Viva Villanova

When the buzzer went off at the end of the 1985 NCAA Basketball Championship Game, Georgetown looked perplexed. The Hoyas, the favorites to capture their second-straight title, had just fallen to Villanova in the deciding game of the tournament.

Patrick Ewing, Georgetown's giant center, smiled vaguely, watching with a trickle of amused uncertainty as the Villanova players climbed all over each other at midcourt.

The other Georgetown players huddled around Ewing. They did not look sad. They did not look resigned. There were no tears. There were no bowed heads.

The Georgetown players looked like they were watching a foreign film without subtitles. What, their faces seemed to ask, is going on here?

As soon as the buzzer in the NCAA Championship Game went off, the horns in Philadelphia went on. Honk. Honk. The streets of Philadelphia were filled with the sounds of car horns and the shouts of people yelling from their doorsteps. It was New Year's Eve and the clock had struck midnight.

This year, Villanova leapt into the NCAA's "Sweet 16" by beating Illinois, 63-61, Sunday. Villanova owes its trip to this year's party to the last remaining player from that 1985 championship team.

With five seconds left in the game, and Villanova trailing by two, Cat senior Mark Plansky took a pass in the left corner, pump faked and then went up for a shot. He was mauled.

With four seconds left in the game, Plansky went to the foul line with the chance to send Villanova into the Southeast region's semifinals.

A year ago, Villanova point guard Gary McLain revealed in a controversial article in Sports Illustrated that he and several other Villanova players had used cocaine during the 1984-85 season. McLain said he was high during the 1985 championship game.

His confession tainted the memory of that 1985 championship game. After reading McLain's piece, you looked back on that championship with a bitter glint in your eyes. Instead of seeing a bunch of fine athletes stunning a highly-favored opponent, you saw Gary McLain and you saw cocaine.

They used to call Villanova "Vanilla-ova" because of its predominatly white student body. Now, that vanilla seemed to stand for something else.

Plansky stood at the foul line Sunday with all of America's sporting public watching. An athlete shooting for a destination--the hoop--and a destiny--the NCAA's "Sweet 16."

His two free throws in the face of terrible pressure seemed to restore, if only for a moment, the purity of his sport.