The Final Four (22 page)
Authors: Paul Volponi
Rachel Adams: Yes, I had a chance to listen in a bit on both huddles. It was calm and relaxed on the Trojans bench with coach Alvin Kennedy diagramming several options for plays. But on the other bench, coach Eddie Barker was pushing the last of his voice to the limits. And he said something I’ve never heard a coach say before: “Their team doesn’t know how to win a game this big. They only know how to lose.” In just trying to interpret the feeling on each bench, if I didn’t know the score, I’d think the Trojans were ahead by a point and not the Spartans.
Play-by-Play Man: Interesting stuff, Rachel.
Color Commentator: We’ll see if that Trojan calmness, inspired by Alvin Kennedy, translates into something big for his squad.
Play-by-Play Man: The referee’s ready to begin play. The crowd is up on their feet. The reserves from both benches are standing as well. In the tunnel, the players from Duke and North Carolina are straining to see who survives this epic war.
Color Commentator: Some of the players on this court have lived their whole lives to bring something special to these eleven seconds.
Play-by-Play Man: Here we go. Crispin Rice to inbound. He gets the ball to Roko Bacic. Bacic drives left. McBride’s glued to him. We’re down to eight seconds. Bacic with a small seam. He attacks the rim and arches a shot high over McBride’s reach. It doesn’t go. Three seconds. The rebound is batted around, tapped loose by Jordan. One second. Tapped by Rice—no. A second tap at it by Rice
(buzzer sounding).
It’s in! Rice tipped it in! Oh my! But did he beat the buzzer? One referee’s saying yes it counts. Another referee is waving it off, saying no, it doesn’t count. The players don’t know what to do—celebrate or mourn. Everything’s on hold. It’s suddenly turned stone silent here in the Superdome, with everyone waiting for the replay and for the officials to confer.
Color Commentator: Rice hasn’t run over to Hope Daniels, like he did when he made that game-winning basket at the buzzer earlier this season. He’s probably not sure if he got it off in time either. In fact, there’s only one thing for sure: there won’t be another overtime. Either the Spartans or the Trojans have won this game by a single point.
Play-by-Play Man: Here’s the replay on the scoreboard. Rice tips it just as the game clock reads zeros across the board. Boy, that’s close. The officials are now huddled at a television monitor at the scorer’s table, watching it in slow motion.
Color Commentator: And right behind those officials are Crispin Rice, Roko Bacic, Michael Jordan, and Malcolm McBride. Those
players have seen the scoreboard replay. They’re not sure either. And now they’re looking at each other, the four of them. There’s nothing between them except a few feet of space. No more pretenses. No more posturing. It doesn’t get any purer than this. They don’t know who won or who lost. They just know they’ve been through some incredible journey
together
.
Play-by-Play Man: I was just a spectator to it all and I feel it. I can only imagine what it’s like for them.
Color Commentator: They’ve been a part of something much bigger than themselves. Something you can’t put a label on. If I could freeze this moment in time for them, I would. I’d let them walk away with what they share right now, before it gets fractured by an outcome. But that’s not how we play this game. There’s always a winner, and there’s always a loser.
Friday, April 5: From a national newspaper:
AND A FRESH START
NEW ORLEANS, La.—For 18-year-old basketball phenom Malcolm McBride, the past week has been a roller-coaster ride of tremendous highs and lows.
Last Saturday night, McBride, a freshman at Michigan State, led the Spartans to a dramatic
93–92 quadruple-overtime win over the Trojans of Troy at the Final Four in the Louisiana Superdome. But the celebration didn’t last long. The next morning, an article appeared in a Michigan newspaper detailing how a Detroit-based sports agent named Rodney Crowell had footed the bill for a lavish headstone at the grave site of McBride’s sister, Trisha, who was killed in a drive-by shooting nearly three years ago.
That gift may eventually cause McBride to be deemed ineligible under NCAA rules for receiving improper benefits, and possibly result in Michigan State forfeiting part or all of their wins this season, as well as suffering future penalties.
Then, on Monday, the day of the National Championship Game between North Carolina and Michigan State, the NCAA announced it would formally investigate the connection between the McBride family and Crowell, whose brother is a member of the same church choir as Malcolm’s mother, Florence McBride.
“My mother would never do anything wrong like that. Never. If anything, she was a target, and got fooled,” said Malcolm McBride, who has already left Michigan State and relocated with his family to Florida to train for the upcoming NBA combine (where coaches and scouts evaluate top college
prospects) and enter the league’s draft this June.
“I’ve never even met this Rodney Crowell dude,” said McBride, as he stood inside a Miami gym, dressed in shorts and a tank top, with a basketball tucked beneath one arm. “And I’ve just signed with a different agent, so there never was a connection, or a bribe gift by him. But that whole story was a distraction for my team.”
Whether it was because of the distraction of the impending NCAA investigation or the four overtimes against the resilient Trojans, the Spartans showed up at the National Championship Game without their legs. They were blown out by the North Carolina Tar Heels from start to finish in a 91–64 defeat, a game in which an exhausted-looking McBride scored only 14 points, his lowest output of the tournament.
“I tried my best for Michigan State and my teammates. I care about Coach [Eddie Barker] and all of those guys. I’m sorry if they’ll have to deal with any of this in the future. It’s not right,” said an emotional McBride. “In the end, my time there meant more to me than I thought it would. I guess that’s what happens when players suffer together. And that’s what our last two games together were—suffering to win, and suffering to lose.”
Then McBride pulled a bandage from his left biceps, revealing a brand-new tattoo, one opposite the portrait of his sister’s face, which occupies his right biceps. The tattoo reads SPARTANS FOREVER IN THE TROJAN WAR, with the letters encircling a flaming basketball.
“Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It’s courage that counts.”
—John Wooden, a Hall of Fame basketball player and coach who
guided UCLA to ten NCAA Championships over a twelve-year span
