Uneasy Lies the Crown, but That’s No Surprise

PHOENIX —  The crown wasn’t simply removed, it was swiped, on the run, jewels and history splattering everywhere.

The incumbents didn’t simply lose, they were chased out of office by squatters with different-colored shoes and a variety of moon shots, but sweaty uniforms stained the same dark red.

This is why March works. This is why the adjective describing this month’s college basketball barbecue is not one of entitlement, but insanity.

Madness, indeed, is a defending national champion Syracuse getting dethroned by Alabama on Thursday night, and nobody blinking but those kids fighting tears.

Madness is, for the 30th time in the last 31 years, college basketball not having a repeat national champion.

No other major college or pro sport can boast of such a stretch, and we do mean boast, because Thursday night’s 80-71 upset victory by the Crimson Tide over the Orangemen in the Phoenix Regional semifinals was more fun than a barrel of dynasties.

“A lot of teams don’t do it, only the elite can do it,” said red-eyed Gerry McNamara, the buzz-headed Syracuse guard whose 20 second-half points couldn’t save them. “We thought we were in a position to do

it.... “

But they weren’t. As history later reminded them, they never were.

The only thing that repeated Thursday was Alabama steals and Syracuse turnovers, 11 and 18 respectively, the champs handling the ball as carelessly as they once cut down the net.

The only encore Thursday was Alabama three-pointers, thrown wildly in the face of a stunned zone defense, eight in the first half alone, fearlessness from kids who obviously weren’t watching TV last March.

“It’s just so hard to repeat, because every team looked at us different, every team gave us their best shot, and we got that best shot from Alabama tonight,” Syracuse’s Josh Pace said.

With the NBA draft and increased outside pressures twisting young players like never before, will anybody ever be in a position to repeat again?

The only team since UCLA in 1973 to repeat was Duke in 1992, but that was because the Blue Devils were able to keep their core four starters for consecutive seasons. Think Christian Laettner and Grant Hill would have stuck around after that first title these days?

Carmelo Anthony didn’t. He was Syracuse’s best player last year, only a freshman, yet he was not on the America West Arena floor Thursday because he was with the Denver Nuggets.

Then there was Kueth Duany, the point guard on that team, who graduated.

And don’t forget Billy Edelin, the top reserve on that team, who left the team this winter suffering from that modern college sports malady known as, “personal reasons.”

Syracuse faced Alabama with only five players from the national championship game.

If you’re thinking it was a wonder they even discovered the Sweet 16, you’re not alone.

“This year’s team accomplished more than last year’s team accomplished, given what we had,” Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim said. “I’m at least as proud of this team as I was of that team.”

The squawking librarian ended the game in a pose stranger than last year’s fist pumps. He ended with his arms folded and shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m not sure how we’re able to win the games we won,” he said. “I don’t know how they did it.”

Same spirit, but different body, something painfully evident with each stumble.

The Orangemen won last year’s title with a suffocating zone defense.

Alabama walked out and promptly began shooting over it, four three-pointers in its first six trips down the court.

“They were leaving our shooters wide open so we could tell that we had to take the open look,” Alabama’s Antoine Pettway said.

Then, in an effort to make his offense more aggressive, Boeheim switched to a man defense and the quicker Crimson Tide swallowed it whole, with forward Chuck Davis scoring 17 second-half points inside.

“When they went to the man to man, our guys lit up,” said Alabama Coach Mark Gottfried, who knows about teams getting hot, himself a former Jim Harrick assistant at UCLA.

The Orangemen also won last year’s title with a certain Anthony-induced swagger under pressure.

This team, once it tied Alabama at 57-all, promptly brain-cramped on consecutive possessions, a bad pass followed by a 24-second violation followed by a quick miss.

“We made two or three real bad turnovers we just can’t make,” Boeheim said.

And Alabama, as is wont to happen in this tournament, made the school record books.

This is the first Crimson Tide team to make it to the Elite Eight. This is a team that lost 12 games during the season, including two of its last three.

Heck, this is a team with only one senior among its top four scorers Thursday, an eighth-seeded team that will be big underdogs to second-seeded Connecticut on Saturday.

“When I came to Alabama I wasn’t bashful about playing for a national championship, I think that is what our goals need to be,” Gottfried said.

As Jim Boeheim might say, be careful what you wish for.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.