Speaking of teams from Texas, yesterday I rewatched the dunkathon game, uh vs Louisville. Remember, this was in high altitude Albuquerque. I bet the NCAA never schedules a final four in high altitude again. Bobby Knight was interviewed at halftime, and he claimed none of the athletes were suffering from the altitude...so billy packer heard this and made a huge point of showing Knight he was wrong in the 2nd half.
Packer had no dog in this fight on the floor, because he was a biased cheerleader for the Acc. LU was in MCAC, according to internet. I think all those years CBS had the wrong guy as color. Remember, packer and Al McGuire were part of a 3 man team for a time at NBC alongside Dick Enberg. Al was the man with unbridled enthusiasm, fun sayings, etc. Al should have been the #1.
Anyway, they showed players receiving oxygen on the bench, so obviously there was an issue. Made me think of poor guy Lewis on the following Monday night. He’s 61 years old, has worked his whole career to get to this point, and his much more athletic team has the lead in the 2nd half. His strongest most athletic player, Akeem, is suffering from the altitude and needs oxygen.
He has to decide whether to keep the gas pedal on the floor while Akeem sits and risk losing more players to lack of oxygen, or back off, slow it down, buy time so Akeem can get back in the game. Meanwhile, Nc state loves the game slower. Played right into their hands.
To me, bottom line is had that game been played in normal altitude, Uh wins. I definitely want uh winning this year over Baylor.