By Bob Markus

Maybe it's a good thing that Gordon Hayward's buzzer beating prayer went unanswered. If the Butler star's half court fling had gone in as time expired on Monday night's NCAA championship game, words would have been streaming from sports writers' word processors from here to hyperbole. As it was, the announcing team on CBS's telecast was calling Duke's 61-59 victory perhaps the greatest final in the history of the NCAA tournament. It wasn't. It was ferociously contested and close throughout--neither team ever led by more than six points. But it was missing a few things. One of them was a true super star. Neither team had one. Another missing ingredient was a doubt about which team would be the eventual winner.

I don't know about you but as the final 20 minutes unfolded I never had a sense that Duke was going to lose this game. It might have been tight on the scoreboard, but not as tight as Butler's shooters. Although they never could put the feisty Bulldogs away, Duke's Blue Devils generally kept it a two-possession game. Even when Butler would shrink the margin down to three points or less, Duke would almost always have possession of the ball, effectively making it a two-possession disadvantage for Butler. By now, having been outrebounded by the smaller Bulldogs in the first half--but still leading by a point at the intermission--Duke had seized control of the boards. Faced with a huge height disadvantage, the Bulldogs moved the ball at warp speed, looking for an opening. But too often they would settle for a drive to the basket where two or even three tall defenders were lurking.

The network announcers were on the money when they noted that Butler needed to shoot more from the perimeter. In particular they needed to put the ball in Hayward's hands. The 6-7 junior's game conjures memories of Larry Bird, including the fact that both had subpar performances in a losing NCAA title game. Hayward went only 2-11 from the field. but his slashes to the basket did net him a spate of second half free throws that kept the game close. After center Matt Howard powered in a pair of baskets to cut the Duke lead to one point in the final minute, the Bulldogs finally got the message and looked for Hayward. But Hayward's off balance shot for the lead drew iron with about seven seconds to go. After Duke's 7-1 center Brian Zoubek made the first of two free throws with under 4 seconds to play, he missed the second--perhaps intentionally. Hayward got the rebound and managed to dribble to midcourt before heaving his unanswered prayer. But it was oh, so close and had it dropped in we might be reconsidering this game's place in NCAA basketball lore. Obviously, if only for the presence of Butler, a small school from an unheralded conference, it has to fit in somewhere among the top 10. The fact that Duke Coach Mike Kryzyewski won his fourth title, joining legends Adolph Rupp and John Wooden as the only coaches to win that many, adds a little cache to its claim to eternal fame.

But there have been plenty of other games that equalled this one for excitement. Start with the fact that seven NCAA title games have gone to overtime. Of those, the one that stands out is North Carolina's 54-53 triple overtime win over Wilt Chamberlain's Kansas Jayhawks in a 1957 classic. Not far behind was Loyola of Chicago's 60-58 win over Cincinnati on a tip-in rebound at the overtime buzzer in 1963. That game resides in my personal memory book because it was the first NCAA final I ever covered for the Chicago Tribune. What made the game significant was that Cincinnati was the two-time defending champion, ranked No.1, and considered invincible if allowed to play on the lead. When the Bearcats opened a 15-point lead early in the second half, it appeared they were on their way to a threepeat. But Loyola, which started four African American players a full three years before Texas Western became famous for starting five, scrapped its way back and forced overtime. Demonstrating the enormous growth in media interest since then, Loyola Coach George Ireland conducted his postgame press conference in the hallway outside the Ramblers' dressing room and was surrounded by perhaps a dozen media types.

But not all of the most memorable title games went to overtime. There was Georgetown's Fred Brown throwing the ball away and North Carolina's Michael Jordan burying the game-winner in the Tarheels' 63-62 victory in 1982. The following year saw North Carolina State's Lorenzo Charles slamming the lid on an airball at the buzzer sending the underdog Wolfpack to an unlikely upset of Houston and Coach Jim Valvano on a frantic hunt for someone to hug. Two years after that came my own choice as the greatest NCAA Final, Villanova's 66-64 win over mighty Georgetown. The Wildcats made 9 of their 10 second half shots in a near-perfect display of basketball. And in 1987 came Indiana's 74-73 victory over Syracuse on Keith Smart's baseline jumper in the final second.

So, yes, Monday night's game was memorable. But the best ever? Hardly.