BYU-hoo.
The two early tournament games Thursday certainly got the Cougars’ attention.
Like the business end of a ball- peen hammer in the forehead.
“I saw there were two upsets. . . . That’s what we wanted to be wary of,” BYU’s Jimmer Fredette said. Teammate Logan Magnusson added: “I think we used it as motivation. I know a lot of the guys saw (the shocking developments) and said, ‘Let’s not let that happen to us.’ There were a lot of upsets going on. That’s why it’s called March Madness.”
The No. 4 seed, Louisville, had been cut in The Can opener when No. 13 Morehead State found gold at the end of a rainbow jumper with four seconds remaining. Then, Vanderbilt, the fifth seed, was canned by Richmond, the 12th seed.
Hello, Brigham Young University. The No. 3 was playing the No. 14, Wofford.
It seemed to be double-digit day in Denver. Upset?
Sure, the Cardinals and the Commodores were upset, disturbed, distressed and acting as March Mad Men.
“One of the worst losses of my coaching career,” said Louisville’s Rick Pitino.
“Biggest win in school history,” said Morehead coach Donnie Tyndall.
The mouths of the BYU players were so dry it was if they had been guzzling from the Great Salt Lake. Coach Dave Rose had to be parched.
The Cougars’ devotees weren’t feeling so good, either. Because the afternoon session went so long, and the arena had to be cleared of people and cleaned of garbage, the BYU-Wofford game started with 15,000 ticket-holders still stretched down the block.
When the sellout crowd finally was allowed indoors, the Cougars were behind by four points, and the Terriers had held Jimmer Fredette to nine points in 17 1/2 minutes.
At halftime BYU was ahead by just four points, 33-29. Hello, goodbye?
Just about the time everybody was thinking of Morehead, Richmond, Wofford and maybe Gonzaga — three underdogs and the underTerriers — the Cougars put on their performance suits. They increased the lead to eight points three minutes into the second half and eventually extended it to avoid the single-digit void. Fredette scored his jersey number — 32.
“I’m just satisfied that we lived to play another day,” Jimmer said. “Teams are going to come out and fight to the death, especially teams with seniors.”
Nothing came easy in the NCAA second-round games in Denver. So everything (except that mess between the two sessions — with only 27 minutes to turn over the building because the TV network waits for no man — or thousands of men, women) was good in lower downtown.
The first game wasn’t decided until Louisville’s last shot was blocked by Morehead’s Kenneth Faried, the monster-truck rebounder (17). Demonte Harper calmly sank a 3-pointer after his coach, Tyndall, lied to the team during the timeout and said he dreamed of this situation. He actually didn’t sleep the night before, and devised that very play at 2:30 a.m.
The second game wasn’t finished until Vandy’s Rod Odom was forced to fling a sick 3-pointer with one second left, and the ball had a better chance of landing in the South Platte River than in the hoop.
The Commodores’ Festus Ezeli — who is from Nigeria, although his first name might indicate he is from Fishbait, Tenn. — had a superb effort with 21 points and eight rebounds.
Ezeli was one of 16 foreign-born players on the floor Thursday. The NCAA Tournament indeed is a world game. When Duke and UNLV played the Final Four in Denver in 1990, many of the players never had seen a map of the world.
But 21 years later, there were players from Nigeria, Germany, Canada, France, Lithuania, Cameroon, Sweden, Australia, Senegal, Gabon and Cote d’Ivoire. BTW, Denver won’t be awarded another Final Four until a 200,000-seat domed stadium is built here. The third game wasn’t so spectacular, as Jimmer and BYU looked Woof-Woof in the first half against Wofford’s defense.
“Maybe we were in a hurry, or Wofford just made some good plays,” Rose said. The fourth game featured the No. 6 seed, St. John’s, against No. 11 — always hazardous Gonzaga. Guess what.
After falling behind 5-0, the Bulldogs went all perfect storm on the Red Storm and ran away with the game.
St. John’s coach Steve Lavin has players from three of the New York City boroughs and two from Long Island, but Gonzaga’s Mark Few was beating him with players from two cities on the Avalanche’s schedule (Vancouver and Edmonton), another from British Columbia, two from Germany, one from France and one from Brooklyn (Brooklyn Park, Minn.). Another set-up turned to upset.
By the end of quite a day, 11, 12, 13 over 4, 5, 6 and 3 over 14. Yah-hoo, BYU.
Woody Paige: 303-954-1095 or wpaige@denverpost.com
