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    Beyond the Boxscore

    Block fight: Derrick Williams & Tristan Thompson wage psychological warfare atNCAAs

    Chris Baldwin
    Mar 18, 2011 | 9:34 pm
    • Derrick Williams understands the responsibilities of a game changer.
    • Tristan Thompson is asking to play the opposing team's best player one on one.Is a game changer being born?
    • Keith Benson crumbled once the block was on him instead.

    TULSA, Okla. — Tristan Thompson knows he has one shot to make a first impression that sticks. One first, best chance to get in the other guy's mind like a nagging doubt that never leaves.

    When his man rises for his first shot of the game, Thompson wants to be there. Whether it's with a full hand, a few fingers or a well-timed flick, Texas' freshman forward plans to swat that first shot away. Thompson's already learned that sometimes it's the first shot that matters most.

    That thought almost seems contrary to everything the NCAA Tournament is all about at first blush. After all this is the tournament of buzzer beaters, the one-and-done masterpiece of chaos where anything can happen, the stage where tycoons find real heartbreak (Louisville's Rick Pitino) and work harder than they ever thought to avoid it (Kansas' Bill Self, who coaches on after Boston University's pesky fight Friday night). But a 20-year-old Canadian turned Texan knows better.

    "It's a psychological thing," Thompson says, standing in the Texas locker room after the Longhorns' tourney-opening 85-81 turn back of 13th seed Oakland University. "I do try to always get the first one. Because if you block a guy's first shot, he's thinking about you all game."

    Oakland University center Keith Benson isn't just thinking about Thompson — he probably ought to start charging Texas' big man rent for all the space he's taking up in his cranium. Thompson got Benson's first one and a 6-foot-10 NBA prospect suddenly started shrinking in front of 12,000 pairs of eyes at the cozy BOK Center.

    If you don't think that changed everything, you weren't paying close enough attention. Truth is that the outcome of No. 1-seed Kansas' 72-53 win over 16th-seed BU was in doubt for much longer than the Texas-Oakland game, regardless of how different the final margins ended up being or how loud the Austin alarmists cry.

    But now Texas faces a near-pro — and he'll be a lottery pick whenever he wants — at the art of the blocked shot and the mind games that go with it. Arizona sophomore forward Derrick Williams is as built as Thompson is lanky. More importantly, he's already a master at the killer timing that Thompson is still developing.

    Sure, sometimes it's the first shot that matters most. But sometimes it's the last. Sometimes, the best player on the floor simply has to save the game.

    That's what Williams did to set up fifth seed Arizona's super Sunday matchup with Texas. He swooped in and went after Memphis guard Wesley Witherspoon's once-open shot in the frantic, final seconds, went after it with authority after a rebound off a missed free throw gave the Tigers an improbable chance and threatened to turn Arizona coach Sean Miller's fouling-up-three strategy into disaster.

    Williams got there though. Memphis' great shot traveled less than a foot, met meaty palm.

    Arizona 75, Memphis 73.

    "I just went up and made a hard play on the ball," Williams says.

    Williams' play shows a breathtaking display of talent. But don't miss the brain behind it. In that end-game mayhem, when a lot of people around him were freaking out, Arizona's game changer made a calculated decision in an instant.

    "Honestly with a second or two left on the clock, most refs don't call that type of foul, especially when you're trying to make a hard play on the ball," Williams says. "Earlier in the game, they might have called a foul because (Wesley) did fall to the ground. But late in the game, most refs don't call that."

    Williams knew that the referees didn't want to decide the game. So he did.

    Arizona's lifeline probably didn't realize that Jim Burr, the same official who was part of the crew that infamously botched the end of the Rutgers-St. John's game earlier this month, was under the basket for the fateful non-call. But Derrick Williams leaves little else to chance.

    On a night when Memphis' bright, boyish coach Josh Pastner threw a box-and-one and a triangle-and-two — almost unheard of defensive strategies against a big man — at Williams and took the best player out of the game at times, Williams still finished with 22 points and 10 rebounds. He still made the plays that won the game.

    A huge late 3-pointer. The block that ends it.

    "There is a reason why I voted Derrick Williams National Player of the Year," Pastner says.

    A Force Awakening?

    Thompson isn't on top of anyone's Player of the Year ballot. But he's coming fast. His teammates saw what Benson was in for long before the unassuming Oakland University player did.

    For in the days before Texas' first game in the NCAA Tournament, the freshman asked for the biggest defensive assignment. He wanted Benson. One on one. Don't you dare think of sending any double teams. He's mine.

    "You don't see a freshman doing that," Texas forward Jordan Hamilton says.

    "He was pretty insistent too," Texas forward Gary Johnson chuckles. "He knew Benson had been talked about as an NBA player. Tristan was going to be mad if coach sent any double teams."

    Rick Barnes didn't send any double teams. The Longhorns coach never even had to think about it. Not with Thompson jumping around in Benson's head.

    "I knew about his shot blocking ability," Benson says. "I don't think it surprised me. It just happened."

    Just like Williams just happened to Memphis. That's what the best players do in March. Game changers prevail in the NCAA Tournament, big school or small. All the better if you can do it with the block.

    There is no more intimidating play in basketball. Nothing shakes a confident player more than getting his shot swatted back in his face.

    Thompson wants Williams' first shot on Sunday. But Texas has to be wary that Williams will deliver the last one.

    "It's funny because we've been on Tristan a little this year about guys having good games against him," Johnson says. "We kid him a lot. He was determined to make sure we couldn't say anything today."

