Editorial
Arizona Daily Wildcat
March 23, 1998

It's over, baby

One year ago, the University of Arizona men's basketball team was in the midst of spinning its giant-slaying fairy tale. Beating the odds and besting the nation's greatest college teams. Everybody knew the team had talent, but this year was supposed to be the year it all gelled. Shows what everybody knows.

In the course of a year the world has learned a lot about the Wildcats. We know whether or not they have children, what their grades are. We know their eating habits. Names like Simon and Bibby are all but household. Like Duke's Bobby Hurley and Christian Laettner, they are assured a place in the pantheon of college basketball heroes. They met Bill Clinton.

Who knows if it was cockiness or the curse of the cover of Sports Illustrated, but the ride ended this weekend in Anaheim. The streets of Tucson were quiet that night and Sunday no stands dealing Final Four apparel sprang up. The shots wouldn't fall and by the end, the television viewer had to wonder how tough this scrappy team really was. Where were the rebounds, where was the defense? Twenty-nine percent shooting from team members who spent all week complaining that the national media did not give them the respect they deserved for their skills.

They will move on. Miles Simon and Michael Dickerson are supposed graduate in May and everybody says Mike Bibby will go pro. The Arizona Intercollegiate Athletic and National Collegiate Athletic Association machines will move on, grab new players and put them on a stage that has less and less in common with the university student's experience. Experiences that have more and more to do with being commodified. A new Miles Simon will pop up to put on the show Isuzu needs to sell more Amigos.

In this season's media guide, Simon said if there was one thing he could change, he'd make sure NCAA athletes were paid. Every national championship T-shirt bought last spring made money for someone who did not sweat their way through six games against tough opponents.

The team lost, but the players are one step closer to getting their lives back.