By John Feinstein
Sunday, April 2, 2006
INDIANAPOLIS
With 47 seconds left in the game, Jim Larranaga conceded it was midnight. He emptied his bench, taking his starters out with Florida's lead having reached 73-56 after the Patriots had gamely cut a 19-point deficit to nine with less than five minutes remaining.
As Jai Lewis, Lamar Butler and Tony Skinn came off the court for the final time Saturday night, the George Mason fans, sitting across from the bench, stood to applaud them. That was certainly expected. But they weren't the only ones on their feet. Behind the Mason bench, the UCLA fans were standing. The LSU fans also were on their feet.
In fact, almost everyone in the building -- the celebrating Florida fans being the exception -- was standing to salute the Patriots.
Midnight officially came for Cinderella a moment later, at 8:07 p.m. EST, and it was difficult for the George Mason players to accept. They had truly believed they were good enough to come here and win two more games. They certainly weren't intimidated by Florida or by the magnitude of the game or the circumstances. They trailed 31-26 at halftime despite not making a three-point shot and despite Joakim Noah controlling the inside defensively for Florida. Given that they had trailed North Carolina by seven and Connecticut by nine at the breaks, there was certainly no reason to lack confidence.
But one stat had to worry Larranaga: Lee Humphrey, the Gators' most dangerous shooter, was 1 for 5 from the field. Larranaga had been concerned enough about Humphrey's ability to shoot the three that he had considered installing a diamond-and-one defense yesterday to keep the ball away from Humphrey. He decided against it because he was afraid of telling his players on the eve of their biggest game that they needed a special defense to compete. For 20 minutes, Larranaga's decision appeared correct.
But the first two minutes of the second half changed that. Florida came out looking for Humphrey, and he hit three three-pointers in the first two minutes to give the Gators a 40-28 lead. In the meantime, Mason had gone cold. The Patriots' only two points of the first five minutes came on a pair of Jai Lewis free throws. By the time Will Thomas scored his first points of the game with 14 minutes 32 seconds left, the margin was 15 -- the same as it was at the finish.
"Looking back, maybe I should have put in the diamond," Larranaga said softly, standing in the hallway outside his locker room. "It's one of those things as a coach you have to let your gut guide you. My gut told me I didn't want to do anything to change our mind-set. At shoot-around today, I was convinced -- convinced -- we were going to play great. I didn't want to do anything to change the way we felt."
Even after Humphrey's barrage, the Patriots didn't die, even when the lead reached 51-32. They finally hit their first three-pointer of the night: Skinn's jumper from the left wing cut the margin to 61-50 with 6:07 left. When Folarin Campbell made another three to cut the margin to 64-55 with 4:48 to go, there was a buzz at the RCA Dome. There was plenty of time left and Mason, somehow, was still hanging in. One more three and the bigger, stronger, faster Gators might have panicked. In the first half, when a 16-6 lead suddenly became a 16-13 lead, the Florida players were bickering with each other as they came to the bench during a TV timeout.
Now, late in the game, knowing the crowd would jump right on the Mason bandwagon, the Patriots might have been one play -- one basket -- away from at least being in position to make one more memorable comeback.
"At that moment I thought we were going to win the game," Butler said. "We hadn't even played very well to that point, and now we've got it to nine. We just need a stop, maybe two, because we finally seemed to have some rhythm on offense."
They never got that stop. On the next possession, Skinn, who had been frustrating Florida point guard Taurean Green with his defense, stepped in to try to take a charge near midcourt. All night Green had been initiating contact off the dribble and Skinn had been pleading with the officials to call something.
"They kept telling me, 'Don't worry, we'll take care of it,' " Skinn said. "When I stepped in to take the charge, I knew it could go either way. If he calls it a charge, we would really have had some momentum."
Block-charge calls can go either way. To some, it looked as if Skinn might have gotten his feet set just before the contact. Dick Cartmell, a West Coast referee working here because basketball politics requires at least one West Coast official to be selected, made the easy call: block. It was the easy call to think the player from the power conference made the play and the player from the CAA didn't.
Except this was the Final Four, and the call pretty much ended any long-shot chance for another Mason miracle. In all likelihood, Florida would have won the game even if the call had gone the other way. The Gators dominated the offensive boards; they did a superb job contesting on the perimeter; and they were superb (12 of 25) from beyond the three-point arc. Larranaga put it succinctly and graciously when the call came up: "Calls don't decide games. They didn't decide this game."
Larranaga and his players had been convinced coming in that this game would be like the others in the tournament, that it would come down to the final minute and they would figure out a way at the end.
"If there's one thing I'll remember about this whole experience, it's the look on the faces of the players on the other teams at the end of each game," Butler said. "They were stunned."
He smiled sadly. "I wanted to see that look twice more."
He didn't get to see it. There won't be any movie. Instead of being one of the most anticipated sports events in recent years, Monday night will be just another final: Goliath vs. Goliath. David has finally gone home.
But George Mason isn't going home without extraordinary memories of a magical three weeks.
"It was still a magic carpet ride," Larranaga said. "I just wish it could have lasted two more days."
Butler cried coming off the court, the realization that the ride was over hitting him hard.
"It's hard to believe," he said, "that my career at George Mason is over."
What's really hard to believe is where that career ended -- in the Final Four, playing in front of 43,000 people. Butler had never been inside a dome before Friday. Last night, he played his final college game inside one with the entire country watching.
Lewis, who never backed away from any of the taller, quicker big men he faced, said it best: "We'll tell our children about this and our grandchildren about this. None of us will ever forget this."
They aren't the only ones who will never forget it. When people try to explain why this tournament is as special as it is in the future, many of them will say simply: "George Mason in '06."
Florida or UCLA will take home the national championship trophy Monday night. But when people talk about this NCAA tournament, most will talk first about the kids in green and gold who walked off in defeat with the cheers of most in the arena -- and the entire country -- still ringing in their ears.
Those cheers will resonate for years to come. As they should.
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