Owning the Moment

It happens every year, like clockwork. A rite of spring, you might say. The errant-pick part, that is. Not the lessons learned. That happens each day, every day. That’s a good thing.

First, my bracket. I’ve always been a sucker for underdogs.  With apologies to my UVA friends, I picked UNC Wilmington to upset their Cavaliers, and, though I knew that X would mark the spot, I picked VCU to beat St. Mary’s. Personal reasons, you might say.

 

My affinity for long shots cost me elsewhere as well. Though I had no dog in the fight, I guessed wrong with Princeton over Notre Dame, New Mexico State over Baylor, and Wichita State over Kentucky. My trendy picks turned out not to be so trendy, but I did hit the jackpot with Middle Tennessee over Minnesota, Michigan over Louisville, and Rhode Island over Creighton, though I can offer no logical explanation for my choices.

 

This weekend, the Sweet 16 will fill the airwaves and sports pages. For me, it’s actually the Sweet 10 because six of my 16 will be sojourning at home, following the action, as I will.

 

Inspirational stories light me up. There’s no shortage of them in the NCAA tournament. I’ve always enjoyed watching Kansas point guard Frank Mason III compete both on television and in person. He’s from Petersburg, just down the road, and, as a freelance sportswriter, I covered several of his high school games for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. One December night in 2011, I saw him, at 6-1, elevate high above the basket, take an alley-oop pass from teammate Marcus Hoosier, and deliver a monster dunk on the initial sequence of the Ft. Lee Holiday Tournament championship game, which the Petersburg Crimson Wave won handily.

 

John Beilein’s Michigan teams are a pleasure to watch as they were when he coached the Richmond Spiders. His guys are always fundamentally sound, they play as a cohesive unit, they keep their emotions in check, and they peak at the right time.

 

And I never tire of watching the mid-majors advance. My bracket has Gonzaga and Butler in the Sweet 16. At least I salvaged something.

 

The “one shining moment” that will stand out long after the tournament ends, though, won’t be a slam dunk or some athletic feat that defies the laws of gravity. Instead, it will be a foul that occurred near the end the first-round game between Vanderbilt and Northwestern. To me, the moment “shines” because the player’s and his team’s reaction teaches much-needed lessons that often get lost in this helter-skelter, often dysfunctional world.

 

With 18 seconds remaining, the Vanderbilt’s Riley LaChance hit a layup to put his team ahead 66-65. As the Wildcats hustled upcourt, the Commodores’ Matthew Fisher-Davis, a 6-5 junior, grabbed Bryant McIntosh committing one of those intentional-unintentional fouls that you see so often in the waning minutes of close games, but (almost) always by the trailing team.

 

The media used the word “inexplicable” to describe the play, but Fisher-Davis explained that his coach (Bryce Drew) had signaled him to play tight defense on McIntosh, but, thinking his squad was trailing, he misinterpreted his coach’s instructions. McIntosh hit both free throws to give Northwestern the lead. After an ensuing change of possession and another made free throw, the Wildcats won 68-66.

 

Fisher-Davis was quoted by ESPN as saying, “…it was my dumb mistake that we lost.”

 

I beg to differ. Honest mistakes happen. Show me the person who has never made one, in basketball or in life, and he can pass judgment. Plus, who knows what would have happened in that last 18 seconds if Fisher-Davis hadn’t committed the foul? A lot can occur in what seems a short amount of time.

 

There’s a big difference between reasons and excuses. Fisher-Davis never made excuses. He owned the situation, and his coach and teammates supported him without reservation.

 

My hope is that Fisher-Davis’s career will be defined not by that one moment but how he handled the moment, by the poise he displayed when faced with adversity, and by his refusal to submit to self-pity.

 

There’s a lesson there for all of us. A huge lesson.

         -- Weldon Bradshaw