HOUSTON — In an alternate universe, Isaiah Wong is getting ready to play in the Final Four for Connecticut and coach Dan Hurley.
It’s not that preposterous — the Huskies went after the Piscataway, N.J., native hard, envisioning a backcourt of him and James Bouknight, who is now in the NBA with the Hornets.
UConn was one of the 6-foot-4 Wong’s two visits, along with Miami.
“I spent a lot of time thinking about UConn and the decision,” Wong, the ACC Player of the Year, said on Thursday.
“And I feel like I have a lot of great connections with the coach and the assistants and all of them.”
In an ironic twist, Wong picked Miami and will face UConn in Saturday’s Final Four at NRG Stadium.
“It’s a small world just having these two teams come [to Houston] and just having these two teams playing against each other,” Wong said.
When told of how strongly Wong felt about Connecticut, Hurley joked, “heartbreaking, distant second. … It was an exciting dream that didn’t come to fruition.”
Count Miami coach Jim Larranaga among proponents of expanding the NCAA Tournament.
Asked about the state of the ACC and the narrative that the league has been down in recent years, Larranaga turned the subject to the tournament.
He believes it should be moved to “at least 96 teams” because “there’s just so many more good teams.”
“I coached at Bowling Green. The Mid-American Conference was very good,” Larranaga said. “So expand the dance and let’s have more kids experience the fun of competing in the NCAA Tournament and be part of March Madness.”
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has been vocal about his hope that more teams are added to the dance.
The NCAA’s transformation committee recommended in January for every Division I championship to include 25 percent of schools nationwide.
That would equate to roughly 90 teams.
But, recently, NCAA senior vice president for basketball Dan Gavitt said expansion has not been seriously explored for quite some time.
Florida Atlantic, the nine-seed which had never won an NCAA Tournament game before this month, has consistently said it doesn’t feel like Cinderella or want to be portrayed that way.
That hasn’t changed.
“We don’t really like Cinderella,” guard Nick Boyd said. “We feel we’ve proved ourselves this whole year just by our body of work, our numbers, how we play as a team.
“I feel like a Cinderella team doesn’t play the way we play. We haven’t come into games and just shot people out or beat people by offense. We beat these teams frame by frame defensively, and I don’t think we’re a Cinderella team.”