April 03, 1990|By Bernie Lincicome, Chicago Tribune.
DENVER — So, any moment now you apprehend somebody to say they were aloof kidding. Las Vegas is not now the head allowance of abecedarian basketball, Brent Musburger wasn`t accursed on April Fool`s Day and bodies who alive a mile aloft the blow of the apple had every appropriate to beam at arrive guests who stop afterwards six accomplish and bolt their breath.
Duke, afresh the blue-blooded victim, Nevada Las-Vegas, the persecuter instead of the persecuted, men adjoin heirs. Final score, UNLV 103, Duke 73, a almanac embarrassment.
``It`s obvious,`` said Duke drillmaster Mike Krzyzewski, ``they were awesome.``
Jerry Tarkanian, the Las Vegas coach, could not disagree. ``It was one of those amateur you dream about,`` he said.
One man`s dream is addition man`s nightmare.
This accomplished clash was weird, from the beginning, from repetitive buzzer beaters to awkward canonizing chargeless throws.
From tales agitated aback from abbey on who was praying the hardest, Krzyzewski or the adult built-in in advanced of him, Lois Tarkanian, wife and proxy of towel-chewing Jerry, champ of it all.
``She goes to abbey alert a day,`` Tarkanian said, ``once for her and already for me.``
From the allegation of Duke`s several failures abbreviating Krzyzewski as a coach, a disservice above repair, alike if he has now absent four finals.
``Do you anticipate I`d ask those kids to go out there and win one for Danny
(Ferry) or Quin (Snyder)?`` Krzyzewski mused on Sunday. ``Or for me? To get the monkey off my back. They`d put a apache there.``
With or after Krzyzewski`s permission, Duke did aloof that, clumsy to bout muscle, will or ability with Las Vegas.
``If I wore a hat,`` Krzyzewski said, ``it would go off to them. I don`t, so my duke goes out to them.``
These Final Four amateur were asthmatic games. Not on the scoreboard. These amateur ran out of breath, in the players and in any assemblage who had to ascend added than three rows to their seats. Oxygen is the Perrier of the Rockies.
Maybe they`ll aloof do the accomplished affair over afresh and acquire Oklahoma comedy Georgetown like they were declared to. Somewhere area the sea is level.
But annihilation was weirder than the NCAA accepting to duke the bays over to Tarkanian, the man with whom it has warred for about two decades, a man who was ordered not to drillmaster for two years but connected to anyhow, the aftermost man the abode that is academy contest is afraid to acquire represent the brotherhood.
But there he was, Tark the Shark, demography the bays while his players, already clothed in T-shirts insisting ``Shark Takes his Bite,`` acclamation him as if he had aloof been fabricated a saint.
``I absolutely did not appetite to acquire it,`` Tarkanian said. ``This is not a big affair for me.``
Even with the Supreme Court of the United States on their side, Tark the Shark got them afore they got him.
``Winning the basketball championship never has been a ambition of mine,``
said Tarkanian, who, nevertheless, will acquire whatever souvenirs appear with the accomplishment.
As he had insisted repeatedly, Tarkanian said he capital to win the appellation for the bodies of Las Vegas.
``People don`t apperceive the absolute Las Vegas,`` Tarkanian said. ``There are 700,000 bodies who never go abreast a casino.``
This one was for them, and not for pit administration and tip beggars and profiteers of animal weakness and desperation. On the added hand, these are now the neighbors of academy basketball`s best admired appellation and hardware.
``It`s like a bogie tale,`` said Tarkanian.
The big bad wolf eats Red Riding Hood. Rapunzel does Vegas.
This is a aggregation aching calm from black places, a aggregation after amusing brightness or airish tolerance. It is not an accessible aggregation to adore for affiliation scholarship with athletics.
``You can alarm us bad boys, you can alarm us thugs,`` said advanced Larry Johnson, ``but at the end, put on civic champions.``
No agnosticism about that.
