Top five NCAA Tournament goats
Yes, Webber's timeout is our clear winner
THE LIST
By Joe Concha
NBCSports.com contributor
updated 12:03 p.m. ET April 5, 2004
Tonight’s NCAA Final between Georgia Tech and UConn promises three things: A 9:21 PM tip-off, a sappy recap of the tournament after the game to the tune of “One Shining Moment,” and in the eyes of at least one campus, a scapegoat to hang the loss on.
It is harsh to single out a college kid for a blunder they he may have made in the heat of competition on one the world’s grand stages that is the NCAA Tournament. But since The List is built on delighting in the misery of others for your entertainment, sympathy and compassion needs to be pushed aside.
No. 5: Jason Williams (Duke vs. Indiana, 2002 regional semifinal)
Indiana’s Dane Fife should be occupying this space after inexplicably fouling Duke’s Jason Williams on a three-pointer with four seconds left and his team up 74-70. But Williams -- a 67 percent free throw shooter and unanimous All-American -- snatched the moniker of goat from the jaws of Fife by missing the potential game-tying free throw. Duke’s bid to be the first repeat national champions since, well, Duke ended abruptly. Williams left the court in tears.
“It flashed right through my mind, 'My God, he's going to have to live with this for the rest of his life. He'll be called a goat. They'll never let him forget it,'" Dan Fife, Dugan’s father said after the game. "It was like Bill Buckner missing that easy ground ball for the Boston Red Sox in the World Series or Chris Webber calling timeout for Michigan in the NCAA Tournament."
No. 4: Derrick Coleman (Syracuse vs. Indiana, 1987 national championship)
Less than a year out of high school, Coleman was dominant on defense against Indiana in the 1987 national championship game. He had three blocks and 19 rebounds. But with 28 seconds remaining, Syracuse up by two and the shot clock turned off, the Hoosiers had no choice but to foul Coleman, a 69 percent free-throw shooter on a team that shot only 64 percent from the line. The freshman missed badly to the right on the front end of a one-and-one.
Twenty-four seconds later, Indiana’s Keith Smart hit the eventual game winner. The Orangemen were in such shock that it took them three seconds to call timeout after the made shot, eliminating any chance of getting off a decent shot to win the game.
"I'm making a promise that we'll be back to the Final Four," Syracuse guard Sherman Douglas said after the game. We've got two horses in Rony (Seikaly) and Derrick, plus the other people we'll have. We're a great team and we'll be back."
Douglas’ prediction came to fruition, albeit six years after Coleman graduated.
No. 3: Rick Pitino (Duke vs. Kentucky, 1992 regional final)
Then-Kentucky coach Rick Pitino is considered one of the greatest college coaches of all time. But in the epic 1992 regional final against Duke, he will always be remembered for what he didn’t do in the final seconds after his Wildcats had taken a one-point lead with 2.1 seconds remaining.
The only way Duke had a chance to win was for a full-court pass to be caught and almost immediately shot. By preventing Grant Hill a good look down court for the inbounds pass, hindsighters say, Pitino should have placed someone on Hill to prevent the 80-foot pass to Christian Laettner from being so accurate 18 feet from the basket. From what I’ve heard, Laettner hit the shot to win the game, although I have yet to see a replay of that shot or anything …(insert rolling of the eyes here).
In the post-game press conference, Pitino tried to explain his decision not to place a defender against Hill's pass by wrongly stating that the play started on the sideline instead of the baseline. When he recognized his mistake, Pitino apologized, paused for a moment and said, "My mind is elsewhere right now."
He then asked that the next question be directed toward players Jamal Mashburn or Richie Farmer. "My mind is in a total fog right now," Pitino confessed.
No. 2: Fred Brown (Georgetown vs. North Carolina, 1982 national championship)
Back then Georgetown actually featured light blue in its jerseys as opposed to its current color combo of navy and gray. Perhaps this was the reason why the Hoyas’ Fred Brown threw the ball directly into the hands of North Carolina’s James Worthy in the final moments of the ’82 title game in New Orleans.
With 12 seconds remaining, Michael Jordan buried a 17-foot jumper to put the Tar Heels up by one. Brown rushed the ball upcourt to set the offense up for a final shot, but in his haste blindly threw a pass right into Worthy’s hands with no Georgetown player within 10 feet. Worthy, the tournament MVP, dribbled out the clock to seal the championship.
"My peripheral vision is pretty good," Brown said. "But this time it failed me. It was only a split second. But, you know, that's all it takes to lose a game. I knew it was bad as soon as I let it go. I wanted to reach out and grab it back. If I'd had a rubber band, I would have yanked it back in.
"He didn't steal it. I gave it away.”
No. 1: Chris Webber (Michigan vs. North Carolina, 1993 national championship)
When Chris Webber called a timeout when he had none at his disposal, the mental lapse possibly cost perhaps the most talented team ever to lose two straight title games its best shot at a championship.
The irony is that Webber should not have been provided the opportunity to call timeout when he grabbed a rebound off of a missed free throw with 20 seconds left and his team trailing 73-71. A few seconds before the timeout call, Webber was mentally caught between passing and dribbling after the rebound and blatantly traveled (in replays, the entire North Carolina bench could be seen frantically motioning for a travel call).
After the non-call, Webber decided to dribble the ball up court instead of outletting to guard Jalen Rose. He eventually got caught in a North Carolina double-team near the Michigan bench, where he had no other option but to get rid of the ball. Webber instead panicked and called timeout, which resulted in a technical foul that gave the Tar Heels two free throws plus possession. The Webber mistake may have given another championship to Dean Smith at the Superdome on another fluke.
"If I would have known we didn't have a timeout, I wouldn't have called one," Webber said. "Whether I heard voices or not, that doesn't matter. I called one and we didn't have it and it cost us the game."
Joe Concha writes regularly for NBCSports.com and is a freelance writer based in New York. E-mail him at joeconcha@hoboken.com.
![]()
advertisement
More newsCBT: Instead of waiting a season, the Bulldogs will play in the A-10 starting with the 2012-13 year.
