Stereo Madness on Friday, for all to see

Colorado's classic win over Florida and Yale's takedown of Auburn happened in lockstep Friday.

John Poulikadis, Yale

At approximately 6:55 p.m. EDT on Friday, the Madness entered its echo chamber. Colorado and Florida were firing at dumpster-sized baskets in Indianapolis. Yale and Auburn were hurtling toward the Moment Of Truth that claims so many high-falutin’ NCAA scalps.

Seventeen hundred miles apart, and yet they were playing in lockstep. Those who habitually spend March in the thrall of this basketball festival were immobilized. They were also grateful. As long as the remote and the signal were working, they got to see it all.

They got to see Colorado’s K.J. Simpson give a brotherly shove to Florida’s Zyon Pullin, launch one from the corner, and watch it dance around the rim and fall, the same way Kawhi Leonard did to win an NBA series in Toronto five years ago. They got to see Auburn’s most expert free-throwers fail to finish the job, and allow 13th-seeded Yale to jolt their way to the upset du jour.

Thanks to Turner’s three channels and CBS, everybody could be a witness. It hasn’t always been that way. When ESPN was attempting to do the first weekend of the tournament, not even the scores of the other games were visible. Sports bars seized upon the problem and lured customers with the promise of four screens. And the Round of 16 was a problem when CBS was the only alternative. The network was reluctant, at times, to leave runaway games and show the nitty-gritty finishes.

Now we not only have access to everything that moves, we have four little boxes on the top of the screen that give us all the scores as they happen.

Of course, TV was a little slow to recognize the tournament at all. There’s never been a more important college basketball game than Texas Western’s NCAA title victory over Kentucky in 1966, and it was telecast by the Hughes Sports Network, hardly one of the Big Three (Ted Turner hadn’t rented his satellite yet).

In 1970, Jacksonville and Iowa played in an epic regional semifinal. The Dolphins had two 7-footers, future Hall of Famer Artis Gilmore and Pembrook Burrows, who would later become a Florida highway patrolman. They beat Iowa 104-103 in St. John’s Arena on Ohio State’s campus, when Burrows grabbed an airball by teammate Vaughn Wedeking and scored at the buzzer. Gilmore, who averaged 26 points and 22 rebounds, had 30 and 17.

Bob Ryan was the great NBA writer for the Boston Globe and famously wrote a lengthy notes column every Sunday. More than once he would send out a plea: “If you have film of the Jacksonville-Iowa game, let me know.” It was an underground classic, like a Bob Dylan basement tape.

Those who yearn to watch the Colorado-Florida replay in coming years will have no trouble finding it. In an era of college basketball rockfights, this was a series of pinpoint drones. Colorado’s first 14 field goals were assisted, and the Buffaloes got to triple-digits even though they put up only 10 shots, out of 54 overall, from  3-point range. They shot 63 percent overall and wound up with 27 assisted baskets, of 34. Florida, propelled by 33 points from Iona transfer Walter Clayton Jr., shot 51.5 percent and suffered only eight turnovers while scoring 100. Colorado led by 13 with 4:30 left, but that’s nothing these days. Clayton’s bomb tied it with :11 left, but Cody Williams, a freshman whose slight frame limits his relevance but whose potential could make him a first-round draft pick in June, got the ball to Simpson in the corner for the decider.

The Buffs worked the ball inside well enough to generate 25 free throw attempts in the second half alone. They have Tristan da Silva, whose long arms touch every aspect of the game, and they have Eddie Lampkin, a TCU transfer and foul-lane bouncer who scored 21. Simpson was a credible candidate for Pac-12 Player of the Year, and the team had the best field goal percentage in Division I. In other words, it was difficult to understand why a team with such talent was sweating out its worthiness for the NCAA field or why CU had a 10th seed. But all that becomes meaningless with the first tipoff.

In a horrid first round for the SEC, Auburn quickly followed Florida into vacationland. This one was harder to accept. The Tigers had pranced through the SEC tournament with an average victory margin of 19 points, and were the only team to make the top ten in offensive and defensive efficiency, according to KenPom.com. In fact, some of America’s sharpest basketball minds projected Auburn as national champions. But a series of unfortunate events, at least for Auburn, sent the Tigers back home to watch spring practice.

One of those events was a strong Yale team that needed the best version of someone to pull this off, and it got a career-high 28 points from John Poulakidas, who hit six 3-pointers in nine tries. This sparked applause in New Haven, Ct. and also Iowa City, since Poulakidas’ girlfriend Katie Feuerbach is a teammate of Caitlin Clark’s.

Danny Wolf, the Alfred E. Neumann lookalike center, stared down Auburn’s Johni Broome, and August Maloney hit nine of 11 free throws. This was crucial because, in the witching hour, Denver Jones (86.7 percent career at the line) and Tre Donaldson (77.4) came up short. Donaldson’s two misses in the final possession, and Auburn’s inability to get a final shot out of the mad scramble, nailed down Yale’s 78-76 win.

James Jones, Yale’s coach, said he didn’t know if it was the Bulldogs’ best win ever, but he did think Auburn was the best team Yale had ever beaten. It might have been different if Chad Baker-Mazara hadn’t been thumbed, after three minutes, for a blatant elbow, or if Auburn had considered stretching the 10-point lead that it held with 10 minutes left.

Or maybe the Ivy League has begun playing muscular basketball. The metrics say it’s the 11th best in the country (the Ivy women are seventh). Cornell lost a close NIT game at Ohio State this week and, if the two teams had switched uniforms, you wouldn’t have known. Princeton, last year, got to the Final 16 by knocking off Arizona and Missouri (another SEC team). Princeton also won the regular season this year, but the Ivy League has a tournament now, and the Tigers were waylaid by Brown, which went on to lead Yale, 60-54, with :27 left in the championship game. But Poulakidas hit a big 3-pointer and Matt Knowling got the game-winning bucket with :03 remaining, and here they are.

The Ivies are well-positioned for today’s ungoverned game. Few players forsake an Ivy school for the promise of playing time or the imperative of improving one’s draft position, although Jeff Van Gundy has always said he’s the only player who ever transferred from Yale to Menlo College in search of minutes.

Coaches in the Ivy League are encouraged to win, of course, but they rarely lose their jobs over it. Jones is finishing his 25th year at Yale. Tommy Amaker has spent 17 years at Harvard. Steve Donahue spent 10 years at Cornell and reached the Final 16, and just wrapped up his eighth year at Penn. In between he dipped his toe into the alleged big leagues and was fired by Boston College after five seasons. And at Princeton, Mitch Henderson continues to carry Pete Carril’s coaching genes, for 13 years now.

Yale and Colorado (which won a First Four game on Wednesday) now have one day to reassemble themselves for Sunday’s second round. They were the envy of college basketball Friday, at least until they realized they missed half the show.