Indiana guard Dane Fife didn’t even have to wait for the question to be asked.
“Nope,” he said, shaking his head emphatically. “Nope.”
The player who had spurned offers from Michigan State, Duke and North Carolina to play for Indiana never had imagined being this close to the ultimate prize.
“To sit back on the couch and see the Dukes and the Arizonas in this position,” Fife said incredulously. “Here we are.”
Here would be Rupp Arena, site of some of the most dramatic upsets in college basketball. It was at Rupp that Villanova knocked off Georgetown in 1985 to claim the national title. And it was at Rupp that UNC-Charlotte beat Michigan in 1977 in its only appearance in the Final Four.
Saturday, when fifth-seeded Indiana takes on 10th-seeded Kent State in the South Regional final, Rupp Arena again will be the site of an improbable outcome.
In a bracket that was home to such college basketball heavyweights as Alabama, Oklahoma State, Pittsburgh and Duke, almost no one expected the Hoosiers and the Golden Flashes to be the last teams standing.
Win, and the Hoosiers will be headed to their first Final Four since 1993.
Seems simple enough?
It won’t be.
Last year Kent State sent the Hoosiers packing early, upsetting them in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
Hoosiers coach Mike Davis, who at the time still had the “interim” tag in front of his title, said this Golden Flashes team is even better.
“Watching the selection show, I didn’t want to play Kent State in the first game,” Davis said. “I didn’t want to have to play them at all. They almost cost me my job last year.
“I was hoping they would put us in totally different brackets.”
No such luck. But Davis, too, brings an improved team to the rematch.
Forward Jared Jeffries, a year older, can play anywhere on the floor. Point guard Tom Coverdale, though battling a sprained ankle, should be able to play. Last year he missed much of the game with a hip pointer.
Most importantly, Fife said, the Hoosiers are tougher.
“We just had several players who couldn’t handle physical pain,” Fife said. “I think the physical intensity is probably as important in this game as mental intensity, and you have to be prepared for bangs.”
Especially in this matchup. Though the focus may be on Jeffries–who averages 15.5 points and scored 24 in Indiana’s regional semifinal victory over Duke–and Kent State’s Trevor Huffman–who scores 16.3 per game and shoots 43 percent from the field–the defenses may decide the game.
Indiana limits opponents to an average of 62.3 points a game. Kent State is almost as stingy, allowing 63.5 points.
Golden Flashes guard Demetric Shaw was named defensive player of the year in the Mid-American Conference, Fife in the Big Ten.
And both teams hit the boards hard, with Kent State averaging 37 rebounds a game, Indiana almost 36.
“We know it’s going to be a battle underneath,” Golden Flashes center Nate Gerwig said.
This battle, though, isn’t just about rebounds and loose balls, layups and dunks. This battle, for both teams, is about placement and position.
Before this season, Kent State had won only one game in the NCAA tournament–last year’s victory over Indiana. For the Golden Flashes, a trip to the Final Four would not only validate what they have accomplished–including 100 victories in the last four years, 56 in the conference–but finally put to rest the notion that a midmajor program, as it is classified, can’t compete at the highest level.
For Indiana, a victory would signal that the Hoosiers, two seasons after legendary coach Bob Knight was dismissed, have moved out from under his still heavy shadow.
Knight hadn’t gotten a team to the Elite Eight since 1993. And Fife, in two years playing for Knight, had won only two NCAA tourney games. So this is rarefied air.
“I never in my wildest dreams thought I would actually be here, and that I would actually be talking to 50 reporters,” Fife said. “It was really all a dream, a fantasy.”
Saturday, with a victory, the Hoosiers can make their dreams come true.
South Regional
Kent State (30-5) vs. Indiana (23-11)
When: 6 p.m. Saturday; WBBM-Ch. 2, WSCR-AM 670.
How they got here: Kent State knocked off Oklahoma State, Alabama and Pittsburgh–in overtime–to make it to the Elite Eight. Indiana, after victories over Utah and UNC-Wilmington, pulled off the biggest upset of the tournament, downing Duke in the Sweet Sixteen.
Quick look: Indiana is bigger and stronger, but Kent State is as tenacious and determined as the Hoosiers. Both teams rebound and defend well, and both can score. The team that gets a few bounces to go its way will likely come out on top.
Avani Patel.
