8701140514
DETROIT FREE PRESS
870322
Sunday, March 22, 1987
METRO FINAL
1E
MITCH ALBOM
REPRINTED IN STATE EDITION March 23, 1987
Copyright (c) 1987, Detroit Free Press
THIS COLEMAN OF DETROIT HOPES TO TAKE NEW ORLEANS
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Derrick Coleman rose toward the basket, gently,
majestically, as if in slow motion, as if walking up a ladder . . .
He was walking up a ladder.
"I'm next! I'm next!" he yelled with each step, and when he reached the
top, he lifted the scissors and cut a loop, and the net continued to drop as
the crowd screamed in pleasure.
"NEW-OR-LEANS!" he led the chant. "NEW-OR-LEANS! . . .
Get high. The good way. The rebound and stuff and alley-oop kind of way.
That was the way Syracuse punched out North Carolina, 79-75, to earn passage
to the NCAA's Final Four Saturday -- by playing in the rarefied air where you
are the first to get your hands on the ball, and the last to touch it before
it goes in.
Between young Coleman from Detroit -- not to be confused with Coleman
Young from Detroit -- and Rony Seikaly from Greece, Lebanon and parts unknown,
Syracuse had 25 rebounds and 34 points. All were crucial. When the Orangemen
needed a board, Coleman seemed to pull it down. When they needed someone to
soar over North Carolina's J.R. Reid, Seikaly was ram-jam.
So appropriately, when Coleman stepped down from the cutting ceremony, he
handed over the scissors. And amid squeals of delight, Seikaly went up to
make sure the net came down.
Get high.
"You know," said an excited Coleman in the arena corridor afterward, "I've
never cut down a net in my life. I always wanted to do that. Back where I
grew up playing (at Hutchins Middle School in Detroit) we didn't have nets. Or
else they were metal."
He grinned and rolled his eyes. "You can't cut those, you know."
Boeheim finds a way So this was a first. And what better time? For this,
after all, was the first Syracuse team to reach a Final Four under coach Jim
Boeheim, a guy who has been trying for years. Never before had he gone past
the second round. This time he beat the team most experts figured would wear
the crown when this crazy tournament was over. And now his Orangemen will take
on Providence -- another surprise entrant -- for the right to play Monday
Night Basketball in New Orleans next week.
"When we started this tournament I told people we've got to rebound
better," Boeheim said. "They asked, 'How can you do that after you haven't
done it the first 30 games?' "
He looked over at Seikaly and Coleman. "We found a way."
The two players looked at each other and laughed. Minutes before they had
been center court, leaping into each other's arms, leaping and leaping, as the
last seconds of the victory ticked off. If college basketball truly brings
together the unlikely, here is case study No. 1. How different can you get?
Coleman, a babykins face atop an elastic 6-foot-9 body, grew up on street
ball, Motown, where you learn slam-jam with your basketball milk.
Seikaly, meanwhile, grew up in Lebanon and Greece, never played serious
hoop until his freshman year at Syracuse, and looks as if he could be
unloading fruit on some Mediterranean dock.
Yet they were the pair that did it Saturday, over and over, to the
deafening cheers of the orange-clad fans. Seikaly led all scorers with 26
points. Coleman was tops with 14 rebounds. No intimidation here. No question
who would shoot J.R. Or outshoot him.
"He's a good player," Seikaly said of Reid, in a way that suggested he
wasn't that good. "But we were so psyched for this game. We wouldn't be
intimidated."
"They wouldn't lose," was the way Boeheim would put it. And because they
wouldn't, North Carolina did.
Get high.
The Big Eastie boys So Syracuse goes on, and at least one Big East team is
assured of a spot in the final. This was the year the Big East was not
supposed to be strong. This was a Big Ten year. An ACC year. Try telling that
to Syracuse. When and if it comes down.
The Orangemen have beaten Georgia Southern, Western Kentucky, Florida and
the Tar Heels to reach this stage. They have done it with Coleman, just a
freshman, and Seikaly, who is still learning the game, and Greg Monroe and
Sherman Douglas, whose names are never mentioned in the same breath as the Tar
Heels' Kenny Smith's. But when the buzzer sounded Saturday, it was Smith
saying goodby to college basketball, and the Orangemen being mobbed by
reporters.
Basketball, in the end, is a game of heights.
"I was so juiced for this game!" said Coleman. He chuckled and slapped his
hands. On his head was a yellow cap that read "Final Four Fever."
"Where'd you get the hat?" he was asked.
"I don't really know," he said, touching it. "Someone snuck up there and
put it on, I guess."
He twisted it sideways. He grinned. New Orleans, New Orleans. It felt like
a crown.
COLUMN