Strong Resemblance

By Robyn Norwood

April 4, 2005 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

ST. LOUIS — Sean May has carried the video with him for weeks.

“I’ve had it since we started the tournament,” May said. “I got it for Christmas this year.”

There are the Indiana players in their tight, old-fashioned shorts, celebrating at the end as the 1976 Hoosiers complete the last undefeated national championship season by defeating Michigan in the title game.

Scott May, his father, is No. 42.

Sean, a junior center, will wear the same number when he plays for 32-4 North Carolina in the NCAA championship game tonight against once-beaten Illinois, completing a coming-of-age story of a son’s yearning to match his father’s legacy.

That the game falls on his 21st birthday is almost too poetic.

“Yeah, man, the national championship,” May said. “It would be probably the most memorable gift I’ll ever get.”

Father and son had dinner Saturday night after May, 6 feet 9 and 260 pounds and blessed with nimble feet and great hands, had 22 points and seven rebounds in North Carolina’s semifinal victory over Michigan State.

“He just told me, ‘Man, you’ve had a great year. Close it out,’ ” May said. “He said, ‘You’ve got an opportunity to do something special.’

“He just told me to bring one home for the family.”

There are people who at first don’t understand Scott May’s approach to his son’s career. Scott didn’t go to Sean’s games when he first started playing basketball, and he declines almost all interviews about Sean, saying stories should be about the son, not the father.

“He never came to any of my games up until I was in high school because he didn’t want to put pressure on me,” Sean said. “People used to talk about his team, and then finally, right before I came to college, he showed me the national championship game. That’s when I realized what type of legacy he had at Indiana and the things he had done.”

But no matter how Scott has tried, it is always a little bit about the father, especially after Sean chose North Carolina over Indiana in the aftermath of the firing of Bob Knight, and again this season when North Carolina played Indiana in Bloomington.

Scott sat in pained silence as Sean struggled with all eyes upon him, scoring only eight points and saddled with foul trouble much of the game.

Someone asked Sean if it has been a burden.

“He’s never been a burden,” Sean said. “The people outside of our family who try to compare me to him have sometimes been a burden and made me question myself, as far as whether I’ll ever live up to what he has done.

“More than anything, he’s been a great help to me in everything I’ve done, from understanding my mistakes, to when I play well, not letting me get a big head and keeping me humble at all times. I’ll never be able to thank him enough for that, for making me grow into the person and human being I am.”

That human being is also an exceptional player, one of five finalists for the John R. Wooden Award and a force in the NCAA tournament, averaging almost 22 points and 11 rebounds.

“I think he’s one of the better big men and one of the best one or two players in the country,” said Illinois forward James Augustine, who has played against May twice before and took note of May’s 20-20 game, 26 points and 24 rebounds, against Duke this season.

“People look at him and think he’s unathletic,” Augustine said. “But he’s one of the most athletic players in the country. He knows how to play, he uses his body well, he has good hands. He could have a bad game and get 10 rebounds and 15 points.”

Illinois is likely to use smaller but stronger and quicker forward Roger Powell Jr. to try to defend May, though the players said they wouldn’t learn their assignments until today, Coach Bruce Weber’s usual approach.

Powell, a 6-6, 235-pound forward who is a licensed minister in the Pentecostal church, already has a Biblical metaphor for the matchup.

“David and Goliath,” he said.

May finds his inspiration elsewhere.

Sunday night, he said, he would watch the 1976 title game again.

“I’ve said that from Day One: If we’re at the Final Four and we’re going to play for the national championship, if I ever had that opportunity, I would watch that game,” May said.

He has started to show it to his teammates, then hesitated. He wonders whether they would appreciate it.

“The style of play was so different back then,” May said. “The tape is kind of black and white. It’s a little bit of color, but it looks like it’s in black and white.

“It’s just hard, sitting down as a 20-year-old -- at first I didn’t appreciate it, until I understood the magnitude of what they accomplished, going 32-0, and 31-1 the year before.

“I know some guys that would want to see it, and I’d probably show only 10 or 15 minutes of it, just so they could see the last five minutes of the game and the celebration.”

And what a celebration it would be for the Mays if North Carolina wins.

“It would mean a lot to me, because for so many years I’ve had to look up to that,” May said. “At times I questioned whether I would ever live up to that level.

“At the beginning of this year, Coach came in the locker room and told us where the tournament would be and he told us the dates.”

May, who said he’d like nothing more than to help Roy Williams win his first title, didn’t mention his birthday.

“He probably didn’t understand what I meant, but I told him, ‘April 4th is going to be a special day.’ ”