Back In The Ivy League, Penn Starts Winning

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – It was three simple words, buried in the middle of a few comments, but they speak volumes.

“Penn teams win.”

That came from Penn freshman guard Zack Rosen, who has quickly made an impact on the Quakers.  It was certainly evident on Friday night, when Rosen helped lead them to a 66-60 win at Harvard to start off Ivy League play with a win.

During non-league play, this Penn team didn’t do a lot of that.  They entered Friday night’s game with a 4-10 mark, which is just about unheard of for a Penn team.  While Penn teams are known for playing a tough non-league schedule, aided by being in the Big Five, usually the Quakers pull off a few more wins.  They make their mark in the Ivy League, where they are perennial contenders, but that’s not all.

This year, the Quakers have had a couple of things working against them.  One is their youth, as the Quakers start two freshmen, two sophomores and a junior.  Another is injuries, as Darren Smith and Andreas Schreiber have both been lost for the season and Harrison Gaines did not make the trip this weekend due to illness.  That has contributed to the young starting lineup, as the first two projected to start before the season and Gaines, who himself is just a sophomore, has come off the bench after starting last year.

The Quakers also played, as usual, a difficult non-league schedule, and it shows in the results.  Every team that Quakers have lost to has a record of at least three games over .500 on the season.  That’s the big reason for the 4-10 mark heading into Ivy play, and while there’s a little solace that can be taken in that their ticket to the NCAA Tournament is their Ivy League performance, those losses can add up, especially with a young team.

“It’s tough because losses, when they accumulate like they have, can be very discouraging to the players and the staff,” said head coach Glen Miller.  “We try to keep everybody upbeat and ready for Ivy League play, and to clear our heads to get ready is a little bit of a challenge.  These guys are competitors, and when you lose, a loss is a loss.  It wears on you.”

Even with that record, the Quakers clearly came in looking like a team on a mission Friday night.  Although a 12-0 run by Harvard put the Crimson up 18-12, you never really sensed they were playing much better or were on the verge of taking control of the game.  By the second half, the Quakers were playing better and it showed on the scoreboard for much of the half.

Miller felt they came into the game with a good mindset, and the players seemed to focus well.  That’s a big plus considering the youth of this team.  It doesn’t hurt that they felt they were playing better of late, although they would surely like to have a few more wins to show for it.

“We were excited,” said Rosen.  “We definitely had confidence, even despite our record.  We were playing well as of late, we were practicing hard.  We definitely picked up our work ethic in practice.  We were just really excited to start league play.”

Rosen leads the Ivy League in assist/turnover ratio, and only helped that with nine assists against four turnovers to go along with 15 points on Friday night.  He’s always had an excellent basketball I.Q. and has wasted no time making an impact on this team with that.

“He’s heady out there,” said Miller.  “We’ve been encouraging him the whole year to look for his own shot, to have a better balance of scoring and passing the ball.  He’s picked up his aggressiveness on offense, which has helped us out quite a bit.”

The other player who was a difference-maker was also a freshman, Rob Belcore.  While Jack Eggleston will get mentioned for being the team’s top scorer (19 points), Rosen ran the show and Belcore was the energy guy who made key plays late.  Belcore scored 10 points and grabbed seven boards, but he was active at both ends of the floor and around the ball often.

With the usual quick turnaround of having to play Saturday night at Dartmouth, Penn has started off Ivy League play with a win.  They’re in familiar territory now, and perhaps some of the losses against solid competition will help in terms of what they could gain from those experiences.  They’ve clearly put the losses aside and know that these are the games that will give them a chance at playing through March.

“Going into this game, we were saying we’re 0-0, brand new season,” said Belcore.  “You throw all the stats out, all the wins and losses, how we played before, it’s all gone.  We come out, we’re 1-0 in our new season, and we’re looking to make a run here.”

Another run that would remind everyone that, like Rosen said, “Penn teams win.”

America East Notebook: Top Plays and Performances of the Past Two Weeks

Tommy Brenton introduces himself to Jake O’Brien and John Holland: The “Ballsy” play of the week came in the game of the decade.  With under a minute left in the third overtime of the marathon between Stony Brook and BU, Brian Dougher fed Tommy Brenton on a fast break. As Brenton closed in on the hoop, 6’5″ pogo-stick John Holland and 6’8″ Jake O’Brien appeared to cut off Brenton’s lane to the basket. But Stony Brook’s freshman wasn’t going to be denied, as he out-leapt the Terriers’ duo for an “in your face” elbows-above-the-rim, two-handed tomahawk slam, momentarily silencing the Terriers student section. Under any circumstances Brenton’s dunk was filthy, but it gets extra marks considering Stony Brook was trailing by one.

Marqus Blakely’s “Ah, to hell with this!” moment: After taking a beating for much of Vermont’s road win against Hartford, Blakely had had enough.  After catching a feed on the left baseline, Blakely spun around one defender, only to find two more standing between him and the bucket. After passing out of similar situations all night, Blakely decided enough was enough, and leapt over both Hawks defenders and slammed home a monster two-handed jam over what seemed like the entire Hawks roster.

Corey Lowe dials up John Holland from long distance: Against UMBC Lowe and Holland connected on a half-court lob resulting in a monster Holland jam. It was harder to tell what was more impressive: Holland’s full extension, rim at eye-level dunk, or Lowe’s perfect 50-foot pass.

Matt Wolff beats the Buzzer: Wolff swished a 50-footer against as the buzzer sounded at the end of the first half. At the time it seemed like more of an anomaly than an impact play, as the Terriers entered the half leading the University of Maryland-Baltimore County by 17 points (39-22). Two overtimes later, Wolff’s heave stood out, as BU needed every single point in their 80-77 win.

