“THERE has been the N.C.A.A. tournament’s brand-name face to love: Vermont Coach Tom Brennan looked as if he had swallowed organic moonbeams when his crunchy Catamounts left his state’s citizens leapin’ in their Birkenstocks after mercifully shortening Jim Boeheim’s annual attempt at turning Syracuse U. into Persecute U.
“There has been the bracket-busting brand-name moniker to remember: West Virginia’s Kevin Pittsnogle, a big lug with a chop-shop haircut, Dr. Seuss name and trailer-park roots, left a nation entranced as he feathered 3-pointers and inflicted death by a thousand back cuts on the tourney gods.
“There has also been the usual N.C.A.A. brand-name heartbreak to witness: Villanova’s miracle deflated when an incredulous Allan Ray had his incandescent runner wiped out by an iffy traveling call to allow the behemoths in Carolina blue to continue their post-Dean Smith renaissance.
“So much of the tournament’s brand identity is wrapped up in watching the joy register in the face of strangers, in coaches we have never seen, in players we have never known. Call it ‘Bucknell Soup for the Soul.’
“And yet, Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski has fretted aloud this past year about college basketball ‘losing our brand’ even as he becomes a bigger one. …”