Sixteen is the sweetest time, so American girls are called "sweet sixteen" when they are sixteen, and this tradition is also applied to the name of the NCAA round of 16.

Seet-sixteen, as its name suggests, is a sweet experience for any team that makes it to the national round of sixteen, because it's hard and hard to be here.

A team starts with a warm-up game in November and plays more than a dozen warm-up games, more than a dozen inter-conference invitational games, and more than a dozen league tournaments in March, adding up to nearly forty games.

This is a long journey for college players who still have academic tasks.

If you're lucky enough to make it to the NCAA Nationals, you'll be seeded and get a first-round bye in the '80s.

Those with average results can play the first round and strive to enter the top 32; If the results are worse, you will have to play the opening-round and work hard to get into the top 48.

After the official start of the national competition, it was all a single-elimination system, and the game was always "no-or-never", and there was no chance for you to readjust and play again in the next game.

If you lose, go home, and come back next year, the single-game elimination system is so cruel, and it is also its charm.

Because of this, many seeded teams that have a first-round bye and go straight to the round of 32 sometimes can't escape the doom of being eliminated in one game, and go home after one game.

And the teams that can make it to the round of 16 are either seeded powerhouses or have already gone through at least two rounds of baptism, proving that their promotion is not accidental, not luck.

So when a team reaches the Sweet Top 16, the outside world will really start to pay attention to this team, and people will discuss the situation of this year's NCAA competition, the strength of the 16 teams, and who has the best hope of winning the championship.

Now, at the end of March 1984, the Sweet Sixteen has been released, and the sixteen teams will go to four cities, east, west, north and south, to compete for tickets to the Seattle Final-four.

Among the sixteen teams is the 1982 championship North Carolina Blue Devils, who will be fighting for a third championship this year; There is last year's overall runner-up, the University of Houston in Texas, who will try to make up for last year's disappointment.

And the last all-time winner, Indiana University, also a 1981 champion, can't wait to relive their old dreams.

These teams are either old powerhouses in the history of the NCAA, traditional giants, or upstarts who have recently risen to the top of their game in recent years.

But in the Sweet 16, the most eye-catching team is a tough bulldog from the Northwest Territories, Gonzaga University.

After defeating Princeton University in the first round, on March 19, 1983, the Gunzaga Bulldogs faced the hard-working El Paso Texas Legaux Mineers at the Salt Palace Arena.

These two teams, one from Texas, the southernmost state of the United States, and bordering Mexico, can be said to be the southernmost point of the United States.

Gonzaga University, on the other hand, is from Spokane, Washington, the northernmost part of the United States, a city bordering Canada.

The collision of the northernmost and southernmost teams made people think that it would be colorful, and Gan Guoyang called this game "Civil War" before the game, which was always approved by the players, because in the end the war was won by the north over the south.

But as a result, the game can be described as extremely boring, because both teams are defensive teams.

Of all the players on the Shakhtar team, the highest average is only 13 points per game, which is half that of Gan Guoyang, who averaged 27 points per game in the previous game.

The reason why they managed to finish the regular season with an excellent 26-4 record and a 14-game winning streak to start the season without any consecutive defeats all season relied on their steely defense.

The Shakhtars defensively tougher than the Bulldogs, often holding their opponents' scores to around 50 in regular seasons, and on several occasions their opponents didn't even score 50 points.

As a result, the game between these two teams naturally became a defensive battle, plus neither side wanted to lose, they played cautiously, and there was no chance to easily not shoot.

In 1984, the limit of offensive time had not yet been introduced in the NCAA, and the team had plenty of time to grind on the court, and because of this, the final score of the game was an extremely ugly 35:30, with the Bulldogs biting the miners by 5 points.

In the last game against Princeton University, the Bulldogs scored 43 points in the first half, and this time, the whole game scored 35 points!

The fierceness, slowness and ugliness of the game can be imagined.

Although he was very happy after the win, Gan Guoyang said that he never wanted to play against a team like the Shakhtars again, and he complained to his teammates after the game, "I feel like we are playing football on the field!" ”

He scored 33 points in the last game, and only scored 12 points in this game.

Later, the ugly low-scoring game prompted the NCAA organizing committee to introduce an offensive time limit rule in 1985, which allowed teams to play for no more than 45 seconds at a time.

The Bulldogs, who entered the round of 16, immediately received a completely different treatment than before, and the major media began to report on this team, especially since they are now unbeaten throughout the season, and if they can continue to soar, it is possible to create another miracle of winning all seasons.

Gan Guoyang, as the team's number one star, plus a yellow-skinned Chinese, was naturally targeted by the media.

Since Gan Guoyang arrived in Los Angeles with the team on March 20, at the airport, Gan Guoyang has been hard at the reporter's flashing lights.

Moreover, Gan Guoyang has not yet reached the point where he is surrounded by thousands of reporters and fans, so he still got on the bus very easily and prepared to go to the station in Los Angeles.

"Whew~ If I become an NBA player in the future, will I have to face these physical text laborers whose eyes will sparkle every day?" Gan Guoyang has always liked to call journalists manual writers, because they have to write manuscripts and travel around the mountains and rivers.

"No, you need to be an NBA star, a star, like Dr. J. Then you will become a fragrant fleshy bone, and puppies will follow you all day long. Anderson, the team's power forward, said.

"I don't want to be a meat and bone, I want to be followed every day, I want to have my own life." Gan Guoyang has already begun to imagine his life as an NBA player.

"Then you can be a piece of shitty shit so that no one will follow you, but everyone will walk around you." Matthews jokingly said that Gan Guoyang likes to scold his opponent for stinky shit in the game.

"I think we were a piece of stinky shit before, no one thought that we would make it to the top 16, but as long as we can keep going, even if it's stinky shit, those media reporters will come and lick us." Gan Guoyang said.

