HOUSTON — Sports cannot be predicted, or explained. Games are unscripted, how they go is performance art, and how they end is the whim of fate. Spirits will be lifted or crushed, and the fans watching — so invested, heart and tears — but have no say in the matter.
Florida Atlantic University’s dream run to the men’s NCAA Final Four ended Saturday night because Lamont Butler’s buzzer-beating shot for San Diego State was perfect and the scoreboard froze at 72-71 at 0.0. That same shot two inches awry and off the rim changes everything and haunts Butler for the rest of his life. Instead he has the moment that will forever define him.
The Miami Hurricanes’ history-making dream run to the Final Four ended later Saturday because they faced a better, bigger team in UConn, a four-time national champion, and because the moment was larger than their readiness for it. The Huskies were out front end to end in a game they won 72-59. Canes Coach Jim Larranaga will lose sleep trying to figure out why that didn’t look like the team he knew out there, and never be satisfied with the answer.
The crowd at NRG Stadium was 72,000, most to ever watch a Miami basketball game. The court looked small in the middle of it all. So did the Canes. They shot only 32.3 percent and had a season-low in points.
“You could really tell that mentally and emotionally we were not together,” Larranaga admitted afterward. “All season long we’ve been so well-connected, offensively, sharing the ball, being one of the most efficient offensive teams in the country. What did we score today, 59? We were just out of character.“
The magnitude of the moment beat UM as surely as UConn did.
“Being in the Final Four for the first time in the school’s history, the guys were a little bit anxious, and we really never were able to just relax and play our game,” said Miami’s coach. “We were pretty much out of character the whole night.”
UConn’s superior size neutralized Canes big man Norchad Omier and enabled the Huskies’ offensive rebounding to create second and third chances most of the night.
To his team afterward Larranaga, 73, referenced the “thrill of victory/agony of defeat” line from Wide World of Sports.
“Last weekend it was the thrill of victory and accomplishing something that Miami had never done. Even last year, we got to the Elite Eight. We were not able to move forward. This year we did,” the coach told his guys. “Today was the agony of defeat. This will last a long time. The guys will have great memories, though, of the entire season, some of the great wins we had. I told them all along these memories last a lifetime. You’ll be telling your grandchildren about it one day.”
UConn gets to go for a fifth national title Monday night against big underdog San Diego State, while what might have been — Miami vs. FAU in a duel of Cinderellas 50 miles apart — rests in the almost bin.
This Final Four had to be on April 1, right? The quartet looked like we were being fooled. Three interlopers who had never been into the last quartet before? Was this a prank? No No. 1 seed survived to get this far in a tournament that destroyed brackets early and often. One blueblood, UConn, surrounded by three newbies.
The combined seeds in this Final Four, 23, was the second-highest total since the NCAA Tournament expanded in 1985. Only 2011’s March Madness, with 26, had a Final Four less expected to get this far.
This Final Four sent aftermarket ticket prices diving. It surely was not a great foursome for CBS-TV’s ratings. What thrilled South Florida likely was seen as a stinker to much of the rest of America.
No matter.
This Final Four was a watershed for college basketball in and around Miami — the football town and football school.
No matter that UM and FAU both fell one win shy of playing for a national championship.
Fathom that..
The Hurricanes and Owls both were one win shy of playing for a national championship.
Miami, which dropped its men’s hoops program altogether from 1971-85 for a lack of interest, in the Final Four with thousands of Canes fans traveling to Houston to watch and cheer.
And FAU, which didn’t even have basketball until 1993, winning its first NCAA Tournament game ever ... then winning four in a row to stun the sport and get to Saturday night.
It was a heck of a ride and a run the Hurricanes and Owls just took us on.
It reflected the power of sports, and possibility.
