Forever's Team by John Feinstein

Forever's Team by John Feinstein

Author:John Feinstein [Feinstein, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-80092-3
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-09-27T16:00:00+00:00


Disappointing as the loss to Carolina was, it was not a disaster. The NCAA Tournament Committee, knowing Duke had played the final without Bender and noting that Duke and Carolina had split four games during the season, treated the two teams almost equally, sending both to the East Regional in opposite brackets. Both would open the tournament in Raleigh and, if form held, they would decide the season series in a fifth meeting in the regional final.

“We were happy with the draw,” Spanarkel said. “We didn’t have to travel at all [the regional was in Greensboro] and we had gotten a good seed. And, if we got to the regional final, we’d get Carolina again, which was fine with us.”

Harrell would now have a week to prepare for his reprise as a starter; there was even some hope that Bender could play a limited role in the opening round. At worst, he would almost certainly be available the following week, assuming Duke got past the Sunday game in Raleigh.

On Wednesday, Bender was released from the hospital and went directly to Cameron to shoot some free throws while the rest of the team practiced. It was the last week before spring break, the weather was beautiful, and there was a feeling on the team that redemption was still very possible. There was no reason for them not to make another run. If Bender hadn’t gotten sick they would have won a second straight ACC Tournament. Everyone, from Foster on down, believed that.

“With all the problems we had been through, we had still played well enough at times that we thought we were good enough to beat anybody,” Wenzel said. “There’s also something to be said for adversity bringing you together. When Bobby got hurt, we didn’t have time to react against Carolina. But during that next week you could feel the team coming together, putting all the rivalries behind. This was the time.”

Then, on Wednesday night, Kenny Dennard went over to the Cambridge Inn, the campus hangout, with some friends, none of them basketball players.

“We were having a few beers,” Dennard said. “No big deal, nothing wild. There are a lot of stories about how wild I was, but only some of them are true and most of them were during the off-season. During the season, even that season, I didn’t drink very much. A friend of mine came up and said, ‘Hey, let’s get up a group of guys and go play five-on-five.’ I figured why not? It sounded like fun.”

Dennard’s friends all knew he had the keys to Cameron. They had played there at night in the past. Now, while Dennard sat and “had a few more beers,” his friends went off to round up a group to play. “We weren’t sloppy drunk when we went over to Cameron,” Dennard said. “But it was late and we had been drinking and four different guys did get hurt that night.”

If Dennard had not been one of those guys, that late night game would have been quickly forgotten.



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