Kids, don’t try this at home. Or on the road, for that matter.
Well, it finally happened, that one-in-a-who-knows shot. Happened last Sunday in the Division III college game, University of Chicago at University of Rochester — a real college game, too, one that needs no moral compromise or postgame scrubbing to watch.
Anyway, the basketball strategy this column has advocated for at least 20 years boomeranged to beat the odds and to leave logic wondering who turned out the lights.
We’ll let Dennis O’Donnell, Rochester’s erstwhile director of athletic communications take it from here:
“Chicago had a three-point, 76-73 lead with six seconds left in overtime. Chicago fouled one of our guards, Sam Borst-Smith, at midcourt with 2.7 seconds left.
“Borst-Smith made the first free throw, then intentionally missed the second — he threw it off the front of the rim. The ball came right back to him and he threw it into the left corner to guard Mack Montague who swished a 3-pointer at the buzzer to give us a 77-76 win.
“So the Chicago coach, Mike McGrath, did the right thing — gave a foul. It just turned out all wrong.”
As video of the play is making its way ’round the world — it already is under consideration, at least for 15 minutes, as the Geico Play of the Year — the audio of the play, heard on Rochester’s WYSL, includes this testimony from analyst Carmine Urzetta, who refereed college ball for over 35 years:
“I’ve seen a lot of things, but I’ve never seen that!”
Still, allowing the 3-point shot to tie with a few seconds left versus giving the foul is not recommended for the very reason spoken by Urzetta.
After all, the reason the game went to overtime is that Chicago hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer. Shoulda given the foul! What’s the worst that could happen?
Cutting bad guy doesn’t make coach ‘racist’
In March of last year, up-and-down star Eagles running back and trouble-magnet LeSean McCoy was traded to the Bills. Based on nothing more than he being a former Philadelphia-based media member with still-active real or imagined connections, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith bluntly declared to a national audience that the buzz out of Philly was that then-Eagles coach Chip Kelly has “a problem” with black players, a strong suggestion that an NFL team is being coached by a racist.
Smith provided no proof other than unnamed sources as all he needed to make such a claim, the kind of branding, regardless of truth, that is tough to shake.
That Kelly’s Eagles quickly replaced McCoy with Cowboys RB DeMarco Murray, a black man, didn’t move Smith off his flimsy position.
Last week, more trouble for McCoy, accused of being part of a 2:30 a.m. assault of two off-duty cops in a backroom of a Philadelphia bar.
So maybe Smith’s strong suggestion that Kelly is a racist wasn’t just irresponsible and inflammatory, maybe it also was dead wrong. Maybe Kelly, since-fired, knew what he was doing when he traded McCoy. Who knows?
But it seems clear Smith, who once confidently said that field goals should be tried on third down so, if they’re missed, they can be tried again on fourth down, and who spent a week cooing all over self-immersed, ignobleman Floyd Mayweather — just a small sample of Smith’s m.o. — is a lousy judge of both facts and character.
Still, he meets ESPN’s standard as a star first-stringer.
Incidentally, McCoy is a University of Pittsburgh man. Way to go, Pitt!
I’ve written similar before, but following his contract extension to call NBA games on TNT, it’s worth repeating:
No play-by-play man ever has done more to make his analysts sound as good as they possibly can than Marv Albert. He forces them to be relevant, to show the best of their personalities, he busts their chops, gets their opinions, keeps their heads in the game, makes them comfortable.
Examples: Reggie Miller without Marv Albert is only fractionally as good. ESPN didn’t know how good Mark Jackson could be until he worked with Albert on YES’ Nets telecasts before hiring him back.
Albert has made TV and radio stars of his partners, from Sal “Red Light” Messina, to John “Johnny Hoops” Andariese, to Mike “The Czar of the Telestrator” Fratello.
Just as Vin Scully’s artistry is diminished when some broadcasting exec tries to “improve” him by sticking him with an analyst, Albert’s artistry is predicated on company.
Put it this way: Ever tune to a game and heard anyone in the room say, “Oh, no, not Marv Albert!”? And it’s not likely you ever will.
Charity stripe gripe
Though it’s a bit early to address boardwalk games of dubious chance, ESPN’s Mark Wise brought it up last week when noting Harvard’s, yuck, 57 percent free-throw shooting. Wise said Harvard shoots them as if the targets are “carnival rims.” Good analogy.
Now here is an invaluable, impress-your-date tip on basketball shooting at carnivals or boardwalk booths: Shoot them underhand and with reverse spin. Got it?
But first ask the attendant to prove that the basketballs actually fit through the hoops.
While we’re at it, the Clippers’ DeAndre Jordan is not going to allow the Pistons’ Andre Drummond to win the worst free-throw shooting title without a fight. Jordan’s 3-for-14 game last week helped put him at 42 percent, while Drummond, 145-for-413 — good grief! — is at 35 percent.
I could help them! Then again, who couldn’t? It’s not as if we would mess them up.
From “Rock the Vote” to “Rig the Vote.” With the NBA having solicited online votes for its All-Star teams, AHL NHL All-Star John Scott missed making it two-for-two. As the Warriors’ website encouraged, “Vote every day in every way!”
We lost another one last week. Dan Hicks of Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks dead at 74. He asked the strumming musical question, “How can I miss you when you won’t go away?”
Suns forward and petulant me-firster Markieff Morris has been suspended two games for behavior “detrimental to the team,” a physical courtside hassle with teammate Archie Goodwin. Morris is a University of Kansas man. Way to go, KU!
Louisville’s loss at Duke on Monday was, of course, widely reported as “an upset.” After all, Louisville was ranked 13th, Duke was unranked. Didn’t matter that Duke was a four-point favorite. That’s because “experts” dismiss the 100-year-old reality of good teams playing at home in favor of polls that change weekly.
Reader Phil Savery asks if Kurt Rambis will forsake the “triangle offense” for the “Rambis rhombus offense.”