Brian Benson introduces himself to the Catamounts: Benson showed his jaw-dropping athleticism in one of the few bright moments for the Wildcats during their 44-point loss to Vermont. In one fluid motion he spun around a defender in the post, planted for a second on two feet, and exploded above the crowd of Catamounts for a backboard rattling two-handed slam. Benson then proceeded to nearly clear 6’8″ teammate Dane DiLiegro as he leapt in post-dunk excitement.

Proctor leaves it all on the court: Let’s be clear, Darryl Proctor is a warrior, Darryl Proctor is a monster. When you’re a 6’3″ power forward (in shoes on a very good day), you are going to be on the wrong side of a size mismatch every single night.  And when that same undersized player is ranking second in the conference in scoring and rebounding despite facing double and triple teams every night, you’ve got a special player on your hands. Proctor gets the snot beaten out of him every night as UMBC’s only offensive weapon, and with the Retrievers only employing a six-man rotation, Proctor knows no matter how hard it gets, there isn’t anyone on the bench ready to give him a breather, as he is averaging a league-leading 39.5 minutes per game. Proctor’s game isn’t always pretty, but he flat-out gets the job done it by being the toughest, smartest, hardest working player in the conference.

Proctor refused to roll over and die in the Retrievers’ embarrassing 76-42 loss to the Vermont, bulling his way to 22 points and 10 rebounds in 38 minutes of playing despite being triple-teamed while watching the rest of the Retrievers quit on him. Proctor followed up the Vermont game with 27 points while fighting through a Terriers swarm for 50 minutes on the court. Proctor battled so hard that he collapsed after the game, and was rushed to a nearby hospital to be hydrated. But Proctor saved his best performance for the following week, when he carried the Retrievers over then first-place (tied) Binghamton, scoring 26 points and ripping down nine rebounds, perhaps saving UMBC’s season.

Chris Martin fights for his father: There aren’t words to sum up the performance of Martin all season long, as he has left everything he has on the court and on the practice floor while his father has fought a losing battle against throat cancer. Martin drives back and fourth daily from the Stony Brook campus on Long Island to his father’s house in Queens, and still finds the inner strength to leave his heart on the floor every day. No performance was bigger for Martin than when he put Stony Brook on his back and carried them through four overtimes in their two point loss to BU. Martin was fearless and unstoppable as he poured in all 26 of his points after the intermission.

Eric Gilchrese does his mother proud: Like Martin, New Hampshire’s Gilchrese has played much of the season with his heart focused on something much larger than basketball, as his mother fought and ultimately lost her battle with cancer in early December. Gilchrese took a leave of absence from the Wildcats to return home, missing 12 games. In his first game back, Gilchrese exploded, scoring 22 points and shooting 5-7 from downtown in New Hampshire’s come from behind win on the road at Stony Brook. After the game, an emotional Gilchrese couldn’t bring himself to speak much about everything that he has endured, but he made his few words count, saying simply “R.I.P. Mom.”

Snake-Bitten Virgina Tech Loses Another Close One to BC

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – Once again, Virginia Tech comes away from a game looking like a team on the verge, but not breaking through to pull off a win.  Their 67-66 loss at Boston College is just the latest close loss for a team that’s been a little snake-bitten.

Virginia Tech has lost seven games this season.  Six of those losses have been by four points or less, with the aberration being their 25-point loss at Duke nearly four weeks ago.  Conversely, they have won just two games that were decided by that margin.  Knowing that, one might have an idea of what part of the pre-game talk in the locker room might encompass.

“I put certain things up on the board that I think are imperative to have a chance to win, and the last thing I put on there is finishing,” said head coach Seth Greenberg.  “In this league you’ve got to finish.”

The Hokies certainly didn’t start well, although the Eagles didn’t exactly put on a clinic in the first half, either.  In an ugly half, the Eagles held a slim lead, although the feeling was that they were up by more.  The Hokies didn’t finally break through until later in the second half, and they had the lead in the final seconds.  Then heartbreak struck again, as Rakim Sanders tipped in a Tyrese Rice miss with 0.4 seconds left.

This all began in the fourth game of the season, when Xavier beat the Hokies at the buzzer in San Juan.  A week and a half later, a jumper with less than a second to go sank them against Wisconsin.  Eight days after that, they had two chances in the final seconds at Georgia but were unsuccessful with both in a one-point loss.

That’s not all.  Two nights earlier, they didn’t lose in the final seconds, but they blew a 15-point second-half lead against Clemson at home and lost by four.  It wasn’t a last-second loss, but it stung all the same, and the loss at Boston College only adds to it.

“We played horrible, but at the end, we did what we were supposed to do to win the game, except get the rebound,” said Malcolm Delaney, who scored 14 of his 18 points in the second half.  “Every game came down to either the last play or something like that, but we had the game.  We just keep beating ourselves.”

The Hokies are still 4-3 in the ACC, including wins at Wake Forest and Miami, although the latter doesn’t look quite as good right now.  While no games promise to be easy the rest of the way, the last five in particular will surely be daunting, as they play Florida State twice, go to Clemson and host Duke and North Carolina.  Five of the remaining nine are at home, and they have a week before their next game to get practice time and work on ways to finish games.

The week off might also be a time to keep some perspective.  Greenberg is doing just that, remembering that games in the ACC are like this in 2008-09 and there’s always the fine line between winning and losing.

“We lost a killer game to Clemson, then we came on the road and played a very good Boston College team, and we lost a one-pointer,” Greenberg said.  “Does that make us a bad team?  I told our guys before the game, it’s really simple.  When we were up 15 against Clemson, in the back of my mind I was thinking, we’re good.  This is a good team.  That hasn’t changed.  Just because we lost a heart-breaker there, and just because we lost on a tip-in, does that make us a bad team?  No.  Not as good as I’d like us to be.”

It also means the bottom line doesn’t tell the whole story of this team.  It’s a young team, but one that’s in just about every game, which can be a blessing and a curse.  They have a chance to win, but they could easily lose as well, and losing such games can take a toll.

