A Season Inside

by John Feinstein

  Manning then made the play of the half, stealing the ball from Sieger, driving across the lane on King and flipping the ball in over him as he was going down. Normally impassive, Manning was shaking his fist after that one and Kemper was rocking. That made it 50–48 before Ricky Grace tied it once more. Manning missed a three-pointer at the buzzer and walked off with his hands clasped on the back of his head, angry with himself. He had 14 points and 8 rebounds. It was 50–50. Twenty minutes to decide a championship.

  If the players weren’t exhausted, everyone else was. The game was reminiscent of Villanova-Georgetown in 1985 when the Wildcats had shot 79 percent to pull one of the great upsets in history. Kansas had shot 71 percent in the first half—and was even.

  “We have to slow them down some, guys, you know that,” Brown told his players. “If the break is there, I want you to take it, but be prepared to run some time in our halfcourt offense.”

  They understood. There wasn’t much more for Brown to say. They had heard it all. “Twenty minutes,” he said simply. “We just need one more great half.”

  To Manning, that meant him. “If you lose, it’s because the best player doesn’t play well enough,” he said. “I had lost us some games during the year. Now it was down to this. It was my job to make sure we got what we came for.”

  Once again, the start was not encouraging. After Harvey Grant had hit a jumper to put OU up 52–50, Manning was called for his third foul, a charge, only twenty-five seconds into the half. He would stay in, though. He had to.

  The third foul wasn’t going to deter Manning. He put Kansas ahead with a rebound basket and hit a double-pump scoop inside to make it 58–54. By now, Oklahoma had dropped its press to a halfcourt trap on most possessions. Kansas went cold briefly. Grace hit a three-pointer and Sieger hit one more. That gave Oklahoma the lead, 61–60.

  Blaylock stole the ball from Barry for a lay-up and Sieger stole it from Pritchard. He missed, but King rebounded and scored. It was 65–60 and Kansas looked frazzled. Strangely, though, the game was right where the Jayhawks wanted it. By dropping the press, Tubbs was playing into Brown’s hands. Kansas didn’t want the racehorse pace that Oklahoma loved. Now, the game was being played at a walk.

  Piper hit a jumper to break the Kansas drought and Manning beat the defense with a shoulder dip and roll. He was fouled and tied the game at 65 with 11:33 left. They seesawed to 71 each. Pritchard hit a jumper to make it 73–71 and then Manning stuffed King. Television took a time-out with 4:26 to play. In the huddle, Brown was screaming. “Look at the clock,” he said. “We’ve got ’em now if we just keep playing like this. They haven’t been through this before. We have. Okay?”

  Okay. Down came the Jayhawks with a chance to go up by four. Manning took the ball on the right side, drove the middle, found his right hand up against a body, put the ball in his left hand and hit a short hook. It was the shot of the tournament. Kansas led 75–71.

  Grace missed. Manning—who else?—rebounded. Piper hit a jumper as the shot clock buzzer went off with 3:05 left. It was 77–71 and, suddenly, it was the Jayhawks’ championship to win or lose. Oklahoma didn’t quit. Grace cut the lead to 78–75 with fifty-eight seconds still on the clock. Piper tried to inbound to Pritchard. But Blaylock was too quick. He stole the ball and flipped to Grace, wide open for a three-pointer to tie. No good. Manning rebounded and was fouled. He had just missed twice, proving he was human and a little too pumped. Now, still quivering, he missed the free throw. A Blaylock jumper cut the margin to 78–77 with forty seconds left.

  Oklahoma called time to set up the press once again. The Sooners were a tired team. Tubbs, who had used his bench effectively all year, had not used it at all in the second half. This was as strange as his decision to drop the press. Brown had gambled, subbing the entire game, and now it had paid off. His team was fresher at the end.

  Kansas got the ball inbounds and up the court. The Jayhawks spread the floor and, with the shot clock off, the Sooners had to chase. Finally, with Tubbs screaming at them to foul, Blaylock fouled Scooter Barry. This had not been Barry’s best game. He had missed a lay-up, made a bad turnover, and committed a silly foul. But if there is one thing Rick Barry’s son can do it is shoot free throws.

