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On the other side of the world, Beatrice, James, and Chol stood at the front of a massive throng of refugees and watched the flat screen in disbelief. Before the game started, a Ugandan commander had welcomed the crowd and explained that the game was being brought to them in living color as a courtesy of his government. He talked about the game, a little about the tournament, and introduced, as the guests of honor, the family of young Samuel Sooleymon, the hottest player in America.
Beatrice never stopped crying.
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In the locker room, the Eagles were sky-high. They had clawed back from a disastrous start and had momentum. Lonnie implored them to dig deep and contest every shot. It was only a matter of time before Sooley took control.
He wasted no time. The Friars’ first shot bounced off the rim and Dmitri scooped up a long rebound and sprinted with the ball. He found Sooley across court with a bounce pass and before anyone could get near him he shot from 29 feet. Nothing but net. It was the shot the crowd had been waiting for and the fans came to life. After a short bucket on the other end, he fought off his defenders, went up again, and was fouled hard. He made two of three and Central immediately pressed full-court. Murray drew a charge. On the inbound, Sooley sprinted from beneath the basket, took a pass at the top of the key, spun in midair, and hit from 20 feet. Providence scored and Mitch jogged the ball up court. As Sooley peeled off a low screen, one of his defenders grabbed his jersey and a ref saw it. Third foul, time to rest. Inbound, Murray found Sooley deep in a corner for his fifth three-pointer. Providence needed to regroup but the coach decided to wait for the under-16-minute time-out. He should not have. The Friars were being pressed hard and taking bad shots. Mitch Rocker hit a three and Central had its first double-digit lead, 53–42. Its bench was wild and most of the 18,000 fans were cheering for the Eagles.
After the time-out, the Friars settled down and hit two buckets. Sooley missed from 25 feet, followed it, missed the rebound, and Central gave up an easy fast break. Its lead had been cut in half. At 9:20, and up by seven, Sooley squared up from 28 feet and nailed it. He hit another long one, then missed one but drew a foul. With eight minutes to go, he missed a bad one and Lonnie yanked him for a breather. For two minutes he watched Providence score six straight, and when he reentered at 5:50 the score was 63–56 and the game was still in doubt. But his two defenders were dragging and tired of chasing him around the court. He hit his sixth three, then his seventh. When he hit his eighth at 4:45, Providence called time, down 72–58 and out of gas. Central kept pressing and running, and Sooley, already with 34 points, kept bombing away. When he hit from 30 feet, the crowd began chanting his name and the arena was rocking.
He finished with 40 in a 15-point win. The Eagles were one game away from the Final Four.
CHAPTER 48
The game ended at two in the morning, East African time, and Coach Kymm found a Ugandan sergeant with a sat phone. He called the number of an American cell phone. Sooley was sitting high in the cheap seats of State Farm Arena, with his teammates and coaches, watching Iowa State play Maryland in the second game, when his phone buzzed with a strange number. Seconds later, he was talking to his mother.
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There was little time to enjoy being a member of the Elite Eight. On Friday, the team slept late, went through a light workout in an empty Stegeman Coliseum on Georgia’s campus, covered the scouting report on Maryland, and watched, off and on, the four games from the other side of the bracket.
On Saturday they slept late again, had brunch at the hotel, and took the bus to the arena in downtown Atlanta. In perfectly matched practice gear, they enjoyed a light shootaround two hours before tip-off. The media was everywhere and they hammed it up for the cameras. With Coach Britt close by, Sooley met with some reporters at courtside and fielded all the usual questions. As he smiled and went through an “aw-shucks” routine, his teammates chanted in the background, “Sooley! Sooley! Sooley!”
One challenge of being the Cinderella team was the nonstop attention, and their coaches relaxed and let them enjoy the moment. Several reporters noted that they were far more laid-back than the Maryland team, who were eight-point favorites.
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Sooley easily won the tip. The Maryland center gave a halfhearted effort because a well-disguised steal worked perfectly and Mitch was stripped of the ball. A quick pass down low led to an easy dunk.
Maryland had seven losses, with five of them in the Big Ten, a powerful conference that had landed six teams in the tournament. Three of them had advanced to the Elite Eight, the most of any league. The Terps were ruthless on defense and had allowed only 61 points a game, second nationally to Virginia. They immediately went into a box-and-one, with four guarding the lane. The fifth, Omar Brazeale, was the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, and he picked up Sooley at mid-court and began talking trash. He would soon stop. Sooley circled wide, took a bounce pass from Murray and launched from 30 feet. Brazeale was 6'6", about a foot shorter than necessary, and when the ball left Sooley’s hands his defender was far below him. Nothing but net and a taste of what was coming.