A devil from the lake submerges the Tar Heels

Alabama's Grant Nelson, straight outta North Dakota, leads his club to the West Regional final.

Grant Nelson

Devils Lake is a town of 7,000 in central North Dakota. The lake that is its namesake was almost dry, once upon a time. In the early 90s it began to swell, and by 1999 it had doubled in size, and then it tripled, and in 2016 it had wiped out 131,000 acres of farmland and cost the state $36.2 million. But when that door closed, another opened, and Devils Lake became a utopian fishing spot. In fact, when the winters came, it became the ice fishing capital of North America. Tourist money softened the blows. When you depend on the land, you take what it gives you.

North Dakota is not a haven for basketball players, although it has bred some of the best coaches, including Jud Heathcote, Lute Olson and Dale Brown. Phil Jackson played  at North Dakota, but ex-Laker Mark Landsberger, the foil for one of Julius Erving’s most spectacular flights, is probably the most notable player to come from the Peace Garden State.

But the NCAA tournament is suddenly a fascination for the folks of Devils Lake. Grant Nelson, who learned the rudiments of the game before he went on an unforeseen growth spurt, is playing for Alabama, and on Thursday night in Los Angeles he became a lake monster, swallowing up the bewildered, top-seeded Tar Heels of North Carolina.

Nelson, at 6-foot-11, inundated Carolina in the second half. He drove past Armando Bacot, the celebrated center, for two reverse layups. He found smaller defenders and took them to the hoop. He worked pick-and-rolls with Mark Sears, and he broke free for a traditional 3-point play that put Alabama ahead, 87-85, with 38 seconds left. North Carolina had a chance to tie, but Nelson picked up R.J. Davis, the first team All-America guard, on a switch and forced him into a hopeless miss. The Crimson Tide won, 89-87, and will play Clemson in the West Region final on Saturday. For either, the subsequent trip to the Final Four will be its first.

Nelson scored 19 of his 24 points in that charmed second half, one in which Alabama seemed to gain energy with each trip downcourt. Notoriously deficient on defense as the SEC season went on, the Tide contested nearly every Carolina shot. Davis was 0 for 9 on 3-pointers, and the Heels missed 30 of 40 shots overall in the second half. On the possession just before Nelson’s critical and-one, Carolina’s Jae’Lyn Withers rose up for a 3-pointer. He was unguarded, and there was a reason for that: Withers was 4 for 20 from deep space, for the season. He missed this one, ignoring a raft of better options, and Nelson took over from there.

Nelson came to Alabama after three steadily improving years at North Dakota State. He will be the first Bison alum to be drafted since the Lakers took Lance Berwald in the fifth round 40 years ago. His skills were evident, but he wasn’t sure he was ready for power-conference play, There were nights that justified that skepticism. He had a 3-point game against Tennessee, a 2-pointer against Mississippi State, a goose egg against South Carolina. But coach Nate Oats kept him in the mix, because, without Nelson, ‘Bama lacked rim presence. A 22-point game in an overtime win over Florida, in which Nelson had six blocks, was something he could bank.

How did such a phenom emerge from such infertile basketball territory? It wasn’t for lack of playmates. Nelson’s parents, Nels and Meg, had four children between them when they got married, and then they had five more themselves. Nelson’s older brother Justin engaged him regularly at the family hoop, and younger brother Leif helped win a state championship at the high school. You can find basketball players anywhere these days; Cooper Flagg, who committed to Duke as the top high school player in this class, is from Newport, Maine, population 3,000, and Austin Reaves, the offensive virtuoso for the Lakers, grew up on a farm near Newark, Ark., population 1,200. Now, there’s Nelson, a big man with a handle and an outside shot, and he’s also a metronome from the free-throw line. He puts the “corn” in unicorn.

You can also find prime-time talent in the schools Jay Bilas never visits, and this season and this tournament have confirmed that. The best player in the SEC was a transfer from Northern Colorado named Dalton Knecht who showed up at Tennessee. Oats has been a miner for a shot of gold, getting Nelson from the north country, getting Nick Pringle from Wofford, and Latrell Whitesell from Cal State Fullerton, and Mark Sears from Ohio University, and Aaron Estrada from Hofstra. Sears is one of Division I’s best shooters, hitting 50.7 percent overall, 85.9 from the foul line and 43.5 from the 3-point line. When players who have spent a couple of years in half-empty gyms get a chance to “level up,” they often bring an edge.

Alabama-Clemson, of course, evokes another sport entirely. The Tigers haven’t been to a Final Eight since 1980, when Mitchell Wiggins and Larry Nance Sr. were running the show. Now their sons, Andrew Wiggins and Larry Nance Jr., are in the NBA. The school has stuck with coach Brad Brownell, and senior P.J. Hall has stuck with the program. The Tigers have used Hall and Chase Hunter to control all three NCAA tournament victims so far, and their defense has held them to shooting percentages of 29.7, 38.9 and 37.3. In losing 77-72, Arizona missed 23 of 28 3-pointers, and CBS’ Jim Jackson said, “I don’t really understand what Caleb Love was doing there,” a statement that has echoed throughout college basketball for three years. The final Pac-12 Player of the Year turned into Faded Love, missing all nine 3-pointers, just as his former Tar Heel teammate Davis would, in the nightcap.

The finalists have met before. Clemson went to Tuscaloosa on Nov. 28 and won, 85-77, as the Tide missed 20 of 31 threes. Alabama can’t expect to lure Clemson into a sprint-relay race as it did Carolina. But Clemson might keep in mind the mysteries of Devils Lake, and how the Native Americans in the area have said it would someday cover the world. Grant Nelson contributed to that process Thursday, seizing 94-by-50 feet in downtown L.A.