  There were sixteen seconds left. Tubbs called time to let Barry think about it. When he walked back to the line, Barry was itching to get the ball. He practically snatched it out of Clougherty’s hands. The first shot swished. It was 79–77. But the second one was short. Manning and King scrambled after it. One more time, Manning was a tad quicker. He picked up the ball, just as King piled into him. Now the clock was at fourteen seconds.

  Throughout this sequence, Ed Manning never moved. He was frozen on the bench, almost afraid to move for fear he might change what was happening on the court. “All I was thinking,” he said later, “is ‘When is this game going to end?’ It just seemed to go on forever.”

  The end was near. Manning stepped to the line, taking deep breaths to make sure he didn’t get overexcited. “Sometimes at the end of a game when he’s a little tired he forgets to bend his knees on the foul line,” Ed Manning said. “During the last time-out I just reminded him.”

  Danny Manning remembered. He bent his knees and pushed the shot up. It hit nothing but net. Again, he bent his knees and shot. Again, it was a swish. Kansas led 81–77. Grace raced downcourt and, with Kansas not wanting to foul, quickly hit a lay-up to make it 81–79. Seven seconds were left and Oklahoma used its last time-out.

  Piper would inbound again. In his mind, he could still see Blaylock stealing the pass fifty-one seconds and several of Ed Manning’s lifetimes ago. When no one flashed open immediately, he called time quickly to avoid a five-second call. Oklahoma was one steal from getting back in the game. Kansas was one pass and two free throws away from finishing it. This time, Brown made certain the ball would get to Manning, ordering a screen for him as he came to meet Piper’s pass.

  Piper threw the pass, a half-lob, and Manning jumped to catch it. Grant, a half-step behind, fouled him quickly. With five seconds left, the national championship was in Danny Manning’s hands. Oklahoma was out of time-outs. If Manning made both shots, even if the Sooners scored, they would be helpless. The clock would run out.

  Manning knew all this. “It’s over,” he told himself. “It’s over.” Ed Manning, several years older than he had been nine clock seconds earlier, folded his hands as his son walked up to shoot. Brown took off his glasses, wiped his brow, and put them back on. In the stands, Darnelle Manning said a silent prayer for her son.

  Kemper Arena, except for the far corner where the Oklahoma fans were trying to make noise, was almost quiet. Everyone was standing. Manning dribbled, looked up and shot. The ball hit the top of the front rim, slid over it—while Ed Manning’s heart stopped beating for a split second—and dropped through. It was 82–79. Now, it came down to the last shot of Danny Manning’s college career. This was exactly the way he wanted it, the way he had always dreamed it. Like every kid who had ever held a basketball in his hands, Danny Manning had played this scene out thousands of times. Make this shot and win the national championship.…

  This time, Manning didn’t need the rim. It was 83–79. The celebration began as Grace threw up one final shot. Manning, playing right to the buzzer, grabbed the rebound and turned around, the ball in his hands as if to say, “Is there anything else I need to do?”

  There was nothing. Except jump for joy, fall into Piper’s arms and go find his mother. “If Danny plays basketball for twenty years in the NBA and wins ten titles, he’ll never feel like he felt that night,” Ed Manning would say. “All I could think of was how close he came to leaving and how sad it would have been if we had missed out on this.”

  It was a poetic ending to a superb basketball game, one worthy of the setting and the stakes. Kansas had achieved one of the most dramatic victories in tournament history, not just on this final night but throughout the nineteen days. They had come a long, long way from
taking the court in Lincoln, wondering if they could beat Xavier.

  “If we had lost in the first round it wouldn’t have shocked me,” Brown said. “But right from the beginning it seemed like one of those destiny things, starting with Xavier getting booed because of what they said about Lincoln and us all of a sudden being like a home team. Then all the upsets and us getting to play our last three games against teams that had beaten us before.”

  It had fallen into place for the Jayhawks. But their victory had little to do with luck. It had to do with grit and perseverance and an extraordinary coaching job by Brown. It had to do with Manning becoming what his coach and father had always pushed him to be, the best player. On the final night he had 31 points and 18 rebounds in a memorable performance. Four years after the beginning, he and Brown could part friends, knowing it had all been worth it for both of them.