And it also means that they’re a team on the verge.  At some point, they might well turn those close losses into wins.

Route 6 Rivalry Renewed

The stage is set for a supreme dogfight between UConn and Providence at the Harry A. Gampel Pavilion in Storrs on Saturday.

The No. 2 Huskies, who have won eight straight following a listless home loss to Georgetown, will look to get the Providence monkey off their back.

The Friars have won four consecutive games at UConn, where they owned the Huskies in every aspect of last year’s 77-65 rout. The game was actually more of a shellacking than the score indicates. Doug Wiggins canned a pair of treys in garbage time to cut down a 17-point deficit. So, UConn will renew the Route 6 rivalry. Wiggins has since transferred to UMass. Tomorrow’s game will also have some extra juice.

If UConn defeats Providence, they will likely become No. 1 in the country for the first time since 2006.

The matchup comes in the aftermath of fourth-ranked Wake Forest’s thrilling, 70-68 win over North Carolina.

The game, won on forward James Johnson’s layup with eight tenths of a second to play, indicated that the ACC is almost as stacked, talent-laced, and wide open as the Big East this season.

“Between the ACC and the Big East, there must be about a dozen teams that can make the Final Four,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski told the New York Daily News. “I think you’re going to be in a lot of games like this, where teams get a chance to show their grit.”

UConn showed a complete lack of grit during their lone loss of the season, a late December game Jim Calhoun dubbed a “home-serving.” The Hoyas did a solid job containing Jerome Dyson, who shot an abysmal 1-for-10. Some of Dyson’s offensive woes were self-inflicted, however, as he botched a layup and exited the game mentally.

Georgetown also limited 7-foot-3 center Hasheem Thabeet to four field goals.

“It’s better that we get this loss out of the way early,” said A.J. Price, following the lackluster loss. “We didn’t by any stretch of imagination think we were going undefeated.”

Undefeated? No.

No. 1 ranking?

If the Huskies erase the past and clamp down on a well-oiled offensive machine that features three-headed monster Weyinmi Efejuku (13.4 PPG), Marshon Brooks (13.1 PPG) and 5-foot-10 point guard Sharaud Curry (10.4 PPG, 4.5 APG), yes.

The Friars have other firepower with 6-foot-7 playmaking point forward Geoff McDermott and Jeff Xavier, a fifth-year senior shooter who is playing this season despite nagging injuries.

Randall Hanke, a veteran center and never the sharpest tool in the shed, is beginning to flower. The 7-foot beanstalk scored 12 points (6-for-7 FG) in 19 minutes during the Friars’ 100-94 defeat of No. 15 Syracuse.

Providence (14-6, 6-2) has won three of their last four since Xavier’s brother walked onto the court toward the referees in the Marquette loss.

Still, with the inside manpower of walking double-double Adrien and Thabeet, UConn looks to end Providence’s win streak and success at the Constitution state.

A Look Back: January 17, 2008

UConn was buried under a barrage of three-pointers, as Providence’s perimeter assault did the Huskies in during the second half. The Friars’ 14 treys tied for the most three-pointers allowed by UConn in a Big East game. Providence’s Dwain Williams, who dialed in from a different area code, led the long-range assault with 23 points and six trifectas. Jeff Adrien led the Huskies with 16 points and 15 boards. The Friars held Stanley “Sticks” Robinson, a double-digit scorer, to just two points on a wowing putback dunk in the first half. Jerome Dyson was off his game as well. Calhoun certainly wasn’t in good spirits during the press conference.

“I mean, did Jerome Dyson play tonight?” Calhoun quipped. “I’m not sure if he did or he didn’t.”

Born Ready: The Greatest Or Just The Latest?

Ah, to be a 17-year-old and have scouts drooling over your every move.

It’s never a rarity with nationally-ranked, hyped up to heaven-sent high school basketball prospects in the Big Apple.

We saw it five years ago at Lincoln, a traditional basketball breeding ground in Coney Island. In the island where throwbacks are in and Abercrombie is out, where pickup ball is played at all hours, top-shelf players are never in short supply.

The Sebastian Telfair saga is indicative of the hype and hyperbole that comes with the territory. The pint-sized guard was a highly-sought after item on the recruiting market back in 2004, with the eyes of the city watching. Telfair currently balls for the Minnesota Timberwolves, albeit he’s yet to evolve into the electrifying, playmaking point guard that the New York basketball culture saw back in ’04. He’s posted some resume reels this year and his game has made some strides, but he hasn’t panned out. Let’s not forget, however, he’s only 23.

During Telfair’s senior year at Lincoln, when he averaged 28 points and led the Railsplitters to the state championship, he lived his life like the star of his own movie. Fitting, because there actually was an ESPN documentary, Through The Fire, about his last hurrah at Coney Island and the pressure that splashed the shoreline.

Telfair abruptly ascended to celebrity status. His games were aired on ESPN. His name was all over the New York tabloids, his mug pictured on the front of every big sports magazine. He kicked it with Jay-Z, then a frequent visitor of the Lincoln locker room.

Telfair penned with Rick Pitino and the Louisville Cardinals during the early signing period. The marriage never was, however, when Telfair decided he was going to play in the NBA.

There’s a buffet-line of dribble-happy, go-go New York guards that have flamed out due to the inevitable pressure that being pegged as the city’s next great one brings. (Remember God Shammgod, who was supposed to be the second coming of Michael?)

This is what makes Lance Stephenson’s story all the more interesting.

The hype machine was kick-started early for Lance “Born Ready” Stephenson, who also attends Marbury and Telfair’s alma mater in Brooklyn. Born Ready is a promising 6-foot-5, 200-pound proverbial manchild.

