Tournament Casts Season in New Light

The United States’ largest office pool gets underway Thursday.

If baseball’s Opening Day is the first sip from a tall glass brimming with a refreshing drink that will last all summer, the first round of the NCAA tournament is a shot glass of nitroglycerin. Throw it down, and . . .

Boom! Georgetown 50, Princeton 49.

Boom! Oklahoma 72, East Tennessee State 71.

Boom! Siena 80, Stanford 78.

Slam, bam, jam!!! Forty-eight hours of almost continuous college hoops on ESPN, baybee!!!

If you can’t bear to miss Thursday night’s West Region game between Nevada-Las Vegas and Arkansas-Little Rock, you can catch it on tape at 3:30 Friday morning. Enjoy it while it lasts, though. CBS takes over the proceedings next year, and with “Nightwatch” and all ... . Well, you know.

But back to this season. The season of the ACC-Big East Challenge series and the Big Eight challenge series. The season Florida’s Gators lost their bite and Connecticut’s Huskies sharpened their teeth. The season in which Purdue returned to a boil and Michigan State again was magical. The season of Kenny A and Jimmy V. The season of Bo Kimble and, sadly, of Hank Gathers.

Thursday is the beginning of the end. After 19 days of pure, uncontrived emotion, a national champion will be crowned in Denver on April 2. Will the winner have been one of this season’s best team? Maybe. But with a one-loss-and-you-go-home format and no teams without at least one identifiable weakness, it is possible none of the favorites will have the Rocky Mountain high.

Georgetown, seeded third in the Midwest Region but vulnerable at small forward and when it can’t impose its style, plays Texas Southern in its first-round game Friday at noon in Indianapolis. Virginia, seeded seventh in the Southeast Region, will try to extend Terry Holland’s coaching career by defeating Notre Dame on Friday at 9:30 p.m. in Richmond.

The Cavaliers are not the only team with a possible home-court advantage. Connecticut, seeded first in the East Region, plays Boston University Thursday at Hartford Civic Center -- site of seven Huskies games this season. Adding a little spice to this matchup is a feud between Connecticut Coach Jim Calhoun and Boston University Coach Mike Jarvis that most recently dates back to what the Huskies call The Snow Game.

In December 1986, en route to Boston, the Huskies’ bus crashed into an unoccupied car on the Massachusetts Turnpike. The bus was seriously damaged, and Calhoun phoned ahead to ask that the game be canceled. Forget it, came the reply. The game started two hours late, and the Huskies lost. After the game, Calhoun said he never would play the Terriers again.

Now Connecticut has an opportunity for revenge and to demonstrate it can contend for the national title without an excellent big man.

Louisiana State has two big-time big men, Shaquille O’Neal and Stanley Roberts, as well as all-American guard Chris Jackson. But the Tigers play Villanova Thursday night in a Southeast Region game in Knoxville, Tenn. And the Wildcats have an 9-0 record in NCAA tournament opening-round games under Coach Rollie Massimino.

Michigan State, seeded first in the Southeast, also plays Thursday in Knoxville. This group of Spartans is inexperienced when it comes to NCAA tournament play, but the opening opponent is 16th-seeded Murray State. No 16th-seeded or 15th-seeded team has won a first-round game since the tournament was expanded to 64 teams in 1985.

Of course, Princeton and East Tennessee State came close last season. Both are back this year as 13th-seeded teams. The Buccaneers, with 6-foot-11 junior center Greg Dennis and 5-7 junior point guard Keith “Mister” Jennings, play Georgia Tech Thursday night in Knoxville. The Yellow Jackets are viewed as a possible title contender, but with a poor game from one of their three guards -- Dennis Scott, Brian Oliver or Kenny Anderson -- they could be in trouble.