Chapter 37 Advance to the Finals
No way, there are more star players in this year's Kangda team, and the strength is strong, in fact, if it's just to evaluate the outside line, in fact, USC is a little timid, but the other party now has a bug on the inside, junior center Hashim Thabitt, who is widely known as Mutombo's second generation, has just been selected to this year's All-American second team, and has sent a total of 150 hot pots this season, and has been elected the best defensive player in the Great East Region for the second year in a row. Agile athleticism is a natural nemesis!
Just as he was thinking about it, Huang Weiwei also estimated that he had such troubles, after all, to be honest, in the NCAA world, no player from that team dared to say that he was not afraid of Thabit's defense, so he put forward his own ideas.
"Coach, you're bothering Thabit's defense, I have an idea in my heart, how about you try it?"
"Let's remove Jerome and let Gibson play directly in the center, with a big belt and four small, anyway, with Gibson's strength, we will definitely be able to withstand Tabit, and we can really unleash the power of our bombardment!" That's Wong's only proposal.
"Hmmm... You can try it, since this is the case, let Christian be booked to the fourth position, and Bob to the third position to increase the range. After listening to Huang's only suggestion, Coach Floyd thought about it, thinking that he didn't seem to have much to do, so he might try to run into a dead mouse.
The tactics are set, and it is natural that there will be rehearsals, but fortunately, the semi-finals will be held on April 5, and they still have time to rehearse, and UC has no idea about the changes in USC.
And now the media is already hyping up the topic, and the highest call for winning the championship is undoubtedly North Carolina, and the game on the 5th is played in the same arena, and the first game is USC vs Connecticut.
On April 4th, the teams that will play the next day have all arrived in Detroit, and now Detroit has been completely rendered by the final four of the NCAA, and the streets are full of all kinds of fans, even if some fans' teams have been eliminated, they will also cheer for their team's mortal enemies if they are there, especially USC eliminated the University of Michigan this year, and now Detroit has been hostile to some fans, of course, this is a very small part.
In addition to the local fans, Quanmei has a large number of fans paying attention, and a large number of them are involved in spinach. According to an investigation by an organization, half of the people in the whole Mei participated in the spinach of "Crazy March", from the president, high-ranking officials, rich and rich, to peddlers, pawns and beggars, everything from the rich.
More data shows that with the progress of "Crazy March", it has vigorously stimulated domestic demand. This year's NCAA Wealth List (USD) CBS paid NCAA 571 million in broadcast fees, CBS received 620 million in estimated advertising revenue from "March Madness", GM invested 30 million in advertising, 1.3 million in 30 seconds of advertising in the finals, and the amount of betting bets in the first week of the game was as high as $3 billion, and at the beginning of 2009, when the economy was in recession, everything seemed to be shrouded in clouds until the arrival of "March Madness".
One hour before the start of the game, Detroit's 19,599-capacity Ford Center Arena was almost empty, and the cheers of the fans could be heard sporadically even by Huang Weiwei, who was sitting in the lounge.
At the beginning, when the lineups of both sides appeared, the whole arena was stunned, no one thought that at such a critical moment, USC would change the starting lineup that he had used for so long, and the one standing in the center position was a 206cm short, you must know that the Hashem Thabit he was going to face was claimed to be 223cm, is the head coach of USC crazy?
“OMG! Crazy Troy joins the team, it seems that today they are going to suddenly reproduce Phoenix's bombardment lineup, a large belt and four small but I don't know if it can succeed, after all, such a lineup is still very short, at this time it is time to test the quality of Thabit, after all, he has to play against people who are so much shorter than him, and his advantages at both offensive and defensive ends are huge. From CBS broadcast special guest NBA veteran expert Ken Berg.
At the beginning of the game, he did slightly confirm his remarks, Tabit jumped the ball and won easily, it can be said that in the face of Tabit's height and super long arm span, to be honest, Gibson didn't even have the desire to jump up and fight, the gap was too bullying.
Due to injuries, UC only has 7 players in the game, which is good news for USC, and the running bomb may directly drag UC down.
However, when entering the offensive and defensive stage, Tabit's flaws were exposed, and it was surprising that Gibson, who was shorter and lighter than him, was squeezed out of the interior and couldn't get into the box when he was firmly on the bottom of the game.
On the offensive end, Gibson's mid-range shooting can also pull the empty penalty area, if Tabit doesn't leave Huang's only pass, he can easily find Gibson and let him shoot in the open position, and if the outside helps to defend, you must know that now there is a three-point hand except for Gibson.
After losing Thabit's ability to dominate the restricted area, UConn's offense made consecutive mistakes, and USC scored two fast breaks, which completely ignited the enthusiasm of the fans on the spot, 58-46, USC's momentum was very high, and UConn could only call a timeout.
After the timeout, USC brought on substitutes Gibb Davis (another short one) and Banks Augustin, replacing Gibson and DeRozan, who had been fighting for nearly half time.
As soon as Banks came on the court, he hit two big shots, and his hand felt as hot as a microwave oven, connecting Huang's only two passes to hit three points in a row at the three-point line, and the difference widened to 18 points.
At the beginning of the second half, Connecticut played tenaciously in the face of a huge deficit, Tabit forced Giber to score two points inside, Price scored consecutive free throws, and Tabit flew Christian's layup on the inside, and the margin was forced to close to 10 points.
DeRozan stepped up and broke through the defenses of Jeff Adrion and Stanley Robinson in a row, and scored on a layup to stop the bleeding for USC and widen the gap.
With 3 minutes left in the game, Thabit was substituted, UConn trailed USC by 10 points 66-76, and Stanley Robinson scored a thunderous man-to-man dunk with 1 minute left to end the game, and finally USC defeated UConn 85-77 to advance to the NCAA Finals.
Completed an unprecedented breakthrough in NCAA basketball in the history of USC and entered the finals for the first time in the school's 100-year history.
"Victor, we won, we won!! We're going to the finals!! At the moment when the whistle blew at the end of the game, DeRozan, who was not far from Huang, rushed over and hugged him firmly.
Tears of excitement overflowed his eyes, and other teammates also gathered around and hugged him, excited.
For them in the ivory tower, they are now just one step away from winning the championship, which is the highest honor they can achieve in college, and perhaps for some team members, it may be the highest achievement they can achieve in their lives.