Stephenson went eyeball-to-eyeball with then top-ranked junior O.J. Mayo as an eighth-grader at 2005 ABCD camp at Farleigh Dickinson. It was a matchup described as Stephenson’s “defining moment.” The epic mano y mano showdown abruptly turned into one for the ages.

Stephenson forged a name for himself in the first half, ignoring Mayo’s constant trash-talk. At moments, it looked as if he was feeding off it.

He slammed home alley-oops. He worked off the dribbled and glided to the hole. He eluded defenders off the baseline, penetrated the teeth of the defense, and buried three-pointers.

“I really didn’t intend on getting into a type of battle like that, sometimes it happens,” said Mayo (who now stars for the Memphis Grizzlies) during an interview with CSTV.

Mayo, then the no. 1 ranked player in the country, eventually got the better of Stephenson, outscoring him 21-16 and rolling to a victory over Lance’s star-studded squad.

“(Mayo) was saying, ‘you can’t score. You can’t do this, you can’t do that’,” Stephenson said before a horde of reporters that day.

“I was saying, ‘listen you’re saying this to an eighth grader. I don’t care, I’m trying to play good.’”

Now Lance is New York’s vaunted senior guard, and the hype surrounding him and the railsplitters has hit towering heights.

It happens every day, like clockwork. Just like in the Ray Allen flick (He Got Game, 1998), “Where are you going next year?” Lance is asked as he traipses the halls of Lincoln.

He’s constantly reminded of the magnitude of such a decision. He’s also the subject of constant rumors. One recent rumor is that he is foregoing college at an opportunity to play professionally in Europe. It was quickly squashed during Stephenson’s interview with ESPN.

Stephenson had an online TV show about him this summer, where his every move was analyzed, dissected, and thrown back at the nifty neophyte.

“He definitely has the chance to be the best out of Coney Island,” said head coach Dwayne “Tiny” Morton, who coached Telfair and was an assistant during Marbury’s stay at Lincoln.

Still, Stephenson’s road to greatness has hit plenty of potholes.

He was suspended for a game last year after a fight between a teammate (which reportedly resulted in the teammate being sent to the hospital) and was charged with groping a 17-year-old girl in October.

Some say he’s got an attitude and brings baggage, others say it’s his will to win and the “attitude” comes with the territory.

Lance is more likely to go to a school like St. John’s (or a school where he can pull a one-and-done, get buckets and bolt for the league) than a school that wants to invest 2-4 years in him.

“Off the court, he (Lance) is like the nicest kid you’re going to ever meet, because he’s still just a kid,” says Lance’s cousin, known as “Bigz.”

Lincoln lost three out of four for the first time in recent memory. The Railsplitters were bludgeoned by top-tier St. Benedict’s at the Newark National Invitational Tournament. Stephenson was held to just 15 points on 5-for-17 shooting in a loss to Syracuse power Jamesville-DeWitt earlier this month.

Shortly after this, Lincoln fell 67-54 to Alambama power LeFlore at the Spalding Roundball Challenge in Springfield, Mass. Stephenson scored 24 points – 20 in the second half – in an eyeball-to-eyeball battle with DeMarcus Cousins, a top-ranked 2009 recruit. Cousins, a 6-foot-11 behemoth and soft UAB commit, went after Lance in various mano y mano battle scenes between the two highly-touted players.

The ensuing couple of weeks will be a major test of Stephenson’s fortitude, as Born Ready seeks to bounce back and continue the quest for Lincoln’s fourth consecutive PSAL championship at The Mecca of Basketball, Madison Square Garden.

Sharaud Curry Is Back for the Friars

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A year ago, a game like this must have seemed so far away, so unimaginable for Sharaud Curry.  It had to be a pipe dream, something he could only imagine happening at a time when his team was struggling without him, when they needed him.

It was a game many imagined happening last year, certainly.  There was a time when Curry was well on his way to becoming one of the top point guards in the Big East, emerging nicely as a sophomore.  With that, there were high hopes for him as a junior and for his team.  But they never materialized, the result of a well-chronicled foot injury that forced him to redshirt after playing just nine minutes last season.

On Wednesday night, Curry was everything a point guard is supposed to be and then some.  He was the reason his team won, a floor leader who found his teammates and scored when needed.  Sure, he put up 22 points on 8-10 shooting from the field, knocking down three of four from behind the arc.  He had four assists with just two turnovers.  Still, the stat line, while not surprising, still doesn’t do full justice to the game he played.

Curry scored in several ways.  He drove for two, he hit mid-range shots, he hit long range shots.  He helped his team on run-outs.  But most of all, he ran the team, and made intelligent decisions with the ball as he got inside the Syracuse zone and then made plays when they switched to man.  Indeed, he almost always seemed to make the right decision.

While his opposite number, Jonny Flynn, had the more gaudy stat line on the night, Curry’s team got the win.  He even admitted that there was a little extra motivation in going up against Flynn.

“Anytime you can play against somebody of his caliber, it’s easy to get excited for it,” said the junior guard.

There’s no question the Friars needed him last year.  Without him, the offense lacked direction, as Dwain Williams and others tried valiantly but unsuccessfully to run the show.  It became clear that Curry was the only true point guard on the team, and the value of a floor leader became painfully clear.  And now that he’s back to being more like the Sharaud Curry of old, the kind of point guard many thought he could be, it’s clear in a positive way.

“It’s what we were missing all last year,” said forward Jonathan Kale.  “He’s the key, he’s the motor that makes us run.  You guys see it on the court, it speaks volumes.”

He didn’t make his way back all at once.  Earlier in the season, it was clear he hadn’t fully recovered yet.  He was still a step slower than before and couldn’t go by defenders to make plays, and that limited what he could do.  You could see it in the early games, and the team had its struggles, although that wasn’t the only reason.  They did have to adjust to a new coach and new system, too, and they had some growing pains.

But once Big East play came along, he got better.  It might seem as if that gave him more adrenaline to play on, more motivation, but let’s also not forget that by that time it had been a calendar year since he had last played.  He finally had the kind of time needed to work his way back, and had done so.

