If you’re not first, you’re last.
Tell that to the Green Oaks Giants basketball team, heading to the state semifinals for the first time in 43 years, since Michael Jordan was a sophomore at North Carolina and in the Tar Heels’ neighborhood, Jim Valvano willed the North Carolina State Wolfpack to a 54-52 stunner for the national championship over Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler and the No. 1 Houston Cougars, aka Phi Slama Jama.
Clyde the Glide, the Dream, Benny Anders and the Cougars will to this day tell you finishing second sucked. Well, Benny won’t – the cousin of Willis Reed and Orlando Wooldridge disappeared from the public for two decades and although he did appear in a 2016 ESPN 30 for 30 documentary about the most spectacular college basketball team ever, he’s back off the radar.
Perspectives vary. For Green Oaks, getting this far is amazing. Their 14-14 regular season gave no signs of glory for the Giants. On the other hand ….
Calvary Baptist’s Cavaliers have a lot of pride in reaching five of the last six state championship games. But they’re still without a crown, and that provides all the fuel this year’s No. 1-ranked team needs as it heads into Marsh Madness again. Calvary fans probably know the servers at Darrell’s Po Boys on a first-name basis (do not fail to indulge in a Darrell’s Special while visiting the Lake City).
Second is of absolutely no interest to the Calvary softball team. Riding a string of five straight state titles, the Lady Cavs honed in on the next one months ago, and at 15-0 are in the top three in three different high school national rankings.
There is a singular focus this week for coach Brooke Stoehr and her Louisiana Tech basketball team. The Lady Techsters are riding a 17-game winning streak, own a 24-5 record, but if they do not bring home the title at the Conference USA Championships in Huntsville, Ala., they will not make the NCAA Tournament.
They’ve found ways to win the nailbiters. Four of their last seven victories are by a combined 10 points. Their first 10 CUSA wins were each by nine points or more.
Living on the edge lately? Absolutely. Clutch when it matters? Definitely. A little shaky lately? Arguably.
Stoehr was named the CUSA Coach of the Year Monday in voting by her peers, who couldn’t deny her worthiness even as the conference tries to deny Tech its departure to join the Sun Belt Conference next season. There’s that legal shoving match around Tech’s exit that will ultimately be settled not by a gavel, but by a check – isn’t almost everything in college sports these days?
Not March Madness. Not at any level, high school to high major. The games still get played and the favorites do not always win. The best-funded programs can and often do falter, and Cinderellas find their glass slippers.
It happens in conference tournaments. SI.com’s Pat Forde points to the Patriot League, which you may not know existed, but its winner goes to the Big Dance along with UConn, Duke, Florida, and all the brand names. The Patriot’s men’s championship Wednesday night pairs Boston University and Lehigh, who are riding the magic of March. BU hit a 40-foot buzzer beater to get to the finals. Lehigh won its quarterfinal on a 50-footer.
It happens in the NCAA Tournament. Best known local example: 20 years ago next Tuesday, St. Patrick’s Day 2006, Jermaine Wallace of Heflin fired a fadeaway 20-foot dagger from the left corner that swished through a half-second before the horn and lifted 14th-seeded Northwestern State over No. 3 Iowa, 64-63.
Those Demons were good. Won 25 other games. Beat Eddie Sutton’s Oklahoma State Cowboys in Gallagher-Iba Arena, which no non-conference opponent had done in the previous 108 tries. Came from 21 down to win in OT at Missisippi State. Beat Oregon State and got gipped out of a win over Iowa State when a Hawaii scorekeeper counted an air-balled Cyclones free throw and the referees wouldn’t fix the error.
Most coaches would have gone beserk. UConn’s Dan Hurley would have been tossed off Oahu over to Maui, maybe all the way to Fiji. But NSU’s Mike McConathy shrugged it off and told his guys, “let’s go to work.” They took it to double overtime.
Had the Demons edged Iowa State … held last-minute leads at Wichita State or Utah State … gone unbeaten instead of 15-1 in the Southland season … when they made the NCAA field, they might have been seeded 13th. Or 12th. And their NCAA opener wouldn’t have been against Iowa, but somebody else who wasn’t as favorable a matchup as the Hawkeyes.
All that is speculation. Brass tacks fact: Northwestern wouldn’t have been in the Big Dance at all without winning three conference tournament games to punch its ticket.
Destiny is a fickle factor. There will be a 20th anniversary program next Tuesday night at the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, when McConathy and crew will share memories of the greatest days of their basketball lives.
Those may be right ahead for Brooke Stoehr, one heck of a basketball coach, and the battle-tested Techsters.
But only if they win three times this week in Rocket City, celebrate Saturday afternoon, and soar into March Madness.
Stoehr doesn’t have to tell her players. They know. In their shoes, if you’re not first ….
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