Great Piece on Tark from Grantland

[BigErnMcCracken]

Charlie Pierce has been doing really terrific work for Grantland.

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/jerry-tarkanian-ncaa-las-vegas-unlv-rebels/

I bet the coach he's sitting next to watching the UNLV-Duke game is Calhoun.

 

[tzznandrew]

This was great. I'd also wager it's probably Calhoun.

And I was there for the extended drama in 1990 and 1991. In Denver, as UNLV was dismantling Duke by 30 points — still the largest margin of any NCAA championship game — I was sitting next to a very prominent coach whose team had lost in a regional final that year. As Mike Krzyzewski called timeout after timeout, trying to stop the slaughter, I noticed that my seatmate had become pensive. I asked him what he was thinking.

“I was just thinking that, with a couple of breaks, that could be me down there,” the coach told me. “I’ll tell you, if it was me, I’d have somebody start a fight, because we’d need some kind of distraction.”

Teams that lost in the 1990 Regional Finals:

UConn
Texas
Minnesota
Loyola Marymount

Texas's coach was Tom Penders. Prominent? They did lose only by 3.
Minnesota's was Clem Haskins. Okay... and they did lose by only 2.
Loyola's was Paul Westhead. He could count. But they were already were beaten by 30.
Calhoun wasn't prominent then, but obviously he'd fit the bill now. And it probably was him.

 

[mauconnfan]

Good call on JC tzz..lol

 

[RichZ]

JC was the coach who lost in the regional final to Duke. On a buzzer beater. A buzzer beater in OT. A buzzer beater they earned on a freak mistake.

Westhead lost to UNLV in the regionals, so it's not possible for his team to have been the one getting throttled by them in the championship if not for a couple breaks.

Minnesota lost to Gtech in a close one, but Haskins would have faced Tark in the semifinal game had they won the quarters, so he could not be the one the quote comes from.

That leaves the two UConn guys as the only possibilities. Texas would still have had to have gotten by Duke -- a much bigger IF than UConn getting past Arkansas to earn the right to be demolished by Tark & company. Then again, in Torraino, we might've had the one guy still left in the tourney who could go physical-to-physical with LJ.

Yeah, but for a couple breaks...

 

[UConn9604]

This was great. I'd also wager it's probably Calhoun.



Teams that lost in the 1990 Regional Finals:

UConn
Texas
Minnesota
Loyola Marymount

Texas's coach was Tom Penders. Prominent? They did lose only by 3.
Minnesota's was Clem Haskins. Okay... and they did lose by only 2.
Loyola's was Paul Westhead. He could count. But they were already were beaten by 30.
Calhoun wasn't prominent then, but obviously he'd fit the bill now. And it probably was him.

The proof that it was Calhoun is not the "very prominent coach who lost in the regional finals."

It's the "if it was me, I’d have somebody start a fight, because we’d need some kind of distraction.” At that point in his career, Calhoun might have started it himself.

 

[Dogdeacon]

Wow, thanks for linking. Great story, I feel like an idiot for thinking Tark was the bad guy back in the day