“I think there were some combined reasons as to why he wasn’t going earlier in the year, and I think you definitely can look to how long he was off,” said head coach Keno Davis.  “The other thing is how long he had not been playing with our team.  Then you throw in a new coach and a new system, you put all those things together, you don’t expect for the first week in the season for the team to look like they’ve been playing together for three or four years.”

In Big East play, Curry has jumped his scoring up to a team-leading 13.5 points per game (10.4 overall), nearly five assists per game (4.5 overall) and a 2.4 assist/turnover ratio.  Though he leads in scoring, it’s because he’s making the right decisions on when to shoot, as evidenced by his shooting line on Wednesday night.  He understands better what the coaching staff wants, and has re-acquired the feel for his teammates that he once had but lost by not getting to play last year and still having to recover during a lot of the off-season.

Now that he’s playing better, so is the team, as the Friars are now 6-2 in the Big East and look like one of the surprise teams.  There’s reason to believe this team may win enough games to make the NCAA Tournament after all, although they haven’t played the meat of their Big East schedule yet.

It’s all something that probably seemed so far away a year ago at this time.  A time when the Friars struggled without their floor leader, compared to now when they are flourishing with him.

Northeastern Holds Off VCU in Year’s Best Game

It was as if it were a set up in advance for Virginia Commonwealth, with its returning CAA Player of the Year now a senior, leading the league in assists and 5 points ahead of the second best scorer.  And as Andy Katz of ESPN has pointed out more than once, it isn’t just in the Big East (and in Big Ten football) that schedules are unbalanced, and often grossly unfair.  For the moment the twelve team CAA has determined not to split into two divisions, supposedly because all the Virginia rivals want to play one another twice (yet oddly, VCU and George Mason just play once).  This year, of all years, with Northeastern playing its best since the Calhoun era and Jim Larranaga having reloaded at Mason, league flagship VCU just plays each of those schools once, and in both cases at the Siegel Center in Richmond.  (Yes, both are returns of singletons played last year in Boston and Fairfax).  And the schedule:  VCU at home for a second straight game and third in four, awaiting Northeastern on the back end of an ODU-VCU Virginia swing, which followed a home game against Mason.  And readers of this space know how I feel about second games away from home, when the traveling team won the first:  those games are nearly impossible to win.  So, I suspect that if I’d inspected this scheduling with greater care, I wouldn’t have picked Northeastern to win the CAA regular season (as far as I know, only this writer and Andy Katz picked the Huskies).

And it was an absolute war, replete with terrific offense, equally good defense, two monstrous VCU comebacks, tons of fouls, and a bench-clearing skirmish with two minutes to go.  All in front of a national television audience on ESPNU.  Perhaps the most important single thing in the game took place in the first 15 seconds (way before the network switched to Richmond from an overtime game in Raleigh):  VCU’s monster sophomore center Larry Sanders committed a personal foul.  Sanders having been hampered by fouls throughout his young career-he had two by the six minute mark of the ODU game we covered a week and a half ago-Coach Grant decided to remove him with just one, and by the time the network joined a 4-4 game at the 3:30 mark, Sanders had a seat on the VCU bench.  Over the next ten minutes, with Sanders out of the game, Northeastern outscored VCU 22-9, to lead 26-13.  Even when Sanders reentered the Husky onslaught continued, and a Chris Alvarez free throw at the 15:25 mark capped a 7-0 NU run giving the Huskies their biggest lead at 30-13.  Like most good things accomplished by Northeastern, the run to that 17-point lead was lead by star junior Matt Janning, who had two big treys and 10 of Northeastern’s first 30 points.  Less predictably, the “other Matt” on the Husky squad, Matt Smith, playing the best basketball of his career as a senior, played 13 big minutes in the first half, contributing 8 of those first 30 on 3-3 shooting, two from the arc.  He also added a crucial rebound at each end of the floor, and a gorgeous no-look bounce pass assist to Nkem Ojougboh from the lane to the baseline on a possession during which VCU played zone.

But more than anyone’s offensive contribution, Northeastern played stellar defense during that run, really for most of the game.  Bill Coen switched back and forth between two not-so-different defenses all night long, a man-to-man and a match-up zone, and it appeared to this writer (watching on television in snowy Cleveland) that VCU didn’t always properly identify which defense they were attacking.  Well, the combination of that defense and the Huskies’ fine shooting in those first 15:25 resulted in 9-18 by the Huskies, including 5-9 from the arc, and 6-21 for VCU, including 1-5 from the arc.

But then, it all turned around in a flash.  For the last 4½ minutes of the half, led by Eric Maynor VCU ratcheted up the defensive pressure, turned Northeastern over, got out in transition, shot and rebounded, and a furious 17-4 run cut Northeastern’s lead from 17 to 4, 34-30 at the intermission.  During that stretch the Rams forced four Husky turnovers, turning them into 8 points.  VCU also outrebounded the Huskies in that stretch 4-1.  And finally in rhythm, the Rams shot 6-7, including 3-3 from the arc;  budding freshman star guard Brandon Rozzell from Richmond was a big part of the run, hitting all three of his jumpers, two from behind the arc.  (Rozzell would finish the night with a new personal high of 16 on 6-12 shooting, including 4-7 from the arc, and 5 boards).  Halftime couldn’t come quick enough for the Huskies.