  “You play for him, there are going to be times you want to kill the guy,” Manning said later. “But there is no question about his coaching ability. He’s the best.”

  And now Manning was the best, a part of history. The 1988 NCAA Tournament would be known forevermore as “Manning’s tournament.”

  The parties on the last night are generally quiet. Everyone is tired and a lot of people have early planes to catch. The Kansas fans were the exception, of course, staying up well into the night to celebrate. Brown retreated to his room to contemplate his future, changing his mind about whether to go to UCLA or stay at Kansas several times before dawn.

  In the press hotel, they showed a replay of the game. It was closing in on 3 A.M. when Manning grabbed the last rebound one more time. Outside, Dick Vitale still wasn’t tired. As the screen flickered off, his voice could be heard very clearly.

  “So, who is Number One preseason? Illinois? How about Duke? …”

  The basketball season was officially over. Only 194 days were left until October 15th.

  EPILOGUE

  The weeks following the end of the 1987–88 college basketball season were almost as hectic as the Final Four. Almost every day, or so it seemed, a new story of major import to the sport broke.

  It started two days after the Kansas victory when Lefty Driesell made it official: He was coming back to coaching. He signed a five-year contract at James Madison and hired his son, Chuck, as one of his assistants. “My wife thinks I’m crazy doing this,” he said a few days later. “I had a great setup at Maryland and now I gotta go out and get players and work all kinds of crazy hours again.”

  He smiled. “I couldn’t be happier.”

  There was little doubt of that. The day after Driesell was formally introduced as coach, Miami Coach Bill Foster, an old Driesell friend, was awakened at 6:30 in the morning. It was—you guessed it—the Lefthander. “I need players,” Driesell said. “Is there anybody left out there who’s any good?”

  Lefty was truly back.

  There were other changes. Shortly after the Final Four, much to his surprise, Rick Barnes got a phone call. Would he be interested in interviewing for the Providence job? Certainly, Barnes was interested in interviewing. He didn’t figure he had any chance of getting the job but there was nothing to be lost by interviewing for a Big East job after just one year as a head coach.

  “I never really thought of it as anything but a formality,” he said.

  “I thought someone had thrown out my name and they had a list of like ten people and I was on that list. But then, a couple days after my interview they called me back and asked if I would come up and meet with the president. That was when I said, ‘Whoa, this is getting serious.’ ”

  It was serious. Barnes left his second meeting with the Providence people convinced he was going to be offered the job. He had mixed emotions about the situation. On the one hand, this was the Big East, one of the prestige leagues in America. On the other hand, he felt a sense of commitment to George Mason and to his boss, Jack Kvancz. “I went to George Mason with the idea of really moving the program into the big time. After this season there was no doubt in my mind that we were going to get it done. There was definitely part of me that wanted to stay and do it.”

  But Barnes is a pragmatist. Even Kvancz, who desperately wanted him to stay, told him that if the job was offered he had to take it. After his meeting with the president, Barnes got a phone call from Rick Pitino, who had left Providence a year earlier to become the New York Knicks coach. “Do you want this job?” said Pitino, who was working informally as a consultant for Providence. “You have to be prepared to say yes if they make you an offer.”

  Barnes understood. He talked to his wife, Candy. If this happened it would mean four moves in four years: George Mason to Alabama, Alabama to Ohio State, Ohio State to George Mason, and George Mason to Providence. Tough under any circumstances. With two very young children, even tougher. Candy Barnes understood. This was something her husband had to do.

  The offer came on a Wednesday night. Two days later, Barnes was introduced as the new coach. Providence billed him as a southern version of Pitino. He was the same age—thirty-three—that Pitino had been when he took the job and he was enthusiastic and boyish just like Pitino. But Barnes knew that to expect a Final Four team in two years, which was what Pitino had produced, was unrealistic. And yet, in Providence, they often expect miracles. Barnes figured his getting the job was pretty close to being miraculous. Producing the kind of team people were going to expect would be at least as miraculous.