    Shot blockers don't need to listen to outside noise. Not as long as they're in their man's head.

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    Beyond the Boxscore

    Houston in line to get more Final Fours after 2016: NCAA officials expect it tobecome a regular

    Chris Baldwin
    Apr 5, 2011 | 7:07 pm
    • The success of Bracket Town meant almost as much to the NCAA as the success atReliant Stadium.
      Photo by Bruce Bennett
    • NCAA official Greg Shaheen praised Houston's Final Four efforts.
    • Kemba Walker wasn't the only one who flew high at this Final Four.
      Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

    When even NCAA officials are making jokes about the lowest-scoring NCAA Championship Game since 1949, you know they had a good time in Houston.

    That's what happens in the Final Four wrap-up press conference Tuesday. Greg Shaheen — the highest-ranking NCAA official in the room — opens his portion with a crack about the offensive woes Monday night.

    Shaheen notes that if more people had the motor shown by Houston Final Four Local Organizing Committee interim executive director Doug Hall then "we might have had a game last night where both teams scored 60 points."

    "You were on overdrive," Shaheen says to Hall.

    Yes, there is a whole lot of love in the room when the Houston LOC and the NCAA meet for the last time before this 2011 Final Four becomes part of the record books — and thoughts begin to slowly turn to the 2016 Final Four that will be held in Houston and the 2015 regional at Reliant Stadium before that.

    It does not figure to end in 2016 though. Shaheen — the NCAA's interim executive vice president of championships and alliances — tells CutureMap he expects there will be even more Final Fours in Houston in the future.

    "I don't see any reason why Houston wouldn't become a regular part of our rotation," Shaheen says.

    Shaheen would be the first to say that the NCAA's Basketball Committee will make the final call like usual on future sites, but he says the committee is thrilled with Houston's performance.

    "This is what a showcase event should look like," Shaheen says of a Houston event that set the Final Four record for total attendance (145,747 at the two nights of games) and also drew an estimated 140,000 to the Big Dance Concert Series (the concert figure is based on an "approximation" of the number of people who came through Discovery Green during all three concerts that lasted several hours each) and another 49,000 to Bracket Town at the George R. Brown Convention Center. "This is what a national championship should feel like.

    "It should be exhausting the next morning and be a seamless effort."

    Later Shaheen quips, "UConn is not the only winner here."

    Instead, Texas might be the biggest winner of all. For the Lone Star State has emerged as the NCAA's big event darling. Texas will host three Final Fours in a six-year stretch (Houston in 2011 and 2016, Dallas in 2014). And that type of dominance is not expected to end anytime soon either.

    "In the modern era, for both the men's and women's championships, I don't know that any state has emerged like Texas," Shaheen says. "And I think you have to include San Antonio (host of the 1998, 2004 and 2008 Final Fours) in that equation as well. There are a lot of things Texas offers the championships that are unique."

    Standing off to the side in the ballroom at the Hyatt Regency — which served as the headquarters for the coaches convention during Final Four week, housing all the big names who weren't coaching in the games — Robert Dale Morgan is sure of what makes Houston such a lure.

    Morgan, the president and executive director of the 2011 Houston Final Four LOC, held a similar position for Houston's 2004 Super Bowl and many credit his vision with helping the city see its big sports event potential, with a Super Bowl, Major League Baseball All-Star Game, NBA All-Star Game, Major League Soccer All-Star Game and now a Final Four all having been held here since 2004. Not that Morgan wants that recognition.

    He chooses to sit in the crowd rather than on the stage at the wrap-up press conference. He probably could have blended in to, wearing a Houston Final Four hat with his suit, if so many people on the stage didn't point him out. Bob Beauchamp, chairman of the Houston Final Four LOC, calls Morgan, "the best in the business."

    "Having six million people who care," Morgan says in explaining how Houston's positioned itself as the host city with the most. "Having a dozen Fortune 500 companies. And oh by the way, we have really great weather 300 days out of the year."

    Trash Talk Between Friends

    Houston hands off the Final Four to New Orleans, next year's host. The transition is a bit of intentional symbolism by the NCAA which wants to recognize how closely the two cities are linked and the Bayou City's role in helping after Hurricane Katrina.

    This will be the fifth Final Four that New Orleans has hosted and the city's LOC executive director John Koerner can't help but point out to Houston, the new city in "the rotation," how great every one of the NCAA Championship Games held in the Big Easy has been.

    "New Orleans has hosted some of the most memorable finals ever," Koerner says. "We had Michael Jordan's shot, Keith Smart's shot, Chris Webber's infamous timeout and Hakim Warrick's block at the buzzer."

    And from its first Final Four, Houston has? Well, a whole lot of clangs — and Butler's record-low 18.8 percent shooting.

    Not that anyone in the NCAA is holding it against the Bayou City. The organization credentialed 1,387 media members for this Final Four, loved the visibility brought about by having it in one of the America's biggest cities. Even if you have to wonder how much everyone was into it locally. The TV rating in Houston for the unsightly Butler-UConn national championship game only ranked 30th out of the 56 major media markets.

    Shaheen's not dwelling on that. Instead, he's sticking around Houston to take in more of the city without the pressures of the mega event.

    "I don't have a flight home," Shaheen says, knowing that Southwest Airlines' grounded jets have made it much harder than usual to land one last minute. "So I'll be staying here two, three, four, five more days. I may be looking to get an apartment and just become a resident."

    Shaheen laughs. Who says NCAA suits don't have a sense of humor?

    When they are happily in Houston, they sure do.

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