Hancock proves unlikely MOP in Atlanta

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ATLANTA – Early last summer – for Lindy’s Preseason Magazine – I picked Rick Pitino’s Louisville squad to win the 2013 national championship.

I did so for a variety of reasons, including – of course – Pitino’s Hall of Fame-caliber coaching and a roster that included five of the top seven players from a team that lost to eventual national champion Kentucky in a semifinal of the 2012 Final Four in New Orleans.

But those reasons didn’t include the expectation that a transfer from George Mason, who was redshirt a year ago, would be the Cardinals’ best player during two come-from-12 points-behind victories in the Georgia Dome.

As mind-boggling as it was to watch – much less to have imagined even Saturday afternoon before the first semifinal between Louisville and Wichita State was played – that proved the case.

Six-foot-six Luke Hancock, who was team’s fifth-leading scorer (7.7 points per game) on the season going into Monday night’s title game with the University of Michigan, proved to be one of the most unlikeliest-ever Most Outstanding Players of the 75 Final Fours that have been played following the conclusion of the Cardinals’ 82-76 win over the Wolverines.

*The Cardinals found themselves trailing by 12 points early in the second half of the Saturday night game with the Shockers.

But Hancock came off the bench to score 20 points (while hitting three of five shots from behind the arc) to go with four rebounds, two assists and two steals during the 72-68 decision.

And there was another 12-point hole to be dug out of – this one late in the first half – Monday night against a Michigan team that had sliced and diced the Cardinals’ matchup zone into pulled pork.

But the fellow with that immaculate full beard obviously found the Georgia Dome rims – and a backdrop that always included a big hunk of the 75k that found its way into the building each night – to his likely.

Hancock snapped in four 3s over the course of two minutes to get his team to within a point at intermission.

And, on a night when the Cardinals’ leading scorer – Russ Smith (who missed 24 of the 33 shots who cast off on Final Four Weekend – was again firing, and mostly missing, Hancock picked up the slack in a big way.

He scored a team-high 22 points – missing just one shot from the field and hitting all five from behind the arc – with three assists and two steals.

Of course, you don’t win a national title game strictly based upon the heroics of a transfer from the Colonial Athletic Association.

Point guard Peyton Siva and center Gorgui Dieng, who didn’t play particularly well Saturday night – Dieng missed his only shot and got mostly abused down low by WSU’s undersized posts – were terrific Monday night.

Peyton scored 16 points to go with six rebounds, five assists four steals and only two turnovers and played a more complete – and effective game – than did his Michigan counterpart, Trey Burke (who scored 24 points and had three assists but committed four turnovers), the John R. Wooden Award winner.

Dieng scored eight points, grabbed eight rebounds, had six assists and blocked three shots and helped finally slow Michigan’s Mitch McGary down (six points and six rebounds) after the freshman had pretty much had his way through five tournament games.

And sophomore power forward Chane Behanan demonstrated over the long weekend why he should be on a lot of 2013-14 preseason All-American lists.

He’ll head back to Louisville Tuesday morning after scoring 25 points and grabbing 21 rebounds – 15 and 12 of those gathered in 28 minutes against the Wolverines.

Like Wichita State two nights before – and unlike the Cardinals’ first four tourney opponents – the Wolverines played well enough Monday night to have a very real chance of knocking off Louisville.

This was a team that lost by six points at Penn State on Feb. 27 when the Nittany Lions were 0-14 in the Big Ten conference and 8-18 overall.

The Wolverines finished in a tie for fourth and was the fifth season in the post-season tournament for what was the toughest conference in the country this season.

And Burke was surrounded by a terrific freshman class as well as one of the better juniors in college hoops (Tim Hardaway Jr.).

John Beilein’s team showed how gritty and skilled it was by rallying from 10 points down with a little more than two minutes to go to put a South Regional semifinal with Kansas into overtime before knocking off the region’s No. 1 seed – then smacked Florida silly in the final.

And then Wolverines knocked out Syracuse – which handily beat Indiana, the pick of many last summer to win the national title, in the East semifinals – Saturday night before building that 12-point lead Monday night.

But, just as I had anticipated months ago, the team that had just too much for anyone else this season was Pitino’s Cardinals.

It was quite a day for Pitino.

Monday morning he was introduced as one of the newest soon-to-be-inducted (in Septembers) of the Naismith Hall of Fame.

Roughly 12 hours later he became the first coach to win national titles with two programs (he did it 17 years ago, with Kentucky).

And, oh yeah: It was a pretty good day for a former George Mason student, too.