Indeed, before the Bulldogs reached the round of 16, although their record was to maintain a clean victory, they did not gain much attention.

Some newspapers and TV stations just took stock of the round of 48 and said, "Oh, this is a team that hasn't lost yet, oh, they have a Chinese in their squad." ”

That's all.

This is no longer the case, with major newspapers and NCAA-related media outlets already devoting a lot of space to introducing the dark horse, and out of the sixteen teams, only the Bulldogs are making it to the NCAA national for the first time.

The other fifteen teams all started competing in the national competition in the '40s and '50s.

The good news was mixed, but the good side was to start focusing on the team's prowess in the game and the ability to control the game.

Some professional ball commentators have discovered that the Gonzaga Bulldogs are very good at taking their opponents away in waves at the start of the second half, and then slowly grinding them down with their own rhythm.

The bad side is varied, not optimistic about Gunzaga University is already the most polite and friendly negative evaluation, after all, it is normal for dark horses not to be favored; Other negative comments are mainly focused on Gan Guoyang.

For example, he used to be a UCLA player, but later "defected", and this year he took a pit bull to beat up his original school, UCLA, in Los Angeles.

Of course, this happened to Larry Bird in the past, having a bad relationship with his first school, Indiana University, and until now every time he meets Indiana graduates in the NBA, he inevitably abuses them.

For another example, Gan Guoyang was defeated by Reggie Miller in front of the California Division II Championship Finals in Los Angeles and lost the championship, which also made some media question his key ability.

But in fact, in that game, Gan Guoyang scored 11 points in the last five minutes, leading the team from falling behind to overtaking, but the last ball was really powerless.

Others, starting from Gan Guoyang's skin, some racist remarks were quietly exposed through words.

In the 80s, racial discrimination in the United States was still serious, and racial issues have always been a sensitive topic in American society.

However, the racial conflict in the United States is still mainly concentrated between whites and blacks, and the black community has also made unremitting struggles for their racial status, at least until the eighties, apartheid has been abolished, and some racist words and behaviors cannot appear in public.

However, the yellow race, as a minority in the United States, has a sè race, but they have not received the corresponding respect and status, among which the Chinese, in particular, have suffered the most injustice, while the Chinese have the least resistance.

In contrast, other yellow-skinned Asians are more united and know how to fight for their rights.

It was still 1984, and if the footsteps of history had not gone too crooked because of the appearance of Gan Guoyang, eight years later, in 1992, also in Los Angeles, a middle-aged Korean woman shot and killed a black girl because of a verbal quarrel.

After that, the whole of Los Angeles was in turmoil, and a large number of blacks began to take advantage of the fire to loot and loot Korean stores.

But instead of flinching and helplessly waiting for Jǐngcha to help, the Koreans took up the weapons in their hands and rose up to resist, countering violence with violence, and successfully protected their lives and property.

At this time, in 1984, when the yellow race was not fully respected, Gan Guoyang was about to face pressure and challenges from all sides as a Chinese, lying in a Los Angeles hotel, looking at the familiar scenery outside, but he still knew nothing.

"Gan, do you think I can become an NBA player in the future?" Anderson, who was lying next to Gan Guoyang, said that it was Anderson who lived with Gan Guoyang tonight.

That's how Bellman is, letting the players mix and live together to nurture the bond between his teammates.

"Absolutely, as long as we win the NCAA championship, then you will be noticed by the NBA teams! You know Williams, it's Ricciardo, and he used to say he wasn't going to get a basketball scholarship for college, but we made it to the finals of the high school league, so he had a chance to come to Gonzaga. Gan Guoyang said it as a matter of course.

In his eyes, every player at Gunzaga University is so good and good, such as Anderson, who is the best frontcourt rebounder in the NCAA in Gan's opinion, although his backcourt board protection is not very good.

"No, no, the NBA is a different level. I think we have the whole team, maybe only you and John can play in the professional league. And you, have a chance to be a superstar, like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Moses Malone. As for me, I don't know, my father wanted me to be a lawyer...... Lawyer, oh my God, it's harder than getting me to dunk on Abdul-Jabbar's head. Anderson said helplessly.

In the car today, Gan Guoyang's words stirred up the bitterness in his heart, and he began to think about his future and future, because he is also a senior in college, and this will be his last season of fighting in college basketball.

"But we're here, aren't we, Anderson, the future is important, but we've got to focus on the present, on what we're going to face, on the game the day after tomorrow. To hell with that mess! ”

"That's right, Gan, sweet top 16, oh my God, I didn't dare to think about it before. In the past, I thought it would be worthwhile for us to be able to go to the NCAA national tournament, even if we were eliminated in the first game, I don't think I have any regrets in my four years of college. Unexpectedly, the top 16 ......" Anderson looked at the ceiling, his face full of incredulity.

"But that's not the end of the line, there's the Jīng English quarterfinals, there's the Final-four, there's the Finals, there's the NCAA championship trophy! There's still a long way to go, isn't it Anderson? ”

"Oh, Gan, you're always so optimistic, Jīng Ying Quarterfinals? Do you know who our next opponent is? Anderson asked.

"I don't know." Gan Guoyang only found out at this time that after the team entered the top 16, he didn't pay attention to the schedule at all, and he didn't know who the next opponent was.

"No wonder you're so optimistic, you don't even know who our next opponent is. The quality of the opponent is really strong and I think we will be really dangerous in the next game. Here's the schedule, take a look. Anderson said and gave the schedule to Gan Guoyang.

Gan Guoyang took the schedule, found the Gonzaga bulldog on it, and then looked at the team they played against on March 22.

"Georgeton!" Gan Guoyang saw the name, and a familiar name immediately flashed in his mind.

"Patrick Ewing."