This will be a mostly off-topic post, for which I apologize, but I’ll bring it back to chess at the end.
If you’re a college basketball fan in the U.S., you know what the title is about. Every year, at the end of the NCAA men’s basketball championship, the producers put together a montage of the most memorable moments from 63 games, spread over three weekends. The music to the montage is called “One Shining Moment.”
The beauty of the tournament is that you never know when that one shining moment is going to come. Often it doesn’t come in the championship game. A memorable case was the 1992 game of Duke against Kentucky, which took place in the round of eight, and is usually considered the greatest college basketball game ever played.
Still, it’s better when the “one shining moment” comes in the decisive game, and sometimes that happens. Lorenzo Charles’ dunk at the buzzer for N.C. State in 1983. Scotty Thurman’s 3-pointer for Arkansas that put a dagger in Duke’s hopes for a third championship in 1994. (I’m a Duke fan, so I’ll never forget that one.) Mario Chalmers’ three-pointer for Kansas against Memphis in 2008 that sent the game to overtime, an overtime that Kansas eventually won.
Well, yesterday’s game had not one but two “shining moments,” and that I think makes it unique among all the NCAA championship games ever. The first came with 4.7 seconds left, when North Carolina’s senior point guard Marcus Paige hit one of the most ridiculous 3-point heaves you’ve ever seen to tie the game up. What an incredible moment. Paige had been almost a non-factor for a lot of the game, but in the last six minutes he brought UNC back from a 10-point deficit, and he scored or assisted on every one of their last five baskets. His game-tying shot looked like complete desperation, but at the same time it is a picture of athletic grace. He was off balance to start with, and didn’t even make up his mind to shoot until he was in the air (in postgame interviews, he said he was thinking about passing). But even though his arms and legs were flying in the most awkward shooting motion you ever saw, his left hand — the shooting hand — was perfectly under control. You can see, in retrospect, that all the ungainliness was precisely what he had to do in order to keep his shooting hand steady. See this site, or a million others, if you want to look at the shot that, for 4.7 seconds, was arguably the greatest in college basketball history.
But then it was Villanova’s turn. And their final play worked to perfection: a pick by Daniel Ochefu, a drive by Ryan Arcidiacono and a pass to Kris Jenkins, who made the final 3-pointer as the buzzer sounded. Their play was exactly what Paige’s wasn’t: a team play, the senior passing up on a shot to give it to a teammate with an even better shot, and finally a shooting stroke that was as pure as Paige’s was improvised. Two shining moments, completely different, both showing the best in collegiate sports.
But only one winner.
Already the discussion is starting about whether this was the greatest game of all time. It does combine certain aspects of the games I already mentioned. The Duke-Kentucky 1992 game likewise had two “shining moments,” although that is largely forgotten now. Sean Woods’ crazy bank shot from the top of the key with 2.1 seconds left put Kentucky ahead, and it was almost the exact equal of Marcus Paige’s for the “you-can’t-be-serious” factor. And then Christian Laettner’s winning shot (after Grant Hill’s extraordinary ¾-court pass, the hardest part of the play) was a duplicate of Jenkins’ for the “ice-water-in-the-veins” factor.
I’d still go with the Duke-Kentucky game as being a tiny bit better than Villanova-UNC 2016, because the 44½ minutes that preceded the ending were also lights-out incredible basketball. (Start with both teams shooting over 60 percent. Last night Villanova shot 58 percent but UNC shot only 43 percent.) But I’m a Duke fan, so I’m a little biased.
Villanova-UNC 2016 also was reminiscent of that Kansas-Memphis 2008 game, because this was really Kansas-Memphis with 2.6 extra seconds added to the clock. Kansas came back from a 9-point deficit, making a three-point shot to tie the game with 2.1 seconds left. Memphis didn’t have time for an answer, and Kansas won in overtime. In this game UNC came back from a 10-point deficit, making a three-point shot to tie the game with 4.7 seconds left. Only trouble was that Villanova had 2.6 more seconds on the clock than Memphis had, and they used the extra time to perfection.
In the end, the “greatest of all time” debate is pretty meaningless. It was the greatest game of this year, for sure, and just proved for the umpteenth time that the NCAA basketball tournament is the one thing on the sports calendar that you shouldn’t miss.
And now, to make a really lame connection with chess… Does anybody have any favorite examples of chess games with “two shining moments”? I’m looking for a game where one player comes up with an all-time brilliant move or combination, and then his or her opponent trumps it with a move or combination that is equally brilliant or better.
