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Nantz
Likes UConn...Sort Of
CBS
Announcer 'Wouldn't Be Shocked' If Duke Loses
 By
Randy Williams
Most
observers have already awarded the national title to Duke but CBS
Sports' Jim Nantz, who'll broadcast Monday's game with Billy Packer,
says he "wouldn't be shocked" if Connecticut defeats the
Blue Devils.
"My gut feeling all along (has been) that UConn
might walk out of here with a national championship," Nantz,
in St. Petersburg, Fla., told Ian Eagle on New York's WFAN radio
Sunday morning. "The only thing was that I had not seen Duke
in person until last night and what really startled me was the speed
and quickness of Duke.
"Sitting on the floor and watching in person is so much different
from watching on television. It looks like Duke is a little more
physical than UConn. I think, though, it's gonna be a beautiful
game. I hope it comes down to a last possession, you know - that's
all we ever root for."
CBS definitely got what it wanted with a matchup of the top-ranked
teams, a point Nantz didn't debate.
"It is seldom that we get it this way. It just doesn't seem
to happen that often and I was debating with some people last night
about this maybe being - on paper - the best matchup we've had
going into a championship game in the '90s.
"The only thing we could come up with to compare might have
been '93 when North Carolina and Michigan squared off in New Orleans
- they both were one seeds - but I think this one's even more attractive
because you've got the two teams that traded off the #1 ranking
all season long," Nantz said, recalling that the Huskies
held the top spot for 10 weeks.
Nantz expects UConn to put defensive specialist Ricky Moore on William
Avery, Moore's former Augusta (Ga.) Westside High School teammate,
saying "Ricky might just, more than anyone, not only know how
to defend Avery but how to get in his head a little bit." But,
Nantz thinks putting pint-sized guard Khalid El-Amin on Duke
star Trajan Langdon is a tough matchup.
However, Langdon might not be as great a weapon Monday night
as he was in the regular season. Nantz talked about the senior sharpshooter's
tough times in St. Pete.
"I was here last year in the regionals and I remember he was
just awful down here in games against Syracuse and Kentucky. I went
back and looked it up and he was 4-for-16 and last night he was
3-for-9. So, here's the greatest shooter in Duke history, according
to Coach K., and he's 7-for-25 now, 28% in this arena.
"For some reason there are guys who can't shoot in certain
buildings and I'm starting to believe that's a trend you can't ignore."
Bulletin board stuff for Mr. Langdon.
But, despite all the stars who'll play Monday in St. Petersburg,
Nantz agreed with Eagle's opinion that low-scoring Connecticut
center Jake Voskuhl may be the key to the Huskies' title hopes.
Voskuhl will likely be charged with trying to stop Duke center Elton
Brand.
"I don't know how (Voskuhl's going to cover Brand, but) he's
got a tremendous height advantage over Brand. I'm 6'3" and when
I was talking to him, I felt like I was looking Elton Brand in the
eye…Brand is just so physical and Voskuhl has a tendency to yield
the cheap foul. They've gotta keep him on the floor and he's gonna
need somebody else coming over to help him," said Nantz, adding
that Voskuhl has never scored 20 points in a game at any level.
Looking back at the tournament, Nantz told Eagle he expects the
mid-major schools to continue to emerge in the Big Dance.
"The mid-level conference teams that will be in the tournament
in years to come will have four-year players in the program and
often start three or four seniors that have gelled and matured in
those years that are so critical for young kids.
"They're
gonna be 22-23 year olds going against - take a Duke team. That's
probably a poor comparison because there's just so much talent and
coaching there - but this team really consists of mainly sophomores
when you're talking about Battier and Brand and Avery. That's what
the future of college basketball is and it's good," he said.
Nantz continued, "People thought that the game was gonna be
stripped of all its luster with the way that the NBA had siphoned
off so much of its talent but it hasn't hurt the game really at
all. People are still into the stories, they're still into the
Cinderellas. Would the college game still be interesting if you
had the great pros? Possibly.
"(But) I think that people still get into stories like Gonzaga
and Wally Szczerbiak and Miami and to think that this year that
we got all the way to the point of one team, one unthinkable program,
being one game away from going to the Final Four, that being Gonzaga.
That's gonna become a reality here in the next five years; we're
gonna have somebody from a school - a size, a program that size
- take that next hurdle and this was definitely a step in that
direction this year," Nantz opined.
Not that this season is over. Yet.
Other quotes
of interest from Sunday's WFAN conversation:
- On Saturday's
Final Four losers, Ohio State and Michigan State, Nantz
called it "a bad omen" when the Buckeyes left Scoonie
Penn's uniform in Columbus and said Michigan State was "one
scorer short" in its quest to win the national title. Nantz
was particularly impressed by the Buckeyes, whom he expected to
lose to UConn by double digits.
- On the atmosphere
in the gigantic Tropicana Field Dome, where fans sit far from
the court: "It seemed like the building…the seats were so
far back, slowly sloping back, not a steep angle where you felt
like the seats were right on top of you. I thought maybe it lost
a little bit of the ambiance and energy we usually have at a Final
Four."
Photo
courtesy of CBS
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