It has been quite a while since any sports goliath has rightfully taken his throne. In fact, one may have to go back to the 2005 San Antonio Spurs for any situation where a team that won their championship could clearly be deserving to be called the best in the league, and some Detroit Pistons fans may even question that.
Along the way, there have been a few Cinderella stories, as there almost always are in any year, but not as many as one might think. The most memorable such story was George Mason University men's basketball, which did not win an NCAA championship or reach the title game. But for every magical Mason-like story, there was a black sheep champion, a la the St. Louis Cardinals: teams that were not dominant, nor sentimental favorite underdogs. Ho-hummers, if you will. Often, the year's championship struggles were downright showcases of mediocrity.
If we go back to 2005 where this trend began, you may recall that the New England Patriots successfully wrapped up Super Bowl XXXIX over the Eagles, UNC won a championship with one of the most physically imposing teams college basketball had seen in recent years, and Tim Duncan's veteran Spurs outlasted the equally game Detroit Pistons in an epic seven-game clash of titans. All seemed right with the sports world up to that point. Then came the Chicago White Sox.
There was no lack of dominance in Chicago's postseason run of 2005, going 11-1 while shutting down three quality teams with their impeccable starting pitching. However this was also a team that had choked away a massive midseason lead and clearly pressed the panic button as their September free-fall degenerated. This made their dominant October run all the more curious. Had their starting pitchers been replaced by cyborgs? How was Scott Podsednik suddenly hitting home runs? Why couldn't Brad Lidge get anybody out? Why couldn't the Yankees' MVP (or anyone else in that lineup, for that matter) hit anything in the first round? Something strange was happening and it not only spilled over into the following year, it seemingly tainted every square inch of 2006.
From Chicago, we go to Pasadena, where the defending champion USC Trojans had essentially a home game in the Rose Bowl for the championship of college football on January 4, 2006. ESPN had been overflowing the Bowl with absurd amounts of USC hype for weeks leading up to the game, cementing the Trojans as favorites not just to beat Texas, but apparently, to beat every other championship team in the history of college football, at least if you asked their experts.
That's because if you broke it down by names (a.k.a. oversimplified), it was Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, LenDale White, and Dwayne Jarrett against Vince Young. Both teams were undefeated, but how could even the supremely talented Young, a quarterback who bears a great resemblance to the much-maligned Michael Vick's run-first style, beat the mighty Trojans by himself?
Well, in one of the most breathtaking and spectacular college football games ever played, Young rushed for three touchdowns and lateralled a fourth one to a teammate (albeit illegally) while Reggie Bush struggled through an off-night after his lateral attempt early on did not land where he wanted it. The game's final score occurred on a Young eight-yard scramble around the corner and a sprawling defender's arms on a 4th-and-5 with just 19 seconds left to play to stun the pre-crowned USC team and provide Texas their 41-38 margin of victory.
However, that was just act one. The next fire-breathing dragon to be slayed in sports were the Indianapolis Colts. The supremely talented NFL team was the longest overdue for a championship, especially with the iconic, hard-working, and play-making Peyton Manning at the helm of a star-studded receiving core. The team marched through the regular season hot on the heels of the 1972 Dolphins' undefeated season for 14 weeks. Just like the '98 Denver Broncos who went 13-0 before them, sports fans knew a championship for the Colts team was merely an afterthought.
Yet when San Diego delivered the Colts a stunning home loss in December, the air seemed to come out of the balloon from there. Suddenly, news was reported that coach Tony Dungy tragically lost his son and the team was shaken up. Then a loss to the Seahawks and the heartbroken coach returned in time to eke out a shaky 17-13 victory at home to the awful Cardinals. The team got a week to rest up before playing the sixth-seeded Pittsburgh Steelers.
This was seen around the country as merely the afternoon game NFL fans watched while waiting for the more exciting matchup of the day: Panthers at Bears. Yet any fan who missed this one may feel free to stop reading this article for a moment and punch himself in the head one more time for doing so.
For three quarters in the RCA Dome, the Colts' offense looked lost and second-year QB Ben Roethlisberger was going down the field with no problem and took a 14-3 lead into half-time. Surely, the behemoth Colts offense would wake up and drop 35 points in the second half and make everyone forget they were ever behind, right?
Instead, the blitzing Steeler defense continued to make trouble for Manning while the ball-control running game of the Steelers drained away the clock. Veteran RB Jerome Bettis, in his final year, got a going away souvenir with a rushing touchdown that made the score 21-3 and put the Colts behind the eight-ball. It wasn't until this point that Indianapolis' offensive beasts awoke and seized control of the game. An Indy touchdown cut the lead to 21-18 and the dome got loud very quickly.
The game's final sequence of events seemed both endless and surreal. The momentum zigged and zagged more than the routes in Manning's playbook before the Steelers finally survived. Much of the focus of this game remains on the famed Bettis fumble and subsequent Roethlisberger tackle of Nick Harper, as well as Mike Vanderjagt blowing a 46-yard field goal wide right by the length of the team bus. The point remains that the mighty Colts were outplayed at home for the entire 60 minutes they took that field.
