AND then there were four.
The Final Four or national semifinals of the U.S. National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I men’s basketball tournament, featuring the Gonzaga Zags (36-1) vs. the South Carolina Gamecocks (26-10) and the North Carolina Tar Heels (31-7) vs. the Oregon Ducks (33-5), will be held on April 2 (Manila time) at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Phoenix.
The twin winners will then play in the 79th NCAA titular game to be held two days later also at the UPS. It will mark the first time that the championship will be contested in a Western state since Seattle, Washington played host to the national men’s basketball competitions in 1995.
In the regional finals, top-seeded and nationally second-ranked Gonzaga crushed Xavier University, 83-59, in a clash of small Jesuits-run schools to top the West and earn a Final Four ticket for the first time in Zags history; seventh-seeded South Carolina downed fourth-seeded Florida, 77-70, to win the upset-filled East Regional title; top seeded and nationally fifth-ranked North Carolina edged No. 2 seed Kentucky, 75-73, to clinch the South Regional diadem and qualify for the Final Four for the second year in a row (NC lost to Villanova in the 2016 finals); Oregon upset top seed and nationally third-rated University of Kansas, 74-60, to cop the Midwest crown and punch a last-four berth for the first time since 1939.
Meanwhile, my favorite team, the University of California of Los Angeles Bruins, exited after an 86-75 loss to the University of Kentucky in their Sweet 16 matchup in the South Regional. Freshman De’Aaron Fox registered a career-high 39 points – the most ever by a first-year player in NCAA tournament history and the highest individual score since another Wildcat alum Tayshaun Prince netted 41 against Tulsa in the 2002 showcase.
Fox totally outplayed another high-profile frosh, the Bruins’ 6-foot-5 point guard Lonzo Ball, who wound up with just 10 points on 4-for-10 shooting. College ball’s Division I leader in assists with 7.6 dimes a game along with 14.6 points and 6.0 rebounds every time out. Ball is one-and-done and headed to the National Basketball Association (NBA) next season. He is expected to be a top-three selection in next June’s NBA draft.
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What is more important – team success or individual accomplishment?
Most prominent coaches will pick team success first. Individual accomplishment is simply icing in the cake.
However, don’t tell that to Devin Booker, a second-year shooting guard with Phoenix who chalked up a career-high 70 points in the draft lottery-bound Suns’ 130-120 road loss to the playoffs-bound Boston Celtics last March 24.
In posting the highest individual score in the 2016-17 NBA wars and the ninth 50 points-or-more performance overall this campaign, the 6-foot-6 Booker shot 21-for-40 from the field, including 4-for-11 from the three-point area, and 24-for-46 from the free-throw line in 45 minutes of service. He totaled 51 second-half markers, including 28 in the fourth quarter when his Suns teammates intentionally fouled and utilize their timeouts to help Booker jack up his output (his second-half score bettered Houston’s James Harden’s 36 and Cleveland’s Kyrie Irving’s 35).
Booker’s awesome 70-pointer broke the previous Suns’ scoring mark of 60 set by Tom Chambers on March 24, 1990 and was the highest individual score in the NBA since the Los Angeles Lakers icon Kobe Bryant dropped 81 points on the visiting Toronto Raptors on January 22, 2006.
At age 20 years-plus, the University of Kentucky product became the youngest NBA player ever to score 70 or even 60. Booker will only turn 21 on October 30. Los Angeles Lakers legend Jerry West had a 60 during the 1961-62 season when he was 23 years old.
The 70-point explosion bettered Booker’s old personal mark of 39 (which he accomplished thrice) and eclipsed Golden State backcourter Klay Thompson’s career-best 60-pointer (21-33 FGA, 8-13 3-FGA, 10-11 FTA) in just 29 minutes and three seconds of court time as the Warriors shellacked the visiting Indiana Pacers, 142-106, last December 5. Previously, no player had scored that many points in fewer than 30 minutes of action in the 24-second shot-clock era.
Thompson’s scoring feast was the most by a Golden State player since Hall of Famer Rick Barry exploded for 64 against Portland on March 26, 1974. He joins Barry and his co-Hall of Famers Wilt Chamberlain and Joe Fulks in the Warriors’ elite 60 points-or-more list.
The question is: How happy can an NBA player really be when he scores 70 but his team gets the shorter end of the final score?
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