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College Basketball Hits Fever Pitch
If It Is Hoops Hysteria, It Must Be March
By WILLIAM F. REED
Sports Illustrated
March Madness, that incurable disease peculiar to hoopaholics, actually begins on October 15, the first
day the NCAA allows college basketball
teams to practice. It builds during the late
fall and winter, making its victims increasingly feverish and irrational, until finally,
on or around March 1, it is a national epidemic.
Only when the calendar flips to April
does it begin to recede. However, even during the spring and summer, the disease often flares up, generally around all-star
games or the mention of recruiting news,
which causes the poor hoopaholic to begin
drooling and foaming at the mouth.
We mention all this as a warning, sort of
a public service, if you will. If you do not
want to become afflicted with March Madness, then you had better plan on spending
the month out of the country. Of course,
given the way basketball has become such a
popular international game, you may have
trouble finding a place where you can get
completely away from dribbling, dunking,
and Dickie, as in Vitale.
Vitale, the peripatetic television analyst,
is the perfect example of March Madness in
its most virulent form. Look at the perspiration gleaming on his bald pate. Notice the
way he has absolutely lost contact with reality. Listen to the hysterical, nonsensical
way he goes on and on and on about.. .about
what? Nobody in their right mind can really
understand what the guy is raving about,
but, then, whoever said hoopaholics were
in their right mind?
And then there is this editor for a perfectly respectable national sports publication
based in the Midwest. He comes from
North Carolina, as he insists on telling you
every five minutes, and he thinks Dean
Smith is directly responsible for having the
sky painted Carolina blue.
He loves to talk about Dean, which always comes out "Day-uhn" in his Carolina
accent, as in "Didja see thet Day-uhn won
again?" This guy loves the Tar Heels, but
mostly he loves hoops. One year he videotaped more than 200 games and kept score
for every one. And he not only admitted it,
Billy Packer provides precise insight into
postseason play.
he was proud of it! Bragged about it! By
now you are getting the idea, right? There
are a bunch of sick puppies out there.
There is another guy who is a big Kentucky fan. Back in 1978, when the Wildcats
were on their way to the NCAA championship, he spent an evening listening to the
radio broadcast of the team's victory over
Tennessee in Knoxville. This may not
sound strange until you know that he was in
Denver at the time. He called Louisville,
had his parents put the radio next to the
phone, and listened to the entire game. He
refused to say what his telephone bill was.
And here is another Kentucky story for
you. This season the Wildcats' new coach,
Rick Pitino, decided to do his postgame radio show at courtside, with the audio piped
over the Rupp Arena public-address system. This was for the benefit, mainly, of
the players' friends and family, who did not
get to hear the show while they were hanging around and waiting for the players to
come out of the locker room. But it caught
on so quickly that soon more than 10,000
fans were hanging around for the radio
show, which is more than the population of
a lot of towns in the state.
Indiana is another place where "March
Madness" is out of control, except there it
is known as "Hoosier Hysteria." No other
state loves basketball in all its various forms
quite like Indiana, where it is not uncommon for high schools to have gyms with
8,000 or more seats, and to fill them every
game.
In Indiana, the only thing bigger than the
state high school tournament is Bob Knight,
the coach of the Indiana Hoosiers. Knight
has gotten into his share of scrapes over the
years — every hoopaholic can recite them
by heart — but the fans in Indiana always
forgive him because they know he is essentially one of them — a conservative, smalltown guy who believes completely in winning through hard work, honesty, and the
man-to-man defense.
The crowds at Indiana, while noisy and
knowledgeable, are not as outrageous as
they are at, say, Duke, where the students
find relief from their rigorous academic
curriculum by making absolute fools of
themselves at basketball games. The Duke
students are clever, irreverent, sarcastic,
witty, and biting, but they usually stop just
short of bad taste, even where North Carolina and "Day-uhn" Smith are concerned.
The crowds at Indiana, while
noisy and knowledgeable, are
not as outrageous as they are at,
say, Duke, where the students
find relief from their rigorous
academic curriculum by making
absolute fools of themselves at
basketball games.
Earlier this season, of course, the
Dookies did get a little out of control when
it came to Georgia Tech's Dennis Scott.
When the once-chubby Scott was introduced, they pelted the floor with doughnuts, cookies, and other food, as if to remind Scott of his bad old habits. "Certainly
there's something to be said for being funny
and creative and cute," said Fred Barakat,
the Atlantic Coast Conference's supervisor
of basketball officials. "But there's a fine
line there. My concern is the physical welfare of the players."
Up until now we have been talking about
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