It was six days before Selection Sunday, two days after Georgia State lost the 2002 ASUN final by one point. Lefty Driesell was on the line. “You’ve got to help me get in this tournament,” he said, knowing such assistance was beyond this correspondent’s modest powers. Even legendary coaches get frazzled in March.
Lefty was then 70. His place in hoops history – he cut his widest swath when the sport was outgrowing its status as a regional concern – was secure, but he wanted one more Big Dance. He’d taken four programs to the NCAA Tournament, Georgia State having made it the previous spring. Those Panthers made big noise by upsetting Wisconsin in Round 1 and playing Maryland, of all teams, tough for 30 minutes.
A year later, Lefty’s GSU finished first in the new ASUN and won 20 games, but he knew that wouldn’t move the selection committee. That’s the worst feeling a coach can have, especially a coach who, once upon a time, was part of one of college basketball’s biggest what-ifs.
His Maryland team of 1973-74 – with Tom McMillen, Len Elmore and John Lucas – opened with a one-point loss at UCLA when Bill Walton was unbeaten as a collegian. Those Terps finished by taking David Thompson’s N.C. State to triple overtime before losing 103-100 in the ACC final. The Wolfpack won the national championship. Maryland went nowhere, 1974 having been the last one-bid-per-league NCAA tournament.