At Least These Four Have a Shot

Today’s unconventional wisdom . . . The Final Four: The right teams are in, give or take Bobby Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers. (Me? You can take them.) It’s a balanced field, too: The team with the least talent is the best-coached (Kansas), the team with the best talent is the least-coached (Michigan), the team that has gone the longest without a championship has the best chance of winning this one (Kentucky), and the team that will probably produce the most substantive NBA careers still has Dean Smith. So how will it all shake out? Handicapping New Orleans, in order of preference . . .

Kentucky: It has been 15 years since the last Wildcat strike, 15 years since Jack Givens wrested the NCAA title game away from Duke. Since then, Kentucky has gone to probation hell and back, with a pit stop in purgatory (“Christian Laettner, at the buzzer . . .”) last March. The Cats’ dues are all paid up, no one has come within 20 points of them in the tournament, Jamal Mashburn will be the best player under the Superdome and Rick Pitino has had a year to learn how to defense the last-second 70-foot lob. Spell this Final Four C-A-T .

Kansas: Pluses: the backcourt of Rex Walters and Adonis Jordan, the mid-game improvisations of Roy Williams, the knowledge it can beat North Carolina in a semifinal (see 1991). Minus: that 64-49 loss to Cal State Long Beach at Phog Allen Fieldhouse, still the most amazing result of the season. In recent history, no team that has lost to Long Beach at home by 15 points has gone on to win the national championship.

North Carolina: Dean Smith will get you this far; 1993 marks his ninth trip to the Final Four. But he has gone the distance just once--and only then when Georgetown’s Freddie Brown hit the open man with a game-ending pass, and the open man was James Worthy. The Smith system might be right for the ACC, but it’s entirely out of step in a Final Four--aspiring to mistake-free, dispassionate, mechanical basketball while the rafters are rocking and the other three teams are jagged on pure adrenaline. If Michigan and North Carolina traded coaches, both teams would have better chances this weekend.

Michigan: The Wolverines are 30-4 and Bill Walton calls them the biggest underachievers in NCAA history. He might be right. Steve Fisher’s loose collection of lottery picks can play above the rim, but you have to wonder what’s going on above the shoulders. If they spelled the way they played, the nickname would read The Fabb Phiv .

Duke: They didn’t make it, I know. Force of habit, I guess.

The U.S. Davis Cup team: Baseball is in trouble, you bet, but the current condition of American men’s tennis needs just as thorough a flushing. We send Brad Gilbert and David Wheaton down to Australia to defend the ’92 Cup? That’s the best we can do? Yes, it was, because Andre Agassi has promised to hold his breath until the USTA fires captain Tom Gorman, Pete Sampras cares only about Pete Sampras attaining the world’s No. 1 ranking and Jim Courier, if you’ve seen--and heard--the Nike ad, presumably had to stay home for guitar lessons. “You have to congratulate the Americans,” France’s Guy Forget deadpanned after Australia’s 4-1 triumph. “They did everything to lose, and they succeeded.” In this context, baseball is beginning to look a lot healthier. Deion Sanders, he’s some team player.

John McEnroe: Calling Roto-Rooter. The USTA should have made this call in December, after the Gorman era had run its rocky course, and parted ways on a high note. The players don’t respect Gorman, they want McEnroe--and do you think Agassi could ever again sleepwalk through a Davis Cup decider with Mac raging on the sideline and threatening to kick his bandanna all the way back to Las Vegas? You can call McEnroe many things, “apathetic” isn’t one of them, especially when the task at hand is the Davis Cup. The USTA is afraid Captain Mac will be bad for its image, but what kind of image is Out-In-The-First-Round?

The Mighty Ducks: They hire Jack Ferreira and Pierre Gauthier, they instantly assemble the premier sports front office in Orange County. Then, the Anaheim indoor soccer franchise moves to Atlanta, claiming it was squeezed out of Anaheim Arena by the Ducks. I tell you, this hockey team is on a roll.

The Fightin’ Kings: Wayne Gretzky rips the front office. Barry Melrose and Luc Robitaille swap expletives behind closed doors in Winnipeg. Kelly Hrudey stops talking to the media. In hockey, this is known as peaking for the playoffs.

The Ottawa Senators: Jack Ferreira’s worst nightmare, still pointless on the road. But Senators will be Senators. They can’t get anything done in Washington . . . or New York . . . or Montreal . . . or . . .

Reggie White: Memo to Rams: The 49ers are interested. What would it hurt to at least make the pretense of acting interested as well? I mean, just fly him in and buy him lunch. Or maybe Reggie will agree to go Dutch. Then have him pose with Chuck Knox for pictures. Then have Knox say something like, “We hope we can work something out because we owe it to our fans to do more than just sign Irv Eatman and Fred Stokes.” Then Reggie can go. Humor us, that’s all we’re asking.

Lance Parrish: Bad week for ex-Angels.

Lee Stevens: Really bad week.

Bert Blyleven: Not gone yet, but these things do tend to come in threes.

Gary Gaetti: “I’m going to make a prediction,” Chili Davis says. “I predict Gary Gaetti is going to bounce back and have a Gary Gaetti-type year. Everybody’s writing him off, or so it seems. But after you hit rock bottom, you just get fed up with all the B.S., you kick yourself in the butt and you do whatever it takes to get back. I’ve watched him this spring and that’s what he’s doing.” Fine. But with Rene Gonzales at third base, J.T. Snow at first base and Chili at DH, where is Gaetti supposed to play? Is it too late to suggest catcher?

Bobby Cremins: It’s been four days. What’s keeping him?