NBA: The Basketball Miracle

On March 24, 1996, the NCAA tournament reached its regional finals.

In the Eastern Conference, the University of Massachusetts, which had Marcus Camby, eventually met Georgetown University in the regional finals. Allen Iverson lived up to expectations and achieved his interim goal.

In the Midwest, the result that fans hoped to see finally came out. Wake Forest University defeated Louisville with difficulty and successfully entered the regional finals.

In the final, they will face the powerful University of Kentucky, where Tim Duncan and Antoine Walker have attracted a lot of media attention.

It's just that the University of Kentucky's dominance this year is too strong. In the semifinals, they defeated Utah 101:70, a 31-point difference, which once again demonstrated their absolute strength.

In the Southeast region, Connecticut and Cincinnati reached the regional finals. Similar to the above two regions, the two sides were also a matchup between the No. 1 seed and the No. 2 seed.

A lot of fans from the University of Connecticut came. The team had never made it to the semi-finals before, and everyone wanted to witness history together.

In the West, No. 2 seed Kansas and No. 4 seed Syracuse met in the final, the only group to see a comeback.

The top-seeded Purdue University was eliminated by the eighth-seeded Georgetown University in the regional quarterfinals, and fans are looking forward to whether Syracuse can continue to defeat the strong.

CBS will continue to broadcast the four games from the top 8 to the top 4. As the NCAA reaches its final moments, the attention is getting higher and higher.

Although the NBA has increasingly placed emphasis on talent in the draft in recent years, the head coaches of each team are mostly from academic backgrounds, and some college players with poor physical conditions but strong tactical execution also have the opportunity to be selected.

The Connecticut players only rested for more than a day, and at 2:04 p.m. on the 24th, they welcomed the regional finals at Rupp Arena.

Danny Fortson is Cincinnati's star center.

Although he is only 2.01 meters tall, he has performed very well in previous series with his soft shooting touch.

After the game started, Connecticut, with its huge height advantage, frequently passed the ball to the big man Knight in the interior.

He shot from a high position and the 6-foot-9 Damon Flint on the opposite side had no way to stop him.

Cincinnati Bearcats head coach Bob Huggins looked helpless standing on the sidelines.

I thought the opponent would give the ball to the star player Ray Allen, but after the game started, Ray Allen played as a shooter most of the time.

Coach Calhoun seemed very proud. Ray Allen didn't care about his own data. In order to make history and enter the semi-finals, the data was no longer important!

After the big man Knight made another high-profile shot under the basket, the score became 6:16.

The fans of the University of Connecticut at the scene shouted excitedly, this game was easier than they thought!

Sitting on the bench, Lee once again experienced the huge role of big men in this era.

Travis Knight, who is 2.13 meters tall, did not perform well in the first few rounds, but as long as the opponent does not have a star inside player, he can easily beat the opponent with his height advantage!

What made Lee speechless was that the Cincinnati players obviously lied about their height!

Keith Legree and Darnell Alburton, who came on as a substitute, were 1.85 meters and 1.88 meters respectively, but Lee felt that the other party had overstated the matter by at least 5 centimeters.

His height was 1.91 meters barefoot, without any water. When measured with shoes on, it was 1.93 meters. Lee, who was sitting on the bench, touched his hair involuntarily and muttered in his heart:

"If I grow an afro, I can become 1.96!"

After taking a double-digit lead, coach Calhoun began to make rotations.

Their tactic in this game was to pass the ball to the inside, and all the guards had to do was defend.

Waving to Clay Lee, Coach Calhoun gave a simple instruction before he went on the court:

"Give the other team's smaller guys a run and don't let them get easy shots."

Dorent Marshall is about the same height as Lee, but this handsome white guy is good at organization and controlling rhythm, and is not aggressive enough on both offense and defense.

Lee nodded to indicate that he understood.

He liked this era where he could master defense because it made up for his weakness of lack of explosiveness.

In the competition for the top four, both teams chose to fight hard with their main players, and the rotation was further shortened.

With 7 minutes and 22 seconds left in the first half, Connecticut made an adjustment and Lee came on as a substitute again.

Soon, Cincinnati's two small backcourt players felt the sudden increase in defensive pressure.

After star player Danny Fortson missed consecutive shots, the team had no choice but to shift the offense to the outside.

The little guy Keith Legree, who had just made a breakthrough in the last round, was made uncomfortable by Lee's defense before he even crossed half court.

Especially the sudden change of direction just now, which almost caused the ball to be lost, forcing the small guard to cross the center line with his butt sticking out.

Such an embarrassing look made the fans of the University of Connecticut shout with joy.

Coming to the right wing, Keith Legree hurriedly turned sideways to protect the ball, and seeing his teammates running to the top of the arc with the help of a screen, he immediately sent a cross pass.

He was forced to pass the ball with his left hand, which made the ball go very slowly.

Lee, who had been defending closely, suddenly jumped forward and stole the ball the moment it slipped out of his hand.

Keith Legree was almost knocked to the ground by Lee. The small defender spread his hands to the linesman in anger and yelled,

"This is definitely a foul!"

Lee, who didn't hear the whistle, rushed forward after completing the steal, playing 1 against 0 in the frontcourt, and quickly took off into the air when he reached the paint area.

Lee quickly passed the ball in front of him, grabbed the ball with his right hand, stretched his body in the air, and swung his arm to dunk!

"oh!!"

The powerful windmill dunk made the audience cheer loudly.

After landing, Lee opened his arms and glided, and retreated quickly with a smile.

Facing the small guard with mediocre talent, he was going to punch hard on the defensive end!

The scouts on the scene soon discovered another characteristic of Lee, that he was very keen in judging the ball path.

However, considering the poor strength of the opponent's back line, this characteristic was also forgotten by some scouts.

The back line had difficulty passing the ball, causing the Cincinnati Bearcats' offense to become increasingly sluggish.

Darnell Burton was forced to take the blame in the final moments, but he missed a shot from outside the three-point line despite Ray Allen's defense.

The rebound was easily caught by big man Knight, who passed it to Lee, and Connecticut's offense suddenly accelerated.

Holding the ball in his left hand, Lee accelerated to the left wing outside the three-point line despite the defense of the small man Keith Legg.

Lee stopped immediately when approaching the three-point line, dribbled the ball behind his back quickly to his right hand, lowered his center of gravity, and pretended to break through.

Keith Legg subconsciously slid quickly to the left, and the next second Lee quickly changed direction with his hips, and after switching to his left hand, he immediately lowered his shoulders and accelerated.

The short guard was nimble and wanted to block Lee again, but after physical contact, he was still pushed past and watched Lee go straight to the basket.

The moment he approached the paint area, he noticed that the opponent came up to help defend, and Lee, holding the ball in his left hand while moving, threw the ball to the upper right side of the basket.

The basketball passed over Darnell Burton's fingertips, and Ray Allen quickly followed up and jumped high, grabbed the ball with both hands in the air, and dunked it with great force!

"Great aerial connection! Connecticut's backcourt showed their dominance!"

Jim Nantz in the commentary booth praised the fast break loudly. Compared with the rigid inside attack, the beautiful aerial relay completely ignited Rupp Arena.

At 8:20, the score difference reached 12 points!

Hearing the huge cheers from the audience, coach Calhoun also showed a gratified smile. They were about to make history!