The Steelers went on to upset the Broncos in Denver in blowout fashion, and win a tainted and ugly Super Bowl against the Seahawks which will be remembered by many for its poor quarterback play and botched officials calls altering the game's outcome. Even so, Jerome Bettis and the Steelers were a legitimate feel-good story of a champion that no one had given a chance. Yet in 2006, even with the lack of dominance, this was more the exception than the rule.
As it stands right now, many expect the Florida Gators to repeat as NCAA basketball champions because of the talent they were able to keep around from last year's title run. However, that doesn't mean they were favored going into the 2006 tournament. As a No. 3 seed in the Minneapolis Region, the Gators were overlooked beyond teams like Duke and Gonzaga, as J.J. Redick and Adam Morrison were hyped as the most talented individual stars in basketball, behind UConn and Villanova, two of the most heralded starting lineups all-around. Indeed, for the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament, Florida was only mentioned in passing as Jim Rome made fun of Joaquim Noah's effeminate appearance on the court.
While all of the aforementioned favored teams were upset as tends to happen in the chance-driven single-elimination tourney, the Gators quietly and easily put all comers to sleep and only had to pull out one close game, to Georgetown, en route to their championship. The Gators also did the honors of sending home the tournament Cinderella, dominating a George Mason team that missed too many easy lay-ups in the national semifinals. Florida had shown their true greatness in the tournament, but had never truly emerged from the pack until that point.
Much like baseball, the NHL has a trend of their best regular season teams unable to win championships in the postseason. The President's Trophy winner (team with the most regular season points, for you non-hockey buffs) generally does not fare well in postseason play, and 2006 was no exception. The Detroit Red Wings appeared as dominant as ever, racking up 124 points and running away with the aforementioned trophy. For their reward, they drew the gritty Edmonton Oilers in round one.
Hockeytown's home team dominated the first two games, but when the scene shifted to north of the border, the Red Wings turned out to be in over their heads. The riotous crowds seemed to lift the Oilers to every crucial goal they would need to win, and just like that, the eighth-seeded Oilers had taken the series last four games, clinching on home ice in game six. In the east, the long-overdue Ottawa Senators pain continued as they were upended in five games by fourth-seeded Buffalo in the conference semis. While the Oilers continued their magical run in the west, it was the quietly talented Carolina Hurricanes that emerged from the No. 2 seed in the East.
In a wild and heart-stopping series, the Oilers lost a three-goal lead and Dwayne Roloson, their star goalie, in just the first game. Backup Ty Conklin gave up a now-infamous goalie-out-of-the-crease goal to Rod Brind'amour with 30 seconds left that won the game for Carolina. The devastated Oilers would fall behind 3-1 before mounting another inspired comeback behind the surprise play of backup goalie Jussi Markkanen before Carolina finally put things away at home in Game 7. Rookie Cam Ward rightfully won the Conn Smythe trophy with consistently solid play all series and all postseason. In the end, the magical eighth-seeded Oilers were denied, but the champion Carolina Hurricanes out of the Sun Belt were hardly the experts' pick to begin with either.
The NBA is currently a league in which the Western Conference is vastly superior to its counterparts in the East. While the West had no clear favorite between San Antonio, Phoenix, Dallas, and even the Clippers, the Pistons still stood clearly atop the East. The Miami Heat took the No. 2 seed, but with only 52 wins, the team seemed almost too veteran for their own good. They had not taken the regular season terribly seriously, with a porous record against playoff opponents.
Yet just as a good veteran team does, they turned a switch to start the playoffs and made sure to win via blowout, as well as the close games. They did not lose any particular backbreaker games that demoralize a team and turn the series momentum around, and in a surprise, Dwyane Wade, now with elder statesman Shaq, avenged their previous season's loss to Detroit in the Conference Finals, winning in six games.
While the Dallas Mavericks had done the unthinkable by knocking off the San Antonio Spurs in one of the all-time great playoff series and winning Game 7 in overtime on San Antonio's home floor, their old-school-yet-new-age-offense was in high gear going into the finals against the more rugged, lower scoring '90s-style toughness of the Heat. The Mavericks appeared to be clearly the better team throughout the first two games and 42 minutes of game three, until Wade and Miami made a valiant stand.
Wade almost single-handedly dug Miami out of their 13-point hole in the game's final six minutes, making some unbelievable shots before Gary Payton nailed the game winner and Wade came back to the basket on defense to make sure Josh Howard didn't steal a 3-0 series lead above the rim. From then on, Miami used their home court in games four and five to change the complexion of the series. Wade again borrowed Shaq's old Superman cape for the late stages and overtime of Game 5 and not even a shift to Dallas for Game 6 could get the Mavs out of their funk. When Jason Terry's three-pointer rattled out of the basket at the end of Game 6, the Miami Heat became another of 2006's unlikely champions.
Stay tuned this week for part two of this look back at 2006!
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