I don’t know exactly what Bill Coen said to his Huskies at halftime (on this snowy day in the northeast, and with the Huskies in transit, I haven’t been able to reach Coach).  But whatever it was, it worked, and in this writer’s opinion, Northeastern won this game in the first 4½ minutes after halftime, opening the second stanza on a 15-3 run, thus reclaiming all but a single point of their first half 17-point lead, at 49-33.  In that stretch to start the half, oddly VCU came out in zone, likely to protect its players from mounting foul difficulties (power forward Kirill Pishchalnikov had 2 fouls at intermission, as did guard Bradford Burgess, and freshman power forward Terrance Saintil had 3, but Sanders had only one).  Gifted some needed relief from the relentless pressure that had turned the game around earlier, Northeastern regained control of the pace, and the game, and resumed its effective half-court defense that stifled VCU much of the night.  In that 15-3 run, Northeastern hit 6 of its 8 shots, including 2-2 by junior center Manny Adako and 2-3 from the arc by senior swingman Eugene Spates.

Then, from the 4:22 mark right through the end of the game, VCU resumed its pressure, and the game became a wonderful battle of wills between two teams and two coaches.  And oh yes, for stretches, brilliant Eric Maynor took over the game, sometimes single-handedly keeping the Rams in the game.  Maynor would have 18 of his game high 30 in the second half, and showed uncanny ability to get to the goal.  But in all, his 30 points required 26 shots, and Maynor shot just 10-26 for the game, 2-7 from the arc.  Northeastern’s Chaisse Allen did much of that fine defensive work when Northeastern was in man-to-man (reserve Baptiste Bataille did some), and in both man-to-man and zone forwards Nkem Ojougboh and Chris Alvarez were strong on screens and in doubling Maynor.

Led by Maynor, VCU chipped away, and then chipped away some more, slicing the lead to 6 at the 13:26 mark, then to 4 on a Maynor drive at 17:51.  Maynor was fouled on the play by Janning, ended up straddling Janning who had gone down on the baseline, and may have said something off-putting and remained above Janning a bit longer than he might have.  Manny Adako reacted to that perceived threat by pushing Maynor, and then bedlam ensued as players and coaches stormed the floor.  No punches were thrown (though VCU’s Burgess Bradford must have done or said something bad).  In the end, Adako and Burgess were each assessed matching technicals (neither being shot), and Maynor sank the free throw awarded on Janning’s foul for a three point-play, drawing VCU within three.  Then in an intense last two minutes and five seconds, the teams combined shooting 15 free throws, Northeastern found its stride at the line to hit 8-10 (Bataille was 4-4), and VCU never got closer than down two.  In one possession in the last 40 seconds, both Nkem Ojougboh and Chris Alvarez blocked VCU shots, and the Huskies held on for a hard-fought well-earned 68-63 win.  The eight Huskies who played put up balanced numbers, with Spates and Adako leading the way with 12 (Adako on 6-9 shooting, Spates with 4 treys), Janning adding 11 along with 7 boards, and Alvarez adding 8 huge rebounds.  Chaisse Allen scored 9 on 2-5 shooting (including a critical late trey), had 4 boards, 2 assists, just 3 turnovers, and made Maynor work for everything he got.

From 400+ miles away, this writer expected good play at both ends from Janning, Allen and Adako.  What wasn’t as expected, what Coach Bill Coen and his staff should be immensely proud of, is the improved play of Eugene Spates and Chris Alvarez at the 3-spot during their senior seasons, of junior Baptiste Bataille at back-up point, and particularly of senior Matt Smith as a reserve swingman.  It was the strong play of these four that put Northeastern over the top this night, giving them this crucial victory.

Northeastern News and Notes:

• For now, 9-1 Northeastern has a full game lead plus the head-to-head tiebreakers over 8-2 VCU and George Mason, tied for second.  Mason will have a chance to make up both that game and that tiebreaker when they host Northeastern on Valentine’s Day in Fairfax.
• Without speaking to him, I know Bill Coen well enough that the mantra this week will be that the VCU win doesn’t mean anything if the Huskies don’t take care of business Saturday at home against Delaware.  Fatigued both physically and mentally from the last three games, and certainly travel-weary, the Huskies will need to play just as hard against Delaware on Saturday if they want to stay atop the CAA.
• I’m not as close as I used to be, but I expect not a word was spoken by Bill Coen or his staff about the unequal schedule, either before or after the game.  But now that Northeastern has beaten VCU in Richmond, isn’t it a wonderful thing for the Huskies that they aren’t playing the Rams back in Boston, a rematch VCU would be entirely capable of winning?  All of a sudden, the schedule doesn’t look quite so bad.
• Lastly, while there are miles to go from here to there, look for coverage in this space of the forthcoming February 14 rematch between Northeastern and George Mason.  And I think we’ll just have to cover that game in person.

Horizon Notebook – Looking Towards the End Game

Everybody’s doing it.  Everybody denies it, but everybody’s doing it.  No, not THAT… and not THAT.  Reviewing the schedule, deciding what games we’re sure to win, what games we have little hope to win, and what games can go either way.  At this time of the year, every coaching staff in America is scrutinizing its remaining schedule.  Can we win our conference?  Can we get a conference tournament bye?  Can we get an at-large bid to one tournament to another?  Can we be .500 in conference?  Can we get to 20 wins?  Can we beat anybody?  On the three staffs I was on we told our players to focus on the next opponent, the kid each of our kids was about to guard, how to win tonight.  But we couldn’t help ourselves, so we scrutinized and scrutinized.  And by this point in the season, ESPN commercials notwithstanding, most of the games are in the first and second category (games we really should win, games we really can’t win), and relatively few are in that all-important third group (games that can truly go either way).

In the Horizon, it is more apparent with each passing week that Butler is even better than it was last year, by far the best.  Absent major injury or major miracle, the Bulldogs should not be beaten in conference.  And while the late Al McGuire hated relying on freshmen, Gordon Hayward and Shelvin Mack simply are not like any other freshmen to come on the mid-major scene in recent memory, perhaps not like any pair of freshmen at this level, ever.  (Two nights ago ESPN2′s wonderful studio analyst Hubert Davis called Duke’s 6-8 sophomore forward Kyle Singler the best player-or the most valuable-in the ACC, and this writer has previously called Gordon Hayward “a freshman version of Singler, except that Hayward rebounds better”).

