Big D wins for UConn in the Big D

By Art Spander

ARLINGTON, Texas — Big D they call this area, the Metroplex, the suburbs of Dallas. Big D, as in defense, which is what Connecticut, UConn, put up against Florida.

Which had won 30 straight games. Which had been ranked the best college team in the land.

Such a lark for the Gators. A 16-4 lead, a presumed place in Monday’s final. And then Big D from UConn, D as in difference, because on this Saturday night deep in the heart of Texas, that was the difference in the first game of the two NCAA semifinals.

They were at Jerry Jones’ “Joynt,” the massive, billion-dollar domed stadium on the plains, created by the Cowboys' owner, who along with 80,000 others — the majority of whom booed Jerry when he was shown on the huge TV screen — watched how defense could take control.

It was defense that took UConn (31-8) from that early deficit to a 63-43 victory and into the championship against Kentucky, which defeated Wisconsin, 74-73.

The Gators (36-3) couldn’t get the ball inside. Couldn’t get the ball into the basket.

UConn’s guards, Ryan Boatright and Shabazz Napier, pressured and hustled, swatted and flailed. And also scored, backing DeAndre Daniels’ 20 points, Boatright with 13, Napier with 12.

But that didn’t mean as much as the way they kept Florida from scoring.

They harassed Scottie Wilbekin, the guard who runs the Gators, limiting him to four points and one assist. They forced him into three turnovers. As a team, Florida had only three assists total. And 11 turnovers.

“The difference in the game,” said Florida coach Billy Donovan, “was Scottie Wilbekin couldn’t live in the in the lane like he had all year long for us.”

He had to take up temporary residence in a less advantageous part of the court, where the mistakes were greater than the contributions.

“That’s not what we usually do,” said Wilbekin. “That’s crazy. All credit goes to them and their guards, and the way they were denying and putting pressure on us.

“We weren’t taking care of the ball. When we would get by them, we wouldn’t keep the ball tight, and they would reach from behind. We were being too loose.”

Wilbekin had averaged 15 points, three assists and only one turnover in the seven postseason games Florida played before Saturday night.

“On offense,” he said after his last game as a senior, “we couldn’t get anything going. They were being really aggressive. A couple of us were having bad shooting nights.”

UConn’s guards were the reason.

“He couldn’t get off screens,” conceded Donovan.

Exactly the way Kevin Ollie, UConn’s second-year coach, had planned it.

“We just wanted to be relentless,” he said. “Wanted to make them uncomfortable. We wanted to challenge every dribble, every pass. They wanted to attack empty elbows, if you understand what I’m saying, where they’re coming off pick-and-rolls. So we wanted to keep them on the baseline.”

At the beginning of December, when both schools were searching for the future, Florida and UConn met at Connecticut’s Gampbel Pavilion, and Napier hit one at the buzzer for a 65-64 win by the Huskies.

That was Florida’s last defeat. Until Saturday night.

“Certainly we would have loved to have played on Monday night,” said Donovan, who coached Florida to NCAA titles in 2006 and 2007, “and I told them before the game that the team that plays the best is going to play on Monday night.

“I thought UConn played better than we did.”

Did he expect that? No. Did we expect that? No way. We always figure that the favorite will end up the winner. Yet college basketball is a delightfully unpredictable sport, one with athletes leaping in celebration and pom-pom girls weeping in dismay.

The Florida cheerleaders paraded gloomily from AT&T Stadium, which is what the building has been named, only hours after arriving with a spring in their step. Their team would take another title. Except it wouldn’t.

“As the clock’s unwinding,” said Donovan of the final seconds, when defeat was unavoidable, “you’re kind of sitting there and kind of realize this is getting ready to come to an end.”

As it did, along with a 30-game unbeaten streak, a chance for the championship.

UConn stopped both. Big D in the Big D.

Bleacher Report: Has Time Run out for Tiger Woods After Missing 2014 Masters with Back Injury?

By Art Spander
Featured Columnist

The clock ticks. No one wants to hear the sound. Few pay attention, particularly athletes. They believe they’ll always be young. Until suddenly they’re not.

