OPINION

By Jim Litke

updated 12:42 a.m. ET April 1, 2007

Jim Litke

ATLANTA - Ewing vs. Olajuwon this wasn’t.

The most anticipated battle in decades between two of college basketball’s best big men, 7-foot Greg Oden of Ohio State and 7-2 Roy Hibbert of Georgetown, never quite materialized in Saturday night’s semifinal. Thank three guys whose names you wouldn’t — and probably shouldn’t — know.

They are referees Ted Valentine, Richard Cartmell and Mike Kitts, who seemed almost as determined to grab the headlines as any player. They whistled 25 fouls in total, four each against Oden and Hibbert, and had almost as much to do with the outcome — Buckeyes 67, Hoyas 60 — as anybody wearing a jersey and shorts.

Without their big men, these looked like two very ordinary teams.

And if Oden gets in as much foul trouble against Florida, which thumped UCLA 76-66 in the other semifinal, the game could wind up just as lopsided as when the Gators and Buckeyes met in January with the college football championship on the line.

Neither of Florida’s big men, 6-11 Joakim Noah and 6-10 Al Horford, are classic low-post players. But without Oden in the lane to play traffic cop, either could pile up points Monday night. The Ohio State freshman collected four fouls and wasn’t a factor when the Gators rolled to an 86-60 win during the regular season.

A few days before this Final Four tipped off, Ohio State coach Thad Matta recalled the days when every high school kid tall enough to see over his locker didn’t automatically hire an agent and declare himself ready for the NBA.

One measure of how quaint that notion seemed is that both participants in the last really good big-man game in the NCAA tournament, the 1984 meeting between Patrick Ewing of Georgetown and Hakeem Olajuwon of Houston, have long since retired from the pros. But Matta was hopeful, anyway.

“It’s going to get the game back to where it used to be in having that low-post threat,” he predicted.

It took only a few minutes for the zebras to prove him wrong.

The game was all of 18 seconds old when Hibbert collected his first foul, and only 33 seconds older than that when Oden matched him. Not to be outdone, the Buckeye center picked up his second less than two minutes later and headed to the bench to cool his heels. It was more like freezing his heels, since Oden didn’t set foot on the floor the rest of the first half.

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“What happened?” Oden said, mindful that talking too little was likely to get him in less trouble than talking too much. “The ref blew the whistle.”

“As I told Greg at halftime,” Matta chuckled, “he should be well rested.”

“I was out for 17 minutes,” Oden said about his first-half experience. “I wanted to get in there and tear the rim out.”

First, however, he had to watch Hibbert strut his stuff, throwing down one monster dunk just inside the 8-minute mark and again some 40 seconds later, grabbing a layup by teammate DaJuan Summers as it bounded off the rim and slamming it back through even harder.

Slide show   Final Four shootouts Check out the best images from Saturday’s action in Atlanta.

But just as the Georgetown big man was awakening echoes of predecessors Ewing, Alonzo Mourning and Dikembe Mutombo, well, you know what happened.

Tweet!

Hibbert, personal foul No. 2.

The consolation prize for which was a seat on the bench.

“I just had to make smarter decisions,” Hibbert said.

Not that it would have made much difference.

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