At the other end of the spectrum, I have thought all along that Ray McCallum’s Detroit Titans would win a game in conference, probably at home, though they missed the opportunity I’d circled on New Year’s Day hosting Youngstown State.  Back in the “first division,” Green Bay, Milwaukee, Wright State and Cleveland State should win the rest of their games against everyone else except Butler (what WSU gives up in personnel to the other three, it makes up with superb half-court defense and coaching), but the remaining games among those four should all be competitive.

That said, this writer was shocked by not one but two monstrous upsets this past weekend in the Horizon, upsets with huge impacts on the standings (on what I’ve called the “race for second”).  First on Thursday night, while this writer was in Indianapolis watching Butler dispatch Wisconsin-Green Bay, the other one-loss Wisconsin team, that hailing from Milwaukee, was visiting Homer Drew’s 2-6 Valparaiso team.  Still  playing without sophomore forward Benjamin Fumey (who had arthroscopic knee surgery the previous day), but with Erik Buggs and D’Andre Haskins back from the injury list, the Crusaders played their best defensive game of the year, upsetting the Panthers 63-51.  Valpo forced 20 Milwaukee turnovers, held the Panthers to 29% shooting (24% in the second half), and held three Milwaukee starters-Ricky Franklin, Avery Smith and Anthony Hill-scoreless for the game.  Senior Jake Diebler dominated the game offensively, scoring 19 on 7-13 shooting, including 5-9 from the arc.  No longer concussed but still diminutive freshman Erik Buggs contributed 14 (on 6-10 shooting) and seven huge rebounds.  And not a moment too soon, senior Urule Igbavboa finally went to the boards, grabbing 9 caroms.  The thrashing by Valpo may have had a lingering effect, as Milwaukee was never in the game two days later, falling at Butler 78-48.  The true impact of Valpo’s beating on Milwaukee’s collective psyche will be revealed on Wednesday, when the now three-loss Panthers return home to face eminently beatable Loyola.

Perhaps less surprising to readers of this space, but more so to a national television audience on ESPNU, was the result on Friday night when Cleveland State visited Youngstown State.  Having witnessed YSU’s hard-nosed eight point home loss to Butler on December 6th, and having called sophomore swingman Vytas Sulskis-recently ensconced in Coach Slocum’s doghouse-and junior second guard Kelvin Bright, respectively, “a poor man’s Gordon Hayward” and “a poor man’s Shelvin Mack,” this writer expected a spirited effort by the Penguins in defense of their home court.  What I didn’t expect was yet another subpar defensive effort by Cleveland State, witnessing no Viking except Norris Coles (guarding Bright) defend hard or well.  In the first half, YSU junior forward Sirlester Martin dominated a game played at the Penguins’ preferred pace-slow–scoring 10 of YSU’s 29 points (on 5-9 shooting) and grabbing 5 rebounds.  Martin having shown the way, Penguin senior center Jack Liles joined the first half party, contributing 8 points (on 4-7) and 6 boards, and YSU led by 4 at the break, 29-25.

CSU’s defense was no better in the second half, and while J’Nathan Bullock’s effort kept them close (Bullock finished with 19 points and 14 rebounds), the Vikings could never pull even on the scoreboard.  Remarkably, the Vikes showed little interest in increasing the pace YSU controlled.  And oddly, instead of pressing for much of the game, CSU employed a passive “triangle and two” for a stretch (one of the “two” was Kelvin Bright, second leading scorer in conference play coming into the game-but no Michael Jordan-and at least at one point, the other one of the “two” was low-scoring Tom Parks).  Finally, at the 17:54 mark of the second half, down by 6, the Vikings went to full-court pressure, and while they forced two turnovers the rest of the way and were able to pull within 2, the change-of-pace proved too little too late, and the Vikings fell 64-60.  While the differences on the stat page were Penguin forwards Martin and Liles (15 on 7-13 for Martin with 9 boards, and 18 on 7-11 for Liles with 6 boards), the game was controlled and won by Penguin Coach Jerry Slocum, who got everything he could have hoped for from a roster not nearly as strong as his opponent’s.

The loss was devastating to Cleveland State, as even coming off an oh-for-Wisconsin trip the previous weekend, the 4-4 Vikings still had second place and the coveted double-bye squarely in their sites coming into the game.  Green Bay and Milwaukee had each lost for the second time the night before, and Milwaukee still had Butler to play twice (they then lost in Indianapolis on Saturday);  the Vikings had both Wisconsin schools and Wright State all coming to Wolstein Arena in the second half of the conference season (and only Butler among first division opponents away);  and defender/rebounder/all-around hustler D’Aundray Brown on the mend, soon to return from injury.  Only a visit to the lowly Penguins was asked of them before returning home to the friendly confines.  But those pesky Penguins had other ideas, and instead of being 5-4 and just two games behind with a favorable schedule, the Vikings are 4-5 at the turn, with no reasonable chance for that coveted second spot.   Oh, what might have been.

