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Maybe sometimes it does. Two years ago, on a nightmarish reflex, Brown passed the ball to North Carolina's James Worthy, and Georgetown lost the national championship by a point. The memory is of Brown held fast afterward in Thompson's embrace. "One of Fred's mistakes was highlighted," said the coach. "Most of mine weren't even detected." Last week, on a creaky knee, with stabilizing Guard Gene Smith disabled completely, Brown saw the Hoyas through their few unsettling moments. Thompson hugged each man as he came off the court but swung Brown like a semaphore flag.
Being the first black coach to win the championship is a bittersweet distinction to Thompson. "It implies I am the first one who had the ability," he says, rather than one of the first who had the opportunity. "I'm thinking of Bighouse Gaines [Winston-Salem], John McLendon [Cleveland State] and many others. People are black or white by accident."
Houston lost very hard, particularly Nigerian Center Akeem Abdul Olajuwon. This was the Cougars' and Olajuwon's third consecutive sojourn to the last stop of the tournament, their second finals setback in a row. Wildly talented but still missing the subtleties of the game, and not just the game, Akeem wept and blamed his teammates. Though his Houston teams have won 562 games over 28 seasons, once again Coach Guy Lewis was denigrated as a bumpkin.
Meanwhile, Virginia's Terry Holland grew in wisdom over one season, improving from a miserable bum who could not win with three-time Player-of-the-Year Ralph Sampson to a bright tactician who went unexpectedly far without him. Kentucky Coach Joe B. Hall, who has won one national title since succeeding Adolph Rupp in 1972, knows about expectations. Of all the passionate basketball regions, Kentucky has the oddest priorities. In education attained, the state ranks 50th in the U.S., but no Kentuckian begrudges spending on the Wildcats.
In the second half of the semifinal game, a towering Kentucky team under construction for five years suddenly found that it could not throw the ball into the Ohio River from the deck of the Delta Queen. Georgetown's defense was staunch, but 30 misses in 33 shots came close to qualifying as an act of a righteous God. It was the most memorable performance of the season. —By Tom Callahan