Midnight for La Salle
The La Salle Explorers' magic runs out against bigger, stronger Wichita State.
LOS ANGELES - The good doctor didn't mean to be contrary.
Dr. John Giannini was not being obtuse, or ornery, or even particularly prickly the past 2 weeks, when he disputed the "Cinderella" tag affixed to his Explorers.
His dispute, of course, was meant to legitimize La Salle in his own players' eyes. He's practically a sports psychologist, for goodness' sake.
Don't let him mesmerize you with that soothing tone.
La Salle was as Cinderella a story as any team, ever.
Thursday night, just past midnight back East, Wichita State turned their horses back into mice, 72-58. It was a wonderful, impossible dance, no matter what Giannini said.
Denying the improbability of the run detracts from the joy of the moment. It makes three NCAA wins just three more wins.
One day, perhaps a year from now, La Salle should expect to win in March. Today, it should relish its celebrity.
Ever since La Salle won its play-in game, Giannini has insisted that La Salle's storied, ancient history nevertheless created a pedigree . . . as if those 11 other NCAA appearances gave the program royal blood.
After 21 years, things tend to erode, and to reset. Bobby Knight mattered when La Salle last did. More than 2 decades of disuse, and anything will revert to its original form.
Consider Virginia Commonwealth, the only other team to ride a pumpkin coach to the Sweet 16 from the play-in round. VCU had been to nine tournaments, including three of the last seven, before it sprinted to the Final Four in 2011. VCU had to play-in to earn an 11 seed.
La Salle was a 13, and only the sixth 13 to make it this far. None ever made it farther.
Yes, they make glass slippers size 13.
"This was our first Sweet 16 in almost 50 years for the school," said La Salle's D.J. Peterson. "No one ever thought we would be here at the beginning of this year."
Giannini's efforts to brand La Salle as something other than an oddity were gallant, if wasted. Even he understood this.
In their last six games of the regular season, La Salle lost to Temple, Saint Louis and Butler. After painful regular-season losses to Charlotte and Central Connecticut, Giannini admitted on Selection Sunday that he was set to prepare his team for a second straight trip to the NIT.
Cinderella coaches are good at NIT consolation speeches.
It's the Sweet 16 pregame rants that give them trouble . . . unless the focus is on how no one thinks you belong.
See what he did there?
Before their three wins last week the Explorers were 2-9 in the tournament since consecutive runs to the finals in 1954 and 1955. Tom Gola averaged more than 20 points and 20 rebounds in those two appearances.
The United States fought an endless war, righted its civil liberties and assassinated three heroes before La Salle won another tournament game, in 1983.
The country saw a space shuttle explode and watched the Berlin Wall fall before La Salle won again, in 1990; and the Explorers needed the No. 3 scorer of all time, Lionel Simmons, to get that one win.
Randy Woods took them back 2 years later, but by the time Simmons' knees wore out in the NBA in 1997, La Salle was sweeping up the cinders of college basketball.
The country impeached a president, was attacked, warred twice more and elected its first minority commander-in-chief, and still La Salle languished.
Only four times in the next 19 seasons did La Salle win more games than it lost.
Two of those seasons came under Giannini, the fairy godfather. And chief psychologist.
Giannini is not alone with his atypical background. Some of his staff have walked the road less traveled.
His top assistant, Harris Adler, was a licensed pharmacist. His staff sage, Horace "Pappy" Owens, is a former probation officer. His videographer, Matt Bloom, was the valedictorian of his high school class and graduated from Penn. Neither Adler nor Bloom played in college.
Nevertheless, Giannini's staff performed wonderful alchemy the past two seasons.
They welcomed back talented transfers Ramon Galloway and Tyrone Garland to play with Tyreek Duren, creating a wealth of Philly-bred backcourt talent that matched any in the country.
They convinced junior Sam Mills that he could do more than play defense.
They hardened sophomore forward Jerrell Wright into the kind of bruiser for which Dobbins Tech is known.
This is what took La Salle past Boise State, then Kansas State, then Mississippi.
That team did not show up in LA.
La Salle was tight and timid early, and Wichita, ranked in the top 23 six times this season, was ready.
The Shockers were a little longer and a little stronger and a whole lot deeper than anyone La Salle faced all season. A veteran team well weathered by a tough league and disappointment - Wichita lost its opener as a No. 5 seed last year - the Shockers played with a maddening patience and efficiency.
Seldom did they bother to dribble. They passed and cut and screened and never cared a whit who got the shot. Sometimes, it seemed, they never cared if they got a shot.
La Salle had no answer for the sort of high energy they faced from the Wichita forwards, especially 6-8 senior Carl Hall. Every ball around the basket was his, be it rebound or entry pass or loose ball.
Hall had 10 points . . . before 5 minutes elapsed. On 6-for-6 shooting. Wright and freshman Rohan Brown were badly overmatched.
Galloway missed his first six shots, including a rancid, air-ball Southwest Philly Floater and two no-chance threes. That helped the Shockers sprint to a 14-point lead, 17-3, as La Salle came up empty on seven straight possessions . . . and saw Wichita make seven of its first eight, six of them layups.
La Salle cut it to eight, but three blocked shots and two Wichita layups stretched it to 15 with 1:11 left in the first half. It was 16 at intermission.
La Salle had been outrebounded, 26-12; outshot, 16-8.
Two quick threes in the second half and the lead was 22.
La Salle cut it to 11, but the Shockers' 14th offensive rebound and put-back made it 13 with just under 10 minutes to play. Even for a team with magic on its side, it was just too much for La Salle.
The Explorers were run ragged, outclassed.
Midnight might as well have struck then.
At least they'd had a ball.
On Twitter: @inkstainedretch
