Final Four
It is a beautiful smile, and we have seen so little of it this season. Of all that is impressive about Connecticut center Emeka Okafor -- his power, his intelligence, his commitment -- his most striking feature is the bright, white smile that radiates from his smooth, steely jaw. And there it is.
He is walking onto the court following a timeout. There still are more than 15 minutes remaining, but he knows. Ahead by 21, he knows. It is all over but the accounting. How many minutes will he need to play to finish off Georgia Tech?
How will his stat line read?
What will be the margin of this decidedly undramatic NCAA championship game?
There is no pain in Okafor's back now. Pain is a memory as remote as the Huskies' intermittent regular-season difficulties. They are champions. It will be official, eventually.
During the wait, Okafor can show off all he has learned in three years of college basketball. That lefthanded jump hook? He didn't have that when he arrived. How about that baseline turnaround jumper, spinning into his right shoulder, a move far too quick and disarming for Tech center Luke Schenscher to react? These are some of the college game's lasting gifts to Okafor. He is paying the debt with one final night of brilliance: 24 points and 15 rebounds and sticking around 38 minutes, just to be safe. The final score, 82-73, does not do justice to the dimensions of UConn's victory.
"I was just kind of savoring the moment, you know?" Okafor says. "I didn't really sweat too bad. I figured that time was on our side, and we were up by so much. The national championship, you get there when you get there. Make it last."
Okafor wasn't a project when he joined the Huskies back in the fall of 2001. Though he received about as much attention for his scholastic gifts as his game, he defended and rebounded well enough to start immediately for an Elite Eight team. But his offense, all the things he needed to make his team a champion, he learned in Connecticut. Certainly, without the 42 points he scored in two Final Four games under San Antonio's Alamodome, particularly his 18 in the second half of a harrowing semifinal victory over Duke, UConn's 1999 championship banner would be flying solo for at least another season.
After the game, the Huskies' locker room is more subdued than that of any recent champion. The season hasn't always been comfortable. They began the year as a near-unanimous No. 1 pick and labored under that burden all the way to the close, losing six games before storming through to the Final Four. Back spasms periodically afflicted Okafor, robbing him of his energy and his lift and raising doubt about his ability to have an impact on this tournament. But at the moment, he is feeling fine.
"It's a nice ending to a good story," Okafor says. He is a junior in terms of eligibility, but he will complete his degree requirements this semester and file for early NBA draft entry. "I know I'm going to take a lot of good things with me, a lot of great memories. But I'm going to leave a great place."