Real March Madness: Northern Iowa Derails Kansas Jayhawks Title Hopes

Today reminded me why I love this tournament so much.

A good friend of mine mentioned to me that college basketball is the great equalizer of all athletic endeavors. At least of the sports we care about. He’s right.

For instance, you can have a 40—inch vertical, be Iverson quick and bench press a house, but if a scholarship athlete puts a body on you correctly in the correct position, he’s going to pull a rebound and there’s little the elite athlete can do about it.

Set the proper screen and make the proper cut and Steve Alford can drop 42 on a collection of future NBA stars playing for UNLV, but then a year later Alford is lucky to get a shot off for the Mavericks.

Granted, what happened today in the Kansas game took, oh I don’t know, nearly 100 of these types of athletically equalizing maneuvers, like blocking out, taking charges and making extra passes for Northern Iowa to knock off the top—ranked Kansas Jayhawks. But, sure enough it happened right before our very eyes.

This same kind of spectacle happened nearly twenty years ago, when No. 8 seed Villanova knocked off Patrick Ewing’s Georgetown club.

It’s games like Georgetown vs. Villanova, Princeton vs. UCLA and the one played tonight that made you skip middle school to watch the Thursday/Friday mid—day games in the opening round of tournaments past. It’ll be these types of games that make you skip pool pilates in the nursing home 40 years from now.

It’s the reason I skipped class when I was 10. Otherwise I would have missed UTEP’s Chris Blocker hitting a game tying, buzzer—beating jumper to help beat top ranked Arizona. Had I missed the game, how would I have reenacted that same play thousands of times on the regulation hoop in my driveway or the nerf hoop in my room?

And it really doesn’t even need to be your team. Rarely do people watch a sport they have no rooting interest in, but the Big Dance is different in that respect. You root for the players. You root for the little guy or Cinderella. But more than anything else, you root for the game, because it makes you believe.

Is that too heavy for round two?

Kansas vs. Northern Iowa

I posited in the Kansas One Seed Weaknesses Preview that the key to beating the Jayhawks was to keep Collins out of the lane on offense and pull Aldrich away from the bucket on defense.

The former neutralizes the Jayhawk half court attack, while the latter not only limits KU’s transition game, but also gives you a fighting chance to score on the interior with the big fly—swatter away from the bucket, by grabbing an offensive board or two (NIU had 11 offensive caroms).

Northern Iowa was almost perfect in executing both of these keys.

NIU did a terrific job of limiting Collins’ ability to create by staying in front when possible and helping quickly to cut off driving lanes when Sherron was able to shake his defender. Aldrich was taken away from the basket when NIU center Jordan Eglseder knocked down a couple three’s and proved to be a credible threat away from the bucket.

With Collins out and Aldrich not making as big an impact as usual in the paint, the Jayhawks needed another play—maker to step up and make plays. I’ve harped about the need for KU to have Tyshawn Taylor or Xavier Henry step up as a second perimeter play—maker all year, using Kentucky’s Eric Bledsoe as an example.

Collins is always going to be getting the premium on—ball defender and there will come a time when the Jayhawks will need another creator to step up. That time was Saturday night and Taylor was zero—for—six from the floor, while Henry deferred his way to only six attempts and zero assists.

Sherron Collins played one of his worst games of the season, going four—for—fifteen with one assist and five turnovers. Without watching the game, how can you tell Collins was kept out of the lane? He had a meager two attempts from the foul line. That’s huge.

Even still, it took an Ali Farokhmanesh “No! No! No! Nice Shot!!” three ball with twenty seconds left to finally vanquish the Jayhawks who, to their credit, never quit.

As for Farokhmanesh’s dagger, dear Lord, what a stroke. How do you say “Onions!!! Double Order!!” in Farsi? Or Gaelic in deference to his mom. Just one of the ballsiest shots I’ve seen from a player.

Now, imagine if he misses and Kansas goes down and gets the game winner. He’d be a huge goat.

Actually, scratch that, don’t imagine anything of the sort. College basketball is a better sport, for most of us anyway, because Ali took that shot. Thanks for trying on the slipper, man. How else will you know if it fits?

After all, it’s games like these that keep us coming back, right?

Kevin Berger write the college hoops blog: March To March

Follow him on Twitter: @MarchToMarch