Fun Teams Win
The date was Feb. 16, 2005, and the undefeated Illinois Fighting Illini were playing at Penn State. It was a packed house, as usual, to see the #1 team in the country play. And while Penn State was 20-point underdogs, there is always a palpable feeling in the room that maybe tonight is the night Illinois is a bit off. Maybe tonight is the night they lose. Until… CLANK! CLANKCLANKCLANK!! The Illini were heaving half court shots during pre-game preparations. First Dee Brown; then James Augustine. Like kids at recess, they heaved one shot after another. They were laughing with smiles as wide as the Mississippi. And you just knew… Illinois 83, Penn State 63.
There are some that say winning breeds chemistry but I’m not so sure about that. It seems there aren’t a lot of analysts out there that take time out to talk about the makeup of a team. This Illini group is as easy-going as a hippie on vacation. It was that way before all the wins started to pile up in Champaign like Christmas presents.
I look around sports these days and I see easy-going, fun-loving teams on top. The Boston Red Sox define easy-going. The New England Patriots are confident cool. And the Detroit Pistons hide a big Ben Wallace smile underneath all that grit.
Perhaps there is more to this ‘chemistry’ thing than most of us thought. Maybe there is something more to sports than speed and agility, than strength and intelligence. I have to look at my own teams and I see a correlation. The 2004 Chicago Cubs had more cancer than the Mayo Clinic; it showed on the field. The 2003-2004 Chicago Bulls were shackled with disgruntled mopes like Jalen Rose and Eddie Robinson before they trimmed the duo and added fresh-as-orchard-apples Chris Duhon, Ben Gordon and Luol Deng. The Bulls will be in the playoffs this year.
And when I look back in history, I see a tattooed Dennis Rodman as comic relief/media distraction for the championship Bulls. I see Jim McMahon. I see Kirby Puckett. I see Michael Irvin. I see Al McGuire. I see Jim Valvano.
I think people, and men for sure, like to live life in measurable quantities. We want to know how much something costs. We want to know how long it’s going to take. We want to measure our athletes in 40 times and squat totals. We value them by points per game and touchdowns scored. But I think there is more to sports than that. I think we all do; we just forget to talk about it because ‘chemistry’ doesn’t have a column in the scoreboard section of the newspaper, and because sabermetricians and RPI analysts and BCS statisticians have boiled sports down to a calculable entity.
Go ahead and tell Dee Brown his team isn’t tops in the RPI; I’d like to see the reaction. You’d probably get the same reaction if you told Boston College’s Jared Dudley the Eagles aren’t tops in the polls. In five weeks from now, the entire college basketball world will turn its collective head to St. Louis and the Final Four. It’s good to know that the teams having the most fun will be there.