  Jim Valvano stayed at N.C. State. But Charles Shackleford did not. After initially saying that he would return to State for his senior year, Shackleford changed his mind. Given that Shackleford was not exactly a candidate for a Rhodes Scholarship, there was some thinking that he didn’t have very much choice about returning. This had happened in 1986 when Chris Washburn had initially announced his intention to return only to learn at the end of the semester that he could not do so. But that wasn’t the case with Shackleford. If he had gone to summer school he could have returned. He chose not to. Three summers was enough for him.

  Shackleford’s leaving was a blow to Valvano, although not a fatal one by any means. With Shackleford back, State would have had two potential first-round draft picks playing inside—Shackleford and Chucky Brown—two outstanding sophomore guards in Chris Corchiani and Rodney Monroe, and great depth. Now, defenses would be able to concentrate on Brown inside. Instead of being a top ten team—at least—State would now be a good, solid, not great, team.

  In truth, though, this didn’t break Valvano’s heart. Working with Shackleford had never been easy and he had enough confidence in his coaching ability to believe he would still put a very strong team on the floor. And then there was still the question of motivation. Valvano had been at State eight years. His interest in UCLA was a reflection of his never-ending search for a new challenge. He had won ACC championships and a national championship and had won twenty or more games in six of his eight years at State. He would win more than twenty games, no doubt, again in 1989. But so what?

  In late April, on the road to make yet another $8,000 speech, Valvano woke up in the middle of the night pouring sweat, his chest pounding. As it turned out, he was just overtired. But it was enough of a scare to convince him to cancel most of his May speaking schedule and take some time out to go to the beach with his family. At age forty-two, Jim Valvano was rich, famous, and confused.

  Larry Brown was not all that different from Valvano. If Kansas had lost the national championship game to Oklahoma, Brown would have been the coach at UCLA before the week was out. It was, without question, the job he wanted. But with all the celebrating that was going on in Lawrence, Brown just couldn’t bring himself to say, in effect, “It’s been great, thanks for the memories and the Mannings and we’ll see you.” Instead, after reaching a verbal agreement with UCLA, he changed his mind and told a packed press conference in Allen Field House that he was staying.

  No one was more shocked to hear this news than Ed Manning. He had assumed almost since the last st
rand of net had been cut in Kansas City that Brown would be moving to Los Angeles and he would be going with him. “When he said, ‘I’m staying at Kansas.’ I almost fell over,” Manning said. “I thought the deal was done.”

  If UCLA had been willing to wait a week, it would have had Brown. But having been publicly rejected in one form or another by Valvano and Mike Krzyzewski, UCLA wanted to get the announcement done and introduce the new coach right away. Brown simply couldn’t deal with that. “It was a no-win situation,” he said when it was over.

  In truth, it was a no-lose situation. If he stayed at Kansas, Brown would be staying in a place where he had been a hero before the national championship. Now, with the banner that would hang in Allen Field House, his future there was assured. Sure, Manning would be gone, but with the national title in his portfolio, Brown’s chances of recruiting top players would be increased greatly. If he had gone to UCLA, there would have been a major rebuilding job to do (if you can rebuild anywhere, it is at UCLA). Either way, Brown was in a good situation.

  Naturally, he saw it the other way. Either way, he was missing out on something. It may be that coaches simply have to think there is something else out there for them to do or they can’t go on. In leading Kansas to the national title, Brown had done a coaching job that would be talked about for decades. It was something to savor and enjoy. He did just that—for two months. Then the San Antonio Spurs waved huge dollars at him—$3.5 million for five years—and Brown was packing again, searching once more for that elusive perfect job.

  As for Danny Manning, his NCAA performance erased any doubt about his being the No. 1 pick in the draft. Some had wondered if he didn’t have a small dose of Ralph Sampson Disease—amazing talent, but no heart—but after the NCAAs, that question was answered forever. Manning spent a good part of April running around the country collecting awards. He was gracious and patient and acted as if each award was the most important thing that had ever happened to him. But by the time he collected the final award in New York on April 20, he sighed and said, “I’m glad this is the last one.”