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Sporting News, The, March 22, 1999 by Don Markus
Opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament amounts to the four best days of the year, with the drama unfolding across the country and into a living room or a sports bar near you. But there are stories behind the bracket, too.
Kentucky's Scott Padgett could not contain his excitement as the final seconds counted down victory early Sunday evening.
"We weren't ready to go home," he says. "We felt like we had something to defend hem. I think we just willed that win."
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As Padgett flung an arm in the air, a smile creased his face. You wouldn't expect a senior who has played in the last three NCAA title games to show much emotion after winning a second-round NCAA tourney contest. But the Wildcats, national champs in 1996 and '98, were happy to survive the opening salvos of the NCAA tourney, claiming a 92-88 overtime victory against Kansas to advance to the Sweet 16.
The first Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the tourney are the four best days in sports because of upsets and unpredictability. Kentucky is happy to still be standing, as its 1998 Final Four brethren-Stanford, Utah and North Carolina--got dumped by the likes of Gonzaga, Miami (Ohio) and Weber State.
The Kentucky crazies with the "IAM4UK" license plates aren't expecting their Wildcats to win their third national title of the 1990s en route to staking Claim as the team of the decade. In fact, Kentucky is a No. 3 seed with eight losses smudging its resume. The last NCAA tourney of the century figures to belong to Duke, which opened with 41-point steamrollings over Florida A &M and Tulsa. The Blue Devils are scary-good, and they know a third championship to go along with their 1991 and '92 crowns would make them kings of college basketball as the millennium dawns.
But don't count out Kentucky, which also was nudged from the opening weekend spotlight by Iowa's win-one-for-Coach-Davis crusade. The Wildcats are the defending national champions. Sure, they struggle to shoot straight, but Kentucky has the guard play, coaching and experience to advance to the Final Four from the Midwest Region, where a showdown with No. I seed Michigan State likely looms.
The Wildcats have another factor in their favor: That intangible that sometimes grabs hold of a team and makes an appointment with destiny. Kentucky is fueled by the memory of John Stewart, a recruit who died Friday night during a high school tourney game. In the Kansas game, Kentucky players wore black patches on their jerseys to mark the death of Stewart, a 7-footer from Lawrence North High in Indianapolis who was afflicted with a heart condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
Pathos. Drama. Leading players. Supporting casts. The opening weekend of the tourney has it all. Which is why we employed the services of correspondent Don Markus, who is covering his 22nd NCAA Tournament, to send us the stories behind the bracket. Markus visited four regionals in four days, traveling throughout the country and skirting around a mid-March snowstorm. He spent five nights in seven hotel rooms and ate a lot of bad meals. But for four days he lived and breathed the NCAA Tournament.
WEST
Thursday in Denver: Soap opera digest
The 1999 NCAA Tournament tips off at four spots around the country, but McNichols Arena is the setting for what has become the latest stop in a season-long soap opera. The cast: the Iowa basketball team, coach Tom Davis and athletic director Bob Bowlsby. The old-school coach and the new-age administrator have spent months avoiding each other, ever since Bowlsby announced this would be Davis' last season in Iowa City.
The story won't go away, especially after the Hawkeyes' regular season ends with an 18-9 record and a tie for third place in the Big Ten. It has taken on new life in the NCAA Tournament, and here at McNichols Arena it hangs over the team like the NCAA bunting on the scorers' table. The longer the Hawkeyes survive, the more legs the story will grow. After Iowa wins its opening-round game over Alabama-Birmingham, someone asks senior guard Kent McCausland what will happen if the team wins five more games.
"Now that would be interesting," says the senior guard, one of many staunch Davis supporters.
But the classy Dr. Tom has refused to comment about his situation all season and thus left his boss twisting in the wind. Bowlsby, the kind of '90s athletic director who crosses his T's and dots his coms, got in trouble with university officials for commenting on the subject earlier this season.
An hour before tipoff against UAB, Bowlsby is obviously uncomfortable talking about it.
"It's a private personnel issue," Bowlsby says.
The reality is Bowlsby had every reason to let Davis go last spring, after the Hawkeyes didn't make the NCAA Tournament and lost to Georgia in the first round of the NIT. The 10-year contract Davis had signed with former athletic director Bump Elliott had one year left. By allowing Davis to fulfill the contract, Bowlsby had more than a popular, lame-duck coach on his hands. He had a lame-duck program.
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