THE APPLE OF
Morning breaks with brackets on the mind. The NCAA tournament selection committee — a group of 10 — gathers inside Suite 4329 at the Marriott Marquis. It is shortly after nine o’clock. An armed member of the Indiana State Police Emergency Response Team stands outside double doors. He guards a two-tier room lined with 32 computer monitors spread across 11 tables; mouse pads are emblazoned “FINAL FOUR PHOENIX 2017.” Dan Gavitt, coffee in hand, considers the day ahead. His late father, Dave, founded the Big East and now he is the NCAA’s senior vice president for basketball. In eight hours, the Big East final will tip 13 blocks south at the Garden. At 9 p.m., the ACC will follow suit with its title match at Barclays Center.
“He was a basketball junkie,” Gavitt says of his father. “He would have just loved all the action going around the city. To him, it would have been all about getting to the game early to see the people, visiting with as many — referees, coaches, players — and seeing them afterward, congratulating or consoling them.”
Down on the street below, there are 15 theatergoers huddling for warmth outside Richard Rodgers Theatre. It is 22 degrees outside; wind cuts across 46th St. Three are wrapped in sleeping bags; others keep active, twisting left and right, jumping up and down. There is no choreography to it, just a few “Hamilton” Crazies congregating. That is the ticket they seek, either for the 2 p.m. or 8 p.m. shows, but a secondary market grows elsewhere. Outside the Port Authority and Penn Station, street-corner scalpers scout peddling position ahead of a March basketball doubleheader unlike any the city has seen in its basketball history. It is ACC and Big East, Garden and Barclays, tipoffs three and a half hours apart. Villanova, the defending national champions headlines one; Duke drives toward a top seed at the other. Texts are exchanged; cell phones chirp. Big games are coming; gouging, too.
Notre Dame, a finalist in the ACC’s title bout, knows real estate value. The Irish are staying a few floors below the committee. That means Mike Brey, the “Loosest Coach in America,” is readying for a matchup with Duke, where he once served as Mike Krzyzewski’s assistant coach while the committee determines where his next travel itinerary will take him. Brey has coached in both the Big East and the ACC without changing jobs. So goes the college game in its modern era. Thrice a Big East coach of the year, and now in his fourth season as a member of the ACC, Brey, fresh off back-to-back Elite 8 NCAA tourney showings, is comfortable comparing and contrasting. He weighs the value of New York gym space in light of realignment.
“We were fortunate enough to play in the semis in the Garden, we never got to Saturday night,” Brey says of his team’s former life. “Both arenas I think are on par. We’ll probably be in that arena someday. I don’t know if I’ll still be coaching when we get there, but we’ll be in that arena someday, too.”
Bubbles are about to burst; brackets will be released. In the interim, hoop heads are hailing cabs and hopping on trains or buses. At 10 a.m., the Public School Athletic League girls’ final between South Shore and Murray Bergtraum goes off at the Garden; South Shore doubles Bergtraum up, 68-34. The boys follow with Lincoln railroading Jefferson, 82-64. Jefferson coach Lawrence Pollard is tossed after shouting at a ref in light of a Lincoln sub banging home a three with less than a minute left. This all plays out on Garden floor, a Big East logo emblazoned on it in advance of Villanova seeking its second Big East championship trophy in three seasons. Brey knows the old conference as well as anyone, particularly Nova’s way.
“We’re both kind of doing the same dance,” Brey says.
No matter the final scores, everyone knows they are losing an hour by daybreak on Selection Sunday. The countdown is on, not only for the Big Dance, but to next March. New York is set to gain one more conference in its March portfolio. The Big 10 is coming, and that means wizards like Tom Izzo and sleeves-up coaches like John Beilein, once in the Big East with West Virginia, will bring back play calls like “Double Quickie Potato.” Michigan State athletic director Mark Hollis will have moved on from his post as selection committee chairman by then. For now, his focus is a full field, bubbles and bids being bandied about in his workspace. There is a pool table in a corner of the room, but Hollis won’t be breaking before Sunday night.
“No billiards today,” Hollis says.
lll Ron Naclerio, noted gym rat and coach of Cardozo High, looks worn by noon. He carries 33 keys on a chain affixed to his pants each day. There are 768 career wins in his back pocket. He is seated a few rows back from the Garden floor as the Public School Athletic League boys’ final plays out. He offers a losing coach’s lament about not playing in the season’s final game, but he has kept busy in defeat. On Tuesday, he was at the St. John’s game against Villanova. He stayed for Seton Hall after that and then drove back to Queens to take in the Cardozo junior varsity’s playoff tilt with Bronx Science. There was also a stop in at St. John’s for a Catholic league semifinal. Naclerio, a bachelor, bounced over to Barclays for a nightcap.
“It is a way of me having a detox,” he says. “A lot of the kids and my coaches ask, ‘How can you go watch?’ I say, I don’t know, maybe you pick up something for next year.”
Villanova coach Jay Wright knows the gym lust. He leans his head back on a cinder-block wall outside the Knicks locker room and talks about the days when he coached at Hofstra. In 1995, he was in his second season with the Flying Dutchmen when Villanova, a team he served as an assistant previously, reached the Big East final. That night, Wildcats guard Jonathan Haynes’ father, Warren, was arrested when a derringer he was carrying slipped out and discharged one shot. Villanova won