Iowa followed that 20 point Kansas win with an even bigger thrashing of a Villinova team that eventually reached the Elite Eight. Memories of that Maui Classic:
Big play, too. But I think Pierre's double was one out man on first. That ball was hit right where Aramis should have been in a late inning of a three run game. It happened even before the Bartman play. Alex wouldn't have needed to turn two. Nor would there have been a runner on second to impede his vision. Watch the whole inning from the beginning. Everyone one remembers A Gon and Bartman and Prior melting down. No one remembers Pierre's double.
Aramis was acquired to hit. Alex was acquired to play defense. I put the loss on Alex the second the game ended...never understood the Bartman nonsense. But everyone makes mistakes. Look at every play of the game and other plays/guys were a factor. It's a team sport.
That's how I remembered it. UNLV doesn't get back in the game without that call IMO.
I never understood that Bartman nonsense either, and the governor Blajovech made a completely idiotic comment in the Catching Hell 30 for 30 "He'll never get a pardon in this state." Ramierez was actually a dependable third baseman. He just didn't like to dive to his right. He dislocated his shoulder twice in his career doing it. But guarding the line in that situation is a common baseball move.
The "Jim Bain game" would leave it's legacy in the NCAA. It would take a couple of years, but a rule would be passed preventing an official from working more than one game in a 24 hour period. The legend is that Bain needed to catch a flight to Kansas City to work a Big Eight tournament game that evening. And he didn't want the game to go into overtime.
That was a strange year, especially for Steve Carfino, who's name has popped up on other threads. In the USC game he was sucker punched by future Hawkeye Gerry Wright. At UCLA southern California native Carfino was heckled by Bruin fans ("Carfino, you're ugly"). Lute had an increasingly tempestuous battle with a couple of DSM register sports writers, was tired of Midwestern Winters (A North Dakota native?) and general lack of privacy in a small town. I seem to remember him being upset over the slow construction pace of Carver Hawkeye. Then there was Criqui's comments, a tough loss to MSU in the Carver debut, and I believe one last game in the Fieldhouse against Indiana. Lute's incoming recruiting class for 1984 was by far his weakest. That issue would soon be rectified.
