The Road to the Final Four

First, a mea culpa. I was terrible picking the tournament this year. My worst year in recent memory, which is funny because I watch more college basketball this year than ever before. I still finished in the 79% percentile on ESPN’s Tournament Challenge with those picks, which I think says more about the rest of the tournament picking public. Hooray for getting the obvious champion right!

Anyway, I haven’t written much lately mostly because I have been traveling the eastern half of the United States watching forty minutes of Villanova Basketball (copy write Jay Wright, 2001). Below are some thoughts and impressions on each stop, as well as the distance traveled in miles and minutes.

New York
Distance: Approx 95 miles from home to Matt and Ryan’s apartment. Two hours of trains each way.

Expectations are an interesting thing. Everyone always talks about how great hope is, but I say fuck hope. I want expectations. There was a long period of time that I would hope Villanova would simply be good enough to make the tournament, maybe play some meaningful games in March. Now it is not only expected to be playing important games this time of year, it is expected to win some. The expectations are better. It is probably not always fair to the players and coaches to feel this way, but I would bet even they would tell you it is better to have expectations of greatness than hopes of relevancy.

With that said, how different are expectations if Dwayne Anderson doesn’t make that layup to beat Marquette? We are probably not in Philly the first weekend. Probably a four seed, not a three seed. Which likely means playing UNC in the round of sixteen, not four. Making this probably just another Villanova Sweet 16 team (speaking of altered expectations…) instead of a perception altering team. We are now a Final Four program, partly because Reggie Redding found Dweeze in the final second. Since this team will ultimately be remembered for another basket in the final second, maybe this was just a harbinger of things to come.

NYC for the Big East Tourney is quickly becoming one of my favorite times of the year. It allows me the opportunity to drink in the afternoon, find new people I dislike (in this year’s case, the Louisville fan base), and then to drink even more that evening. This was a particularly alcoholic year, leading to Vick taking the 4:14 AM train home on consecutive nights.

We also hung out in the only naturally occurring cave in NYC Saturday night, and Vick loved it there.

Philadelphia
Distance: Approx 30 miles from my house to arena, 45 minutes both ways.

So, I gambled and bought tickets for the Saturday session in Philly assuming we would roll American. With 18 minutes left in the game, that did not look like a very good decision. That game was rather horrific, as well as being the only Villanova post season game I did not attend. And maybe that was for the best, because I was kind of a mess. It was nice knowing everyone else was equally as unnerved by this, judging by Meghan thinking she was such a curse a 100 miles from the arena as well as the dozens of texts I got.

As awful as that first 22 minutes were, the next 58 minutes played at Wachovia were just that dominating. UCLA could whine all they wanted about having to play in Philly (funny coming from a team who played at six pre Final Four sites the last three years: 5 in California, and one all the way out in Phoenix. Poor Bruins!) We would have won that game if it was played at Pauley Pavilion or anywhere else in the world.

The beating of UCLA was great not only for embarrassing UCLA on national television, but because it led to the nationally televised embarrassing of Duke. I thought if we beat UNC, our new slogan should have been “Fuck your tradition.”

Boston
Distance: There-Home->Manhattan->Boston Approx 300 miles and 7 hours
Back-Boston->Manhattan->Center City->West Chester->Home Approx 375 miles and 9 hours

Ed. Note: I was unable to sleep the night after the Pitt game and typed up this long, winding, sappy review of the entire weekend. It is probably pretty entertaining, and I will likely post it sometime in the next seven to ten days after I clean it up.

A few times while in Boston, Meghan referred to the weekend as “One of the best things I have ever done” or some variant of that. At the time, I wasn’t sure that I agreed with that. Reflecting back, I think that those four days in Boston encompassed an event and a feeling that I will likely—hopefully?—never again experience.

The weekend following Villanova advancing to the national semifinals for the first time in 24 years, I was encountered by three fan bases of huge public universities with gigantic athletic budgets that they used to retain or lure hall of fame, national championship winning coaches. Villanova spends its share on basketball, but not what UConn or Michigan State does, and barely in the same neighborhood of North Carolina. We are different, as some lovely Michiganders were not too shy to point out.

