washingtonpost.com
A Good Thing, Nearly Spoiled
By Michael Wilbon
Sunday, April 4, 2004; Page E01
SAN ANTONIO
There was something poetic about Emeka Okafor putting Connecticut ahead with 25.9 seconds left, something perfectly just about his free throw sealing the deal with 3.2 seconds left. He'd been cheated out of playing the first half by whistle-happy referees, put on the bench by a pair of phantom fouls that never should have been called. The most talented big man in the country was called on, having barely worked up a sweat, to bail his team out, to save a season. And he did.
We almost didn't get to see him at his best in those final 12 minutes, and sadly we never got to see a game that under normal conditions might have been a classic. If I were going to pick two teams to see play at this point of the season, out of 327 in Division I, I'd pick U-Conn. vs. Duke. I'd want to see Okafor and Connecticut's tall trees against Chris Duhon, J.J. Redick, Luol Deng and Daniel Ewing working their magic end to end.
What folks got, instead, was a battle of attrition, a marathon of inbounds plays, necessary substitutions and foul shooting. U-Conn. escaped, and barely, by erasing an eight-point deficit in the final 31/2 minutes. Okafor, his legs fresh from sitting so long, made just about all the big baskets and grabbed all the big rebounds down the stretch for the 79-78 victory over Duke. And dare we not forget him blocking Deng's dunk attempt to provide the Oh-my-God moment of the night in which both national semifinals ended so dramatically.
"I'll go to Mass twice tomorrow," U-Conn. Coach Jim Calhoun said afterward.
He was not in such a spiritual mood early in the game, certainly not when Okafor was called for two fouls in the first 3 minutes 55 seconds.
The referees were responsible, directly, for him playing only 22 minutes. U-Conn. suffered through bad calls early. Duke was saddled with its share of ridiculous foul calls late, all of it regrettable. The referees should never, ever, ever be The Story of a game this big. I hate writing about refs because by and large they do such good work. But the zebras cannot be ignored in the retelling and dissecting of this game.
There was barely a possession in the second half without a whistle interrupting it. The officials called tacky, nothing little fouls. They whistled fouls that didn't exist, occasionally made calls that suggested total incompetence. They came very close to ruining the game. With eight minutes to go half the people in the Alamodome, some with no rooting interests in Duke or Connecticut whatsoever, began chanting, "Let them play. . . . Let them play!" David Hall, Olandis Poole and Ted Hillary apparently never heard the sentiment that zebras should be seen but not heard.
There was never any kind of flow or back-and-forth rhythm, even though both Duke and Connecticut are polished teams offensively. And neither is particularly physical or foul prone. U-Conn. vs. Duke isn't Michigan State vs. Oklahoma. U-Conn. and Duke don't hack it up. They rely on skill; both play beautifully. Yet, the game was ugly, even unsatisfying to a degree, because the officiating was embarrassingly, even unforgettably awful and actually prevented the teams from playing to the level they'd shown through the first four games of the tournament. All three of them should have been taken from the court at the half and been replaced during intermission.
They eliminated Okafor from the first half with two bogus calls. They fouled out Duke's Shelden Williams unnecessarily with five minutes to go, then his backup, Shavlik Randolph, with three minutes to play after he had made all six of his shots. The two teams shot 55 free throws, and sadly for the usually accurate Blue Devils, they made only 61 percent for the game.
The one thing the game had that it should have had was Final Four tension. "It was pretty draining," Okafor said afterward. "There were a lot of ups and downs. We were in it, then out of it. . . . You look up and see yourself down by eight (75-67) with next to nothing on the clock."
It's not often you see Duke lose a lead of eight points with 3:28 to play, but it's not every night the Blue Devils play a team as talented as Connecticut, either. "I felt when we were down eight," Calhoun said, "that we could and should win. It's easier said than done, of course."
And it's easier done when you have the best player on the court and he stands 6-foot-10, can score and prevent the other team from scoring. Despite the time spent on the bench because of fouls, Okafor made 7 of 9 shots, scored 18 points, grabbed seven rebounds and blocked two shots. This was after having no points, one rebound and no blocked shots the first half. Calhoun, after Okafor's second foul, decided not to play his star center another second before intermission. And perhaps the big man's fresh legs were the difference. Calhoun waited and waited and waited to put Okafor back in, and as it turned out, not too long.
And Okafor got just enough help from Ben Gordon (18 points), Josh Boone (14 rebounds) and Denham Brown (eight points in 16 minutes off the bench) to sneak past Duke.
Can U-Conn. play without Okafor? Yes. Against most teams in the country, perhaps even Georgia Tech and Oklahoma State, the Huskies might get away most nights without Okafor for long stretches. But Duke is too talented, too disciplined, and too well schooled in the art of exploiting opponents' weaknesses. The Huskies have grown used to funneling opposing players to Okafor, who when he isn't blocking shots, changes them or discourages them from being taken altogether.
But with Okafor affixed to the bench, there was no goaltender when the Huskies gambled on the perimeter . . . or just played lazy on the perimeter. "Out of character," was the phrase Calhoun used. And yet U-Conn's early 15-4 lead disappeared in a hurry as Duhon, Deng, Williams and Randolph made shot after shot from inside the lane. Randolph made all four of his shots the first half, and accounted for nearly a quarter of Duke's baskets the first 20 minutes.
In the second half the Huskies shot 63 percent to Duke's 42.9. Think Okafor didn't have a lot to do with both those numbers?
"I knew it was inside of them," Calhoun said of his team's ability to rally and reverse its fortunes, "because I've been with them all season."
Even so, it's a lot easier to feel confident once his all-American was on the court, disrupting at one end and converting at the other, instead of sitting beside him on the bench.
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