Sidelines
WHERE? Where will they go? How high? Go ahead, let your imagination run wild. It's Selection Sunday, and for the second season in a row we're left with the image of that WAC Champions sign raised to the heavens over Tulsa, and today we'll be glued to the television again. We just can't wait. Selection Sunday doesn’t
matter when you have SavoBut it's different this time. They are. Everything is. These aren't stolen moments this time around. They've proved that now.
The glass slipper shattered in Dayton last spring. This team wears combat boots.
Hawaii was tired, so tired yesterday, you could see that through the TV screen. They had their bid in the bag -- didn't they? They did. This space said yesterday that they had a foul to give, a mulligan, and Saturday didn't matter. They were allowed to lose.
But they weren't going to.
This was Tulsa, and that meant that somebody was going to get their heart broken. UH stayed alive and stayed ahead and slipped the punches and held off the Hurricane. They won the marathon. They won it all, again. This wasn't magic. The shots didn't fall, the zone never came. This was work. This was Tulsa.
This team needs a breather now. It'll get a short one, which is the best college basketball good news-bad news combination in the world. This long, crazy road trip only gets longer and crazier, and we at home can only count down the hours 'til we see where they go and who they get.
On Selection Sunday, this is a different kind of anticipation, because this is a different team.
Where? How high? They would tell you it doesn't matter, which is what basketball players are supposed to say. But for some strange reason you get the feeling that this time they just might be right.
Everything is different now, but yesterday's picture was beautifully the same. Golden Corral. Golden ticket.
HE WAITED. He was patient. He sat out the games they told him to sit out. Then he took the late game benching. He had things to learn, and one of them, apparently, was that they had already won without him.
But he did what the man wanted. He played defense, and he rebounded. And then he even gave up his spot at the head table. He let everyone else become a star. He kept the title in name only, and everyone else flourished for it.
And so Carl English blossomed, and Mike McIntyre went crazy, and Mindaugas Burneika had big games, and everyone did. And they all know it. Everyone knows it now. What a great time of year to have that in your back pocket.
He picked his spots, while all this was going on. Half his 20 points per night came from free throws, it seemed, methodical, plodding work, and not his usual beloved free-flowing basketball dementia.
And meanwhile he became even better, but mostly at things we might not notice. Which was exactly what Riley Wallace wanted all along.
But then there he was, finally. In Tulsa, there he was. Heading into the big dance, here he is. Right on time.
He's still Savo. He is Savo, again.
CBS is going to love him.
Kalani Simpson's column runs Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
He can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com