A truly dumb question for Charlie Coles

I haven’t done any sports-related stuff for a while. So much so, that I did a double take when I saw the scores, not fully realizing it was about a basketball game.

Gary Parrish’s blog at CBS Sports discusses a post-game interview with Charlie Coles, basketball coach at Miami University. The Kentucky Wildcats won the game against Miami when John Wall hit a jumper at the buzzer.

Now, Kentucky is one of the best teams in the country at this point, a popular pick to make the Final Four. (Quick lesson for those of you who do not follow college basketball, the NCAA tournament starts with 65 teams, reduced to 64 after one play-in game between the 64th and 65th seeds, then is a standard single elimination tournament after that. The Final Four is the group of teams remaining after the pool has been reduced to that number.)

Enter Dick Hall, who has the guts to ask poor Charlie “How did this one get away from you?”

Which, if you’ve been following along so far, is a question which really makes zero sense. Coles’s reply is priceless:

“I can’t believe you asked that question; I really can’t believe it,” Coles said. “Let me see here. Kentucky Wildcats. No. 4 in the country. I’m hearing four first-round draft choices. And you’re asking me how that got away from me ? Why don’t you ask John why it was so close?”

It gets even better when Charlie finds out he’s talking to a reporter from Lexington. But don’t take my word for it: listen to the audio for yourself (this is the uncut interview; the interesting part starts from 1:42, and the entire answer to the question ends at about 4:12).

Let this be a lesson to anyone who wants to ask Charlie Coles a rather dumb question like this.