Raleigh, N.C — Look at the matchups, people say. Of course the NCAA Tournament selection committee did it on purpose. Lefty Driesell against Maryland? Quin Snyder against Duke? Kentucky and Duke bearing down on another region final in Philadelphia? Could it all have been a coincidence?
By all means, yes.
For every tantalizing matchup that happened there were five others that could have been just as good. The world of college basketball is simply too small.
Players transfer from one winning program to another. Coaches leave one school for another, or almost leave one school for another, or have assistants who go on to become a successful coach elsewhere.
A look, then, at some of the matchups that didn't happen this year.
You've got the link between players and schools. For example, Kansas didn't play Texas, though ex-Longhorn forward Luke Axtell might have liked a piece of the program that leaked his transcript records to the Texas media. Notre Dame, featuring Oklahoma transfer Ryan Humphrey, didn't play the Sooners.
North Carolina, its offense run by former Hampton (Va.) High All-American Ronald Curry, didn't play Hampton. And Arizona didn't play Princeton, surely to the relief of former great Bill Walton, who has a son on each team.
You've got the link between coaches and schools: Maryland's Gary Williams against Ohio State or Boston College, Kansas' Roy Williams against North Carolina, and Virginia's Pete Gillen against Xavier or Providence.
Don't forget Oklahoma State's Eddie Sutton against Kentucky or Creighton, or Ohio State's Jim O'Brien against Boston College. And how about Wake Forest's Dave Odom against Missouri, featuring assistant coach Lane Odom, Dave's son?
And, of course, you've got geography. Why didn't UNC-Greensboro open in Greensboro against Duke? Why couldn't Indiana State and Indiana have played? Or Charlotte and North Carolina? Or Xavier-Cincinnati?
Questions. For answers, listen to N.C. State athletics director Lee Fowler, a member of the 2001 selection committee, and the chairman next year.
"I don't care if anyone believes this or not, but we didn't try to set up anything," Fowler said. "I didn't know about any (of the intriguing) matchups in the second round or down the line until I saw the bracket laid out the next day in the newspaper. It's hard enough picking the right teams. The heck with setting up matchups."
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