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This is winding down perfectly. The script is playing out the way Hollywood would want it to.
Wake Forest will stagger into the ACC Tournament needing to win the entire thing to gain an automatic bid to the Senior Prom we call March Madness. Joey Bracketology will make it abundantly clear that the only way the Deacons will make the field of 68 is by winning the conference tournament.
All the pressure will be on. Lose and chant NIT into your pillows at night. Win and keep going. Breathe another day. Wake will win the ACC Title by beating Duke and Carolina, stamp their passports to the Senior Prom, get sent to the West bracket to play some random team late at night, go into overtime and fall behind by six, and get the announcers to talk about what great years Cam Stamina, Hunter Games, and Hoopie Miller had but the rousing run has come to an end.
But somehow they’ll pull out that game in overtime by resurrecting themselves from the dead and move on to the second round, on life support for another game, breathing.
Then things will get going. They’ll get hot, land a few breaks, make some clutch foul shots late and next thing you know you’ll see them playing Duke in the Final Four and everybody will be talking about the courtstorming incident from hell, and there will be chippiness oozing from every player’s heart and jersey. There will be bickering, genuine antipathy being felt between the Wake and Duke players and their fans because Duke falsely accused Wake of intentionally running into Flipoflopsy during the court storm heard around the world.
Dispatching the Dukies back to downtrodden Durham, Wake will get exactly what they want in the final game, the University of North Carolina Tar Heels from Chapel Thrill, a 1 seed that bookies wager they will win by eight because they don’t believe Wake can win the big one because they never have and that will be a reasonable assessment. Everyone in America will expect Carolina to nab another natty.
It will come down to a Parking Lot bomb from three that turns into a pass to But Hunter Games who will grab it and dunk the ball as the buzzer sounds and Wake will win by one to take the national title. Coach Forbes will run onto the court looking for someone to hug amid the court storm and the first guy he will find will be Sammy Sportface sprinting towards him. The two will embrace for longer than anyone will feel comfortable seeing.
Then the Deacs will cut down the nets.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Back in 1983, the North Carolina State Wolfpack went on this exact journey en route to the national title. They stumbled into the ACC Tournament and had to win it to get a bid to Dance Fever.
They pulled that off.
In the first round of the Dance, they played Pepperdine in the West Region and got behind in overtime and were all but gone, but someone eked out a win there which began the most shocking and inspirational run through the March Madness Tournament of all time.
Coach Jimmy V started using the catchphrase “Survive and Advance” as his team progressed through the brackets and those words have been a central theme of this tournament – and a life philosophy — ever since.
State prevailed when Lorenzo Charles caught a misfired shot by Derrick Whittenberg, who had lunch with Sportface one time in White Plains, New York, and dunked it as time expired to upset highfalutin Houston.
This actually happened.
And it’s going to happen again.
The Deacs will find a way to win the ACC Tournament then get a scare in the first round but get by, then will get rolling, and the entire country will get caught up in the Wake Forest basketball journey to the national title.
Who is Wake Forest, Americans will be asking around their kitchen tables. Where is that school? Didn’t Arnold Palmer go there?
History will repeat itself. It’s going to happen.
The Deacs will survive.
And they will advance.
All the way to basketball bliss.
Author Profile
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Sammy Sportface, a sports blogger, galvanizes, inspires, and amuses The Baby Boomer Brotherhood. And you can learn about his vision and join this group's Facebook page here:
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