Anything Can Happen

There's a reason why I love basketball, and Saturday was a perfect example.

The Florida Gators, ranked second in the nation after a school record 17-0 start, finally lost. It happened to be a road game against Tennessee. Chris Lofton, a sophomore guard from Kentucky, scored 29 points in the Volunteer win.

Lofton, as our hard-core football fans know, was once a top high school prospect at wide receiver and free safety, but once he decided to stick to basketball, he drew interest from Cincinnati, Louisville, Notre Dame, and Arkansas. He went off the board and selected Tennessee, a program hardly known for success on the men's side, with the possible exceptions of Allan Houston, Ernie Grunfeld, and Bernard King.

On the women's side, The Lady Vols have won 13 SEC titles and six national championships under Pat Summitt. The Tennessee men have never gone deeper than the regional semifinals, and haven't even reached the tournament since 2001. Point being, the Vols are lucky to have Lofton at all.

Bruce Pearl is the Tennessee men's head coach. He was named to the position in March of 2005, after nine Division II Tournament appearances at Southern Illinois and a Sweet 16 berth at Wisconsin-Milwaukee last year, complete with wins over Boston College and Alabama. Pearl was one of the hottest coaching properties in the nation last spring, and was linked to a variety of top-level job openings, Marquette among them. He does carry baggage - don't ask him about Deon Thomas - but he paid his dues. Point being, Tennessee is probably lucky to have him, too.

On Saturday night, Florida's Lee Humphrey missed a three-pointer with six seconds left that would have put the Gators up by one. Humphrey, as was spelled out in the Orlando Sentinel on Saturday morning, spends more time shooting threes in practice than any other Gator, often calling up a student manager at all hours of the night to work on his stroke in a darkened gym. He is by far the Gators's deadliest long-range shooter. Point being, the Vols were lucky he missed.

But he did, and Florida is unbeaten no more.

On the same night, the Orlando Magic hosted Sacramento at the TD Waterhouse Centre. The men in blue had won two in a row, a home game against Washington and a roadie at Charlotte. Hardly games on which Brian Hill would hang his hat. Coming off the Steve Francis suspension, the Keyon Dooling suspension, another Grant Hill injury, and a series of pointless articles in the local press detailing the Magic's struggles at the ticket window, the Magic were desperate for good news. Otis Smith may indeed be named the full-time general manager in the days to come; team president Bob Vander Weide is not nearly as likely to move back to Orlando full-time. None of that matters, anyway. What matters is wins and losses. As one member of the Magic PR staff told me last week, "if this team wins three in a row, the buzz comes back."

On Saturday, faced with an opportunity to win three in a row, the Magic did it. Steve Francis shook off a 4-for-20 shooting night to knock down four free throws in overtime, wunderkid Dwight Howard pulled down 15 rebounds (again), and on the strength of what Brian Hill called "our best half of basketball defensively all year long," Orlando pulled it out, 83-78.

Perhaps more importantly, the box score showed paid attendance of 15,766 -- two grand short of capacity. Win three in a row, and the buzz comes back.

Why am I a basketball guy? Because you just never know. Anything can happen, and fortunes turn on a dime. Florida loses, and Orlando wins. The natural tendency is to overstate the importance of the Gators' loss, and undervalue the Magic's win. I happen to think we're looking at building blocks for both teams.

March Madness? The NBA Playoffs? Don't rule anything out. In basketball, you just never know.