A golfer’s career is long, longer than careers in other sports, but it is not forever. The opportunities get fewer as the months and the tournaments go by.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2014 Bleacher Report, Inc.

‘I’d boo me too,’ says A’s new closer Jim Johnson

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — Opening day is for baseball. Opening night is for the theater. But if the A’s, the defending AL West Division champions, had tried to play an afternoon game Monday they would have been rained out. After dark they merely were shut out.

Only one of 162. That’s the way major leaguers reflect on every defeat. In the major leagues if you lose one out of three you’ll have great season, a 90-win season or better.

But it hurts to lose that first one. Especially at home. Especially in front of a rare sellout crowd, 36,067.

Especially when the relief pitcher you traded for in the off-season enters in a tied ninth inning and pitches so poorly that Oakland not only loses to the Cleveland Indians, 2-0, but he is booed when pulled after three of the four batters he faced reached base.

The A’s had a reliable closer in Grant Balfour, but they — meaning GM Billy Beane and others in the front office — saw a reason to acquire Jim Johnson from the Orioles and dump Balfour. Johnson had more than a 100 saves over the previous two years for Baltimore.

He made his first appearance in Oakland’s first game. He was not at all impressive.

“I did everything you’re not supposed to do as a pitcher,” confided Johnson, who to his credit didn’t try to hide in a clubhouse packed with reporters and TV cameras.

What he was supposed to do remains conjecture. What he did was walk the first man he faced, Asdrubal Cabrera, give up a single to the next man he faced, David Murphy, and hit with a pitch the third man he faced, Yan Gomes. Bases loaded and no one out. Help!

Nyjer Morgan’s fly to center got an out but it also got Cabrera home on a sacrifice fly. Nick Swisher singled to center, scoring Murphy, and as the disenchanted gathering at the O.co Coliseum provided an accompaniment of boos, out went Johnson, replaced by Fernando Abad.

“I would have booed me too,” agreed Johnson after a debut not long to be remembered. “It’s not the way you want to start with a new team. It’s too bad after the way Sonny Gray battled. But there will be better days.”

Gray, named to start an opener for the first time in his brief career, thought there wouldn’t even be a game because of the afternoon downpour. The uncertainty had him even more nervous than a 24-year-old with only 61 days of major league experience could ever be.

“It was kind of tough mentally,” said Gray. He walked two of the first three Indians batters and needed to throw 29 pitches in the opening inning. Still, no one scored — then or in the subsequent five innings Gray pitched.

Of course, no one scored for the A’s in nine innings, including the eighth when they had the bases loaded and one out. Josh Donaldson had hit one more than 400 feet off the center field boards, but the A’s on base ahead of him, Daric Barton and Coco Crisp, had to hold up on the ball to make sure it wouldn’t be caught.

After Donaldson’s blast, reduced to a single, Jed Lowrie struck out and Brandon Moss grounded to first.

Oakland manager Bob Melvin, a stable sort, shrugged off the entire experience. The A’s had been unable to play their final exhibition Saturday at Oakland against the Giants because of a rainstorm. Maybe just the opportunity to get through game, even a losing game, was a relief of sorts.

The A’s are built on pitching, and through eight innings Gray, Luke Gregerson and Sean Doolittle provided shutout pitching. No complaints there.

The ninth undid them, but if you can’t get a run on offense then something bad is bound to occur.

“He walks the first guy,” said Melvin, a onetime catcher, analyzing Johnson’s ineffectiveness. “But he’s always the type of guy who’s one pitch away form getting a double play. It just wasn’t his day.”

At noon you’d have sworn it would be no one’s day except the groundskeepers. The rain was coming down hard, and not far away in Berkeley lightning hit a tree and split it down the middle. At 4 p.m., three hours before the scheduled first pitch, workers were pushing water by the gallon off the tarp covering the infield.

The poor A’s, was your only thought. Tickets already sold. Anticipation high. A couple of exhibition wins over the Giants at AT&T Park in their rear-view mirror. How cruel the sporting gods are.

Then, as if on cue, the sun came out. The A’s and their fans finally had a good break. Until the ninth inning.