THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 30, 1996 TAG: 9603300483
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Bob Molinaro
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - Are we having fun yet? At the Final Four, you'd better be careful who you ask.
``People say I'm irritable sometimes,'' Mississippi State coach Richard Williams said Friday. ``When people say that, I like to show them I can be.''
During the tournament, Williams has revealed an ability to detect slights in almost every question and the most harmless observations. This must be what comes of doing 10 years hard time in Starkville.
Then again, compared with Jim Boeheim, Williams is Chuckles the Clown. It was vintage Boeheim on display in the wake of Syracuse's surprising West Regional victory.
If you lose a game in the Final Four, he told his team of overachievers, ``You'll feel worse than you ever felt in your life.''
Friday, Mr. Sunshine tried hard not to treat the Final Four as if it were a hostage situation.
``I just want to make sure everybody realizes I'm happy, smiling,'' he said. ``There's been some question about that.''
One of the New York papers suggested that Boeheim might try to knock off the whining.
``I'd like to,'' he said, ``but that's not going to be possible this year.''
If any coach here has reason to think of the Final Four as a date with the grand jury, it is Rick Pitino, who coaches at a place where the national championship is the only acceptable conclusion to the season.
``You can't hide from it,'' Pitino said of the expectations heaped upon Kentucky. ``I tell the players, `You can't say there's no pressure. I have it. You have it.' ''
Pressure? John Calipari laughed Friday when somebody asked him about the pressure of playing Kentucky.
``We're going to let it go, let it fly, see what happens,'' he said. ``If they're knocking threes down through the rafters and off banners, we go home 35-2.''
When the Minutemen go home, it will be to Amherst, Mass., which was once a basketball Siberia and is now a fertile hoops kingdom because of Calipari.
At 37, the UMass coach is the Wonder Child of this group. He's come so far so fast that, naturally, some feel resentment.
In Pitino, Calipari had a Godfather who promoted him for a UMass job almost anybody could have had, but few wanted.
``I owe him a lot,'' said Calipari. ``When the game ends, I'll hug him, win or lose, and tell him how much I appreciate what he's done for me and my family. But until then, we're both going after the jugular.''
Calipari was 29 when he got the job, but it's not like he hasn't paid his dues. He has, though not through the installment plan, like Williams or Temple's John Chaney or so many others.
When he took over at UMass, the Minutemen hadn't had a winning season since 1978. They played in an old gym with squirrels and birds living in the rafters. During the Christmas holidays, players slept in the lobby of the student center to save the school money.
That was eight years ago, though it must seem like just yesterday to somebody who moves as fast, and thinks as big, as Calipari.
``I used to visualize us playing North Carolina or Duke in the Final Four while I'd be jogging,'' he says. ``And I'd dream about it at night. Then I'd wake up and I'd start preparing for Lowell.''
While it's a long way from Lowell to the Final Four and a No. 1 ranking, Calipari finds comfort by clinging to his up-from-the-bottom mentality.
``I'm just an ordinary guy, nothing special, who's trying to do special things,'' he said.
Special things? This season, the Minutemen beat five top-10 teams, including Kentucky. They won with a precision cutting-and-passing game that is not so much reminiscent of recent college teams as it is of the 1970 New York Knicks.
``I've got a group of kids,'' Calipari said, ``that met every challenge.''
Now comes another. ``None of you pick us to win it,'' Calipari said. ``We're big-time underdogs.''
It must be fun for UMass to think so. by CNB