Zags Have The Right Stuff

They’re popularly known as the Zags. Their home court in Spokane seats 4,000, slightly less than the size of the student body. Their most famous alumnus is John Stockton, the Utah Jazz superstar whose dad owns “Jack and Dan’s” bar near campus. Mr. Stockton, as the Zags call John, serves as unofficial pick-and-roll tutor during summer games he organizes.

The little school from Washington suddenly is hot stuff. The Gonzaga Bulldogs are Sweet 16-bound, having snuffed mighty Stanford in the West Regional in Seattle. Imagine that. I’m sure Stanford, in its wildest nightmares, never did. This was a Final Four squad, a break or two away from the ‘98 title game, returning intact with legitimate national title aspirations.

Now it’s all over, for Stanford and its shaken conference, the Pacific-10.

The opening week of March Madness once again has given rise to small-school Davids such as Gonzaga, Detroit Mercy, Weber State and Creighton slaying Goliaths (Stanford, UCLA, North Carolina, Louisville). So they destroyed your brackets, drove you a little crazy. So what? You’ve come to expect that sort of zaniness, right? It’s the essence of March Madness.

You certainly don’t get this kind of madcap stuff in a professional game, where the fat cats keep getting fatter.

The ring, that’s the thing. Who cares about competitive balance?

We do. Like love, it’s what makes the world go ‘round. A beautiful thing. Without it, you’re left with all the joy of a business merger between conglomerates - or a money-driven trade between sports franchises.

With it, you have the NCAA Tournament, the nation’s favorite passion play for three weeks each spring.

Even with Duke an overwhelming favorite to go all the way, Coach K’s kids are anything but a lock. One off night along the way, one unconscious shooting performance from the 3-point arc by someone you never heard of, and it could be all over for the Dookies.

“In this tournament,” North Carolina’s Ed Cota said after getting stung by Weber State’s Harold Arceneaux, “the best team doesn’t always win.”

That’s part of the show’s enduring charm.

The Pac-10, with two of the past four national champs and a cumulative 24-8 in the previous two tournaments, had Stanford trying to preserve conference dignity against Gonzaga after UCLA, Arizona and Washington were knocked out by first-round haymakers. So much for Pac-10 pride.

Before the tournament began, Gonzaga’s Matt Santangelo, Detroit Mercy’s Jermaine Jackson, Florida’s Teddy Dupay and “The Show” Arceneaux were names in magazines and newspapers. I’d never seen any of them play. Now I see what I’ve been missing.

We’d read and heard a great deal about Miami of Ohio’s Wally Szczerbiak, but he was a mystery other than the occasional highlight clip. Overnight, Szczerbiak became a fascinating household name, dropping 43 of the 59 points his team needed to subdue Washington by one. Topping it off, Wally blocked a final Husky shot.

Today, you can’t wait to see what the guy does against Utah and its superlative senior point guard, Andre Miller.

Moving from inner-city L.A. to Mormon country, feeling alienated and detached in the beginning, Miller has flowered into a wonderful basketball player and, by all accounts, a first-class citizen. Rick Majerus, who’s right there with Krzyzewski when you discuss the college game’s best coaches, has done wonders with Miller. When Andre reaches the NBA next season, he’ll be fully schooled - physically, emotionally and mentally.

As for Baron Davis, the UCLA sophomore who apparently will be long gone when Miller is taken in the pro draft, questions persist about the maturity of his game and his personality. Because his talent is so intriguing, Davis projects as a top-five pick.

The official announcement awaits, but it’s practically a slam dunk that Davis will surrender his two years of eligibility to go for the bucks. You can’t blame him, of course. Who among us would have the discipline not to jump at all that instant cash? I mean, all UCLA can offer is a broader education and the possibility of gradual improvement without the daily pressures and demands of the NBA.

In what probably was his final game as a collegian, Davis fouled out, leaving his team for dead and his coach, Steve Lavin, to the wolves.

Davis has the natural ability to be an exciting scorer in the mold of Allen Iverson and Stephon Marbury, but with another year in college, Baron can be more than a big, raw talent. He can be polished, poised, fully equipped to run an offense and lead a team. But there’s little doubt he feels he’s ready to take the money and run an NBA club.

Every year the NBA steals most of the prime college talent before it has matured, and every year the college game and the NCAA Tournament get a little bigger. UCLA will survive. There’s always a kid out there dying for the chance to shine, to become an overnight sensation. That kid might be Marlon Palmer, a senior point guard at Verbum Dei High in L.A., who has the grades and game for Westwood.