They, as programs and fan bases, expected to be there. They expected to be there in November. And January. And as I was running around NYC watching Dweeze beat Marquette. It would be a bit much to say a large portion of the Villanova fan base thought this was a Final Four team in November. Or January. Or as I was in NYC watching a double digit lead against Marquette slip away.

That lack of expectations, that feeling of being surprised at a group of players who seemingly outlasted every expectation, is a huge part of what made this so special.As great as expectations are, they change everything. Expecting to beat American did not lead to anywhere near the emotion hoping to beat Pitt did. It was unbridled, unquestioned joy. It was a different type of happiness than I had ever experienced, whether it be connected to a sports related event or anything else. It was overwhelming in every sense of the word. Now with a Final Four pedigree and monstrous amounts of talent coming in, expectations change. The second time will not feel like the first time.

I say it is a feeling that will hopefully never be duplicated for that reason. I want there to be a second time. And third. And tenth. But, from here on out, Villanova making a Final Four will (again, hopefully) never be such a shock, such an overwhelming experience. And that is a good thing, even if it isn’t as much fun.

Even if lofty expectations aren’t met, and we don’t get back here for another twenty years or so, I still can’t imagine that it can ever be the same. I won’t be twenty five. I find it hard to believe that it will be as easy to think that heading to Boston on a Thursday afternoon on a whim is a good idea, let alone convincing someone else to come along (thanks, Meg!). It is probably unreasonable to expect that wave of people to arrive on Saturday, almost in a mass cleansing for what happened when we were seniors in ’06. The opportunity to hear Jay speak in a room of alumni and students, with the chance to personally thank the players. There will not be the youthful exuberance of this. And it certainly won’t be the first time all over again. As Steve said, “I think if I ever make it to heaven, it’ll be the lobby of the Weston”.

In hindsight, Meghan was probably right. This was a perfect storm of events, and I will likely always remember it as one of the greatest things I was ever apart of. While I was driving around Manhattan waiting for her to finish work, I had The Hold Steady on the radio, mostly just as background noise. You know how sometimes things just jump out at you for no real reason? Well, the line “Let this be my annual reminder that we could all be something bigger” smacked me right in the face. It is funny to think about it now, because if this weekend wasn’t that step up into something bigger, I don’t know what is. In five seconds we went from a perennially strong program to a Final Four program. It happened in the blink of an eye really. Expectations got bigger, our profile got bigger, our coach got bigger. I just hope the next step is half as fun.

Detroit
Distance: There-Home->Trenton, NJ->Southfield, MI. Approx 630 miles and ten hours
Back- Southfield->Trenton->Home. Approx 630 miles and ten and a half hours.

We drove to Detroit at night. Leaving the Trenton train station around 11:30 and arriving in the Detroit suburbs at around 8:30 AM led to a lot of darkness in distance while commuting through Western PA.

Everything you heard about Detroit is pretty spot on. Pretty neat area around the stadiums, some casinos, and then a whole lot of abandoned buildings. We went to a McDonald’s across from the hotel when we got there because it was too early to check in. My total was like $4. 57. I gave the girl a five and she ran it through this machine to confirm it wasn’t counterfeit. Yeah.

Pregame we drank some, saw Will Sheridan and scalped some tickets. All around a good time.

Ford Field was nice, Michigan State fans were kind of jerkoffs, and we got to watch the Nova game from the 17th row off the floor. So that was nice. I would estimate the Spartan crowd at 45-50k for the semifinals. They were everywhere. I thought maybe the dome would temper some of the crowd noise, but it did none of the such.

The bar we went to post game had two different white Michigan State fans trying to “spit rhymes” over a beat. Apparently they all think they are Eminem or Kid Rock. It was pretty funny, however. We then proceeded to a diner where I got two Chili dogs for four bucks, and we think we saw a pimp come in with a couple of his hos at 3 AM. There was also Michigan State fans there who didn’t quite understand why Jay wouldn’t become the next coach at Memphis. Again…yeah.

However, I was glad I went. It was very cool atmosphere, and who knows when you’ll get to go to the Final Four again. As I told Matt and Meg, I have lots of crazy ideas but it can be difficult at times to find people who are willing to go along with them.

About those future expectations, early reports seem to suggest we will be preseason top 5 next year despite losing the team’s top scorer. No pressure, Let’s do it again.

It is better than hoping to be relevant though, isn't it?