PACKER: : No Team Makes It All the Way to the Final Four on a Fluke . . . and LSU’s Tigers Are No Exception

Considering all the early round upsets of teams considered no less than regional-final contenders, we’ve ended up with one of the most solid Final Four fields in the history of the tournament.

Going to Dallas are unquestionably three of the top teams in the nation in Duke, Kansas and Louisville. Joining them is a phenom in LSU.

If you had looked back to the spring and projected a team that had Jerry Reynolds, Tito Horford, Nikita Wilson and Zoran Jovanovich, you would have found one of the most awesome collections of talent ever. Take those players away, though, and you have to conclude that Dale Brown did one of the greatest coaching jobs in history to get this team to the Final Four.

One of the great things about the NCAA tournament is that it takes a lot of theories--such as those put out by Al McGuire and myself--and disproves them on the court.

For a guy like Dale Brown, it’s unfair that certain coaches take a lot of abuse, the media gets the ball rolling in a certain direction, and before you know it, it’s fact.

By getting this LSU team to the Final Four, I don’t think anybody can say that Dale Brown isn’t as good a coach as he is a recruiter. Nobody flukes into the Final Four. It’s too tough, too difficult a road to get there. No one can say LSU doesn’t deserve to be in Dallas.

Louisville vs. LSU

All that said about LSU, I’m picking Louisville to win this semifinal and advance to the championship game. The Cardinals have superior talent, they’re well organized, they don’t get rattled by emotion and they’re very consistent in the way they approach games.

Louisville displays a maturity that comes from two seniors, Milt Wagner and Billy Thompson, guys who have been there before. This team didn’t get overly excited about winning the regional final because I think they’re saving it for Dallas. It reminds me of the old UCLA teams--tough, under control and consistent.

Of the teams Denny Crum has taken to the Final Four, this is his best, and Pervis Ellison has proven that he is without a doubt the best freshman in the country. He shows unbelievable court savvy for someone his age.

THE HIDDEN KEYS: For Louisville, Herbert Crook is so solid at forward. He has played like a star all season, yet nobody knows about him. For LSU, the question is whether Ricky Blanton can continue to play the kind of defense against quality people that he has.

Duke vs. Kansas

Certain things have to happen for each team to win, and both revolve around Greg Dreiling, Kansas’ 7-foot center.

If he is able to play a good part of the game--that is, if he can avoid foul trouble--I’d have to give the advantage to Kansas. If he can’t, then the advantage goes to Duke.

Larry Brown, the Jayhawks’ coach, can substitute any position other than center without the team changing markedly. But when Dreiling goes out, that team gets very small in a hurry. And there’s a big, big difference when he’s in.

Duke has been the most consistent team in college basketball all season. When you look at it, the Blue Devils had no bad games. They’ve always played to their potential. I’d say Duke’s defense has been underrated all year. People look at the team and say it has no center, but the Blue Devils haven’t been dominated at that position this season.

THE HIDDEN KEYS: For Duke, David Henderson has to have a big offensive game. He has had those before this season, so Kansas certainly has to be aware of him, and the Blue Devils need him to have another one.

As we’ve established, for Kansas, it’s Dreiling. He must avoid silly fouls and stay in the game. He doesn’t have to play great, nor does he have to dominate, but he must be on the floor.

Here’s a couple of things that stick in my memory about this NCAA tournament:

--Everybody in New York was all concerned that Marco Baldi, St. John’s backup center, was purged from the tournament by the NCAA because the standards are different in his native Italy than in the United States. No one--not his Italian club, not St. John’s and not even the NCAA--questioned his eligibility for taking the free plane trip, until the tournament.

A very similar thing happened to N.C. State’s backup center, Panagiotis Fasoulas of Greece, only he was declared ineligible very, very quietly. I have to assume the presence of a 7-1 player would have made quite a bit of difference, say, in the Kansas game.

--I don’t want to say I told you so, but Al has been on my case about this, so, Al, I told you so.

I called the Kansas-Michigan State game for CBS, and I’ve looked at the tape of the so-called clock controversy at least 15 times. It was a very unfortunate thing for both teams--for Michigan State because it could have hurt its chances of winning and for Kansas because it left the impression that it lucked into the victory.

My own theory--again, I’ve watched the tape at least 15 times--is that on the inbounds pass, the tape clearly shows the closest referee signaling the clock to start before the ball had touched a player inbounds. The clock operator saw this, turned the clock on, then off, and neglected to restart it. I don’t buy that story about any mechanical malfunction.

The bottom line is that the clock didn’t keep Michigan State from winning the game. The biggest injustice is for somebody to say, ‘Well, if you took 15 seconds off the clock, Michigan State is leading and should have won.’ That’s just not the case. Had there been 15 fewer seconds, everything in the last two minutes would have been affected.

--As far as Al’s special on NBC goes, if it wasn’t for me, there wouldn’t even be a special. I pitched that idea years ago when we were all at NBC, and they told me they couldn’t do it. Now, Al gets a special. It would be just like Al not to invite me to the barbecue he has every year for something that was my idea to start with.

Anyway, he’s going to get bombed in the ratings by the women’s championship game on CBS, where all the real basketball fans will be Final Four weekend.