, Hield said: “Everybody thought, He’s not going to get better if he stays in school. So I said, ‘You mean if I don’t go to the N.B.A., I can’t get better?’”
He added: “I’m kind of stubborn. If you tell me I can’t get better, I try to prove you wrong. Most people said I couldn’t get better. Now those people are like, ‘O.K., this guy’s for real now.’ I’m just happy I’m succeeding now and in a position to take my team to the Final Four because that was my ultimate goal when I was a kid.”
How fitting. A week that began with every eligible Kentucky men’s basketball player, including the walk-ons, declaring for the draft ended with four committed, connected and caring seniors leading a cohesive Sooners squad to the Final Four in Houston. And they did it with Kobe Bryant, who went straight from high school to the N.B.A., cheering them on for good measure.
“I feel like Kobe inspired the ‘new Kobe’ to turn it up,” the Sooners freshman center Jamuni McNeace said, referring to Hield.
“That’s why he started going off and hitting all these shots,” McNeace added. “Hopefully Kobe comes to the Final Four.”
That is not likely to happen because the Lakers have a home game Sunday. But what if Hield were to go to the post-Bryant Lakers as a 2016 lottery pick? Talk about a storybook beginning.
— Karen Crouse
Villanova’s Ryan Arcidiacono worked around two Kansas defenders during the Wildcats’ regional final victory. Credit Aaron Doster/USA Today Sports, via Reuters
VILLANOVA WILDCATS
Seeking to Grind Out Two More
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Before the national anthem was played ahead of the South Regional final Saturday night, the Villanova senior Ryan Arcidiacono muttered to several teammates lined up within earshot, “Let’s do what we do.”
But then Villanova did something it does not often do: The Wildcats went big, with the lanky redshirt freshman Mikal Bridges playing more minutes than usual and 6-foot-11 Daniel Ochefu and the 6-8 Darryl Reynolds playing at the same time for a stretch.
But regardless of how the Wildcats line up, this is a Villanova team sure of its identity. The players fancy themselves as a hardscrabble group of East Coast grinders; they prize defense above offense; and they have the survive-and-advance mentality that allowed them to advance to the Final Four as a No. 2 seed.
It all starts with Arcidiacono — Arch, they call him — the senior point guard who is Villanova’s career leader in games played and something of an on-court extension of Jay Wright, the team’s coach since 2001.
In many ways, Wright’s Villanova gives off the vibe of an old-school Big East team. If you learned that next Monday night the Wildcats would be at Madison Square Garden playing a Georgetown team coached by the original John Thompson or a St. John’s team led by sweet-shooting Chris Mullin, it would seem appropriate.
Arcidiacono has the requisite chip on his shoulder, but he also has huge hands and a deadly shot. Ochefu was one of the country’s top recruits. Josh Hart and Kris Jenkins are talented wing players. Against a fellow No. 2 seed, Oklahoma, in Houston on Saturday, Villanova will be the designated visitor, with the smaller locker room and the nonwhite jerseys, by virtue of the committee’s having slotted them one spot behind the Sooners in the selection process. That, too, will seem appropriate.
— Marc Tracy
North Carolina’s Theo Pinson joked around with Coach Roy Williams after the regional semifinals. Credit Matt Rourke/Associated Press
NORTH CAROLINA TAR HEELS
A Reserve Shows That He Also Belongs
PHILADELPHIA — About midway through North Carolina’s news conference on Saturday, a nearly forgotten character entered the scene from stage right with a bewildered look on his face.
“Where’s my chair?” Theo Pinson said.
Of course, Pinson, a sophomore forward for the Tar Heels, was only joking. The five players seated behind the microphones were the team’s starters, and Pinson is not one of them.
But his podium-crashing antics left his teammates in hysterics and Coach Roy Williams shaking his head. In his 28 years of coaching, Williams said, he had never had a player walk up in the middle of a news conference.
Beyond his reputation as the class clown, however, Pinson is a multitalented role player whose diverse skill set was on display Sunday in North Carolina’s win against Notre Dame in the East Regional final. His place and role on his team also illustrate the depth the Tar Heels can bring to bear on opponents.
Among 6-foot-9 Isaiah Hicks, 6-11 Joel James and the backup point guard Nate Britt, there is plenty of production off the bench. And then there is Pinson, a do-it-all talent who may lead his team in self-confidence.
“We invited Theo because we knew he was going to invite himself,” Williams quipped after Sunday’s 88-74 win.
“I guess you earn your way up here,” Pinson said.
Indeed, he did. After re-entering the game with 12 minutes 17 seconds remaining, Pinson stole the ball from Notre Dame’s Bonzie Colson, giving North Carolina possession of the ball moments after it had taken the lead, 53-52.
A few minutes later, Pinson’s alley-oop pass to Hicks on a fast break pushed the Tar Heels’ lead to 9 points. A few minutes after that, he slapped a missed free throw by Justin Jackson to the top of the key, enabling North Carolina to retain possession and dribble down the clock a bit more.
It is not just that Pinson can fill up a stat sheet (he had 6 points, 4 assists, 2 rebounds in 23 minutes Sunday). But his size and athleticism can create mismatches when teams go small. The Tar Heels stuck him on Notre Dame’s hottest shooter, V.J. Beachem, in the second half, and he helped hold him to 7 points.
Williams said Pinson made huge plays. “The steal, the dive on the floor, the loose ball, to call the timeout and two offensive rebounds for baskets,” he said.
It is those types of plays — and the comic relief — that will be critical for Carolina in Houston.
— Zach Schonbrun
Michael Gbinije, left, and Malachi Richardson pressured Virginia’s Malcolm Brogdon in Syracuse's regional final victory. Credit David Banks/USA Today Sports, via Reuters
SYRACUSE ORANGE
Even the Freshmen Are Acting Like Champions
CHICAGO — In the first moment after they had cut down the net to celebrate their remarkable come-from-behind victory over Virginia on Sunday night, the players on the Syracuse men’s basketball team ran shouting through the hallways of the United Center, their arms out to their sides as they soared toward another celebration in the locker room, and the Final Four.
Once that was done, this team that calls itself a family, split up according to age and rank. Two of the fifth-year seniors, Michael Gbinije and Trevor Cooney, went with Jim Boeheim, the Orange coach, to participate in a news conference.
Left behind to speak with reporters in a more informal setting in the locker room were the giddy freshmen who had engineered the stunning comeback — Malachi Richardson, Tyler Lydon and Franklin Howard — and their assistant coaches.
After some of the challenges that Syracuse overcame to earn a spot in the Final Four Sunday, including 13 losses and an 0-4 start in the Atlantic Coast Conference while Boeheim served an N.C.A.A. suspension, its players have often used the term “family” to describe the cohesion of their group. For Boeheim, the leadership of veterans like Gbinije and Cooney was critically important, even admirable.
“You lose 13 times,” Boeheim said, “you’ve got to have great leaders on the team to keep going.”
Back in the locker room, the assistant coach Adrian Autry, who played for Boeheim in the early 1990s, was asked how freshmen could produce the way they had. Richardson scored 21 of his 24 points in the second half after being chewed out at halftime, and Lydon was the hero in the Orange’s previous game with a game-altering blocked shot.
“Sometimes freshmen, they don’t know,” Autry said. “They don’t know how hard it is to get this far.”
That combination of leadership and blissful naïveté has produced something remarkable for the Orange, who were seeded 10th. How far can it take them? To St. Louis and Chicago so far. Now they’re off to Houston to see what they can do there.
— David Waldstein
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