Horizon News and Notes:

• Separated by just 70 miles, at least from the Youngstown State perspective Cleveland State could be their biggest rival, and 6,249 screaming Penguin fans contributed to Friday’s upset, the fourth largest crowd ever in Beeghly Center.
• If you’ll indulge me, having seen my share of Big Five games in Philly’s Palestra, and having watched the discontinuation of the “Basketball Beanpot” in Boston some years ago, wouldn’t it be wonderful if Northeast Ohio’s four D-Is-two in the MAC and two in the Horizon-were to institute some kind of regional competition for bragging rights.  That would require each team to play both of the schools in the other conference once (presumably one at home and one away), in addition to the home-and-home games within the respective conferences;  the best record among the four would win some kind of cup or trophy.  The fans of the four schools would love it, and I suspect help fill one another’s gyms.
• Continuing on that theme, in the wake of its upset of CSU, YSU played an unusual late January non-conference game Monday night, hosting Akron in Beeghly.  In front of barely ¼ of the audience three nights earlier, the Pens were unable to sustain their terrific play, falling to the improving Akron Zips 67-63.  For three quarters of the game YSU got little from its forwards, and Akron got little from its guards.  But Akron’s guards began contributing something-barely something–midway in the second half, and YSU’s forwards never did.  Senior Nate Linhart led the Zips with 15, on 6-11 shooting, and 9 rebounds;  Chris McKnight added 13, mainly on late game free throws, and also had 9 boards.  Junior YSU guard DeAndre Mays led all scorers in a losing cause with 18, on 7-14 including 2-5 from the arc, and had 8 boards, and Martin pulled down 11 rebounds for the Pens.
• With each pair of conference teams yet to play each other a second time (and Cleveland State and Akron not currently playing one another at all), here are the current standings for Northeast Ohio’s unofficial “Lake Erie Cup”:
  • Akron:  2-0
  • Cleveland State:  1-1
  • Kent State:  1-2
  • Youngstown State:  1-2
  • Of course, in addition to remaining games in which Akron visits Kent State and Youngstown State visits Cleveland State, it is possible that conference foes will meet in their respective conference tourneys (or even that one of these four will meet another-some day-in the NCAA Tourney, the NIT or the CBI).  Yes, the “Lake Erie Cup.”  (Of course, a regional sponsor will quickly gobble this up, making it the “Key Bank Cup,” or the “NCB Cup.”  On the other hand, the way things have been going lately, maybe I shouldn’t wait by the phone for any bank or brokerage to be calling…).

Reggie Jackson Emerges For Boston College

Entering the season, Reggie Jackson projected to be the best of Boston College’s three freshmen.  He looked the part early on, as it’s clear he’s a terrific athlete and has some offensive skills that should get better.  But you could also tell early on that he was a freshman, and with the way Boston College plays, the learning curve that comes with playing college basketball isn’t always expedited.

“It’s a great deal.  It’s pretty tough,” the freshman guard said of learning the team’s system.  “I’ve never run offense in my life, it was mostly run four-out, with athletic kids, penetrating and kicking to the next guy, then keep going.”

Jackson, who took home ACC Rookie of the Week honors last week, was certainly going to play and get chances to grow with mistakes.  The Eagles have just two upperclassmen on the roster, so it was a given that he would figure into the equation despite being the youngest player on the team.  The only question was how much.

Early on, he had good value at the defensive end.  His athleticism, along with his willingness to guard a top perimeter player, helped go a long way.  That helped offset the growing pains on offense, which were evident at first but have lessened as the season has gone along.

But the biggest things with a freshman are always intangibles, and that’s the case with Jackson as with any other.  His willingness to guard a top perimeter player means as much as his ability there.  And while he’s shown signs of being a force in the future for this team offensively, the biggest things have been keeping confident in what the team is trying to do, working within a unit and being comfortable with what they’re running.  Those have been the things his coach and captain have been on him the most about.

It seems to be working.  In the past week, he’s had times of growing up and times where he’s looked like he’s really getting comfortable and has all the confidence in the world.  It started earlier in the week, when the Eagles scored a big road win at Georgia Tech.  Things weren’t going well as the Yellow Jackets were rallying in the second half, and that’s when things started to change for the 6’3″ guard.

“I put all the blame on my shoulders, and I just started rushing and not thinking the game, but just trying to play,” Jackson recalls.  “It was putting us in bad spots, so Tyrese (Rice) had to take me aside for a minute in the next timeout and calm me down, and let me know what I had to do.”

Jackson scored eight points in the win and added a career-high nine rebounds.  Then on Saturday, he helped the Eagles score a 79-68 win over North Carolina State with 10 points, three assists and one turnover.  The highlight was a fast break dunk about nine minutes in, but the thing to notice was after it.  Jackson got back on defense and had a smile for a moment, and looked like he was as into the game as he’s been all season.

“Anytime you score a basket, you get confidence and you feel more calmed down,” Jackson reflected.

It’s clear that Rice has done a good deal of work with Jackson to help him along.  Jackson said as much, and Rice has talked about how he’s tried to help him and the other young players come along.  Some of it has been confidence, some of it has been learning the team’s system, and some of it has been learning to play according to the situation.  Rice talked about how he tried to pull Jackson back on the final possession of the first half in a recent game, knowing what would happen otherwise.

“I just try to keep some of our players out of bad situations,” the senior guard said.  “I know if he comes down and puts up a shot and doesn’t make it, I know what it’s going to be in the locker room.  I just try to keep them away from that.”

The effect Rice has had on Jackson is even noticeable to one of their recent opponents.  Alluding to Rice, North Carolina State guard Farnold Degand said, “Reggie Jackson has taken some of his tips and definitely utilized them well.”

Jackson says he spends a good deal of time watching film with the coaching staff as well as Rice.  It’s helped him to buy into the offense and stay confident both in what the team is trying to do and in what he can do as part of it.  As that has continued to happen, he has continued to improve, and it only helps the young Eagles get better this season.

Hoop Group Lehigh Valley Showcase Recap

ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Parkland High School was the site of the 14th annual Lehigh Valley Hoop Group Showcase on Sunday.  It consisted of four games, the last two of which came right down to the end.

Scoreboard
Emmaus (PA) High 84, Bethlehem (PA) Catholic 74
Elizabeth (NJ) St. Patrick’s HS 66, Blairstown (NJ) Blair Academy 49
Newark (NJ) St. Benedict’s 80, Forestville (MD) Bishop McNamara HS 70 (OT)
Norristown (PA) High 67, Allentown (PA) Parkland HS 66

Emmaus Shoots Lights Out to Open Day

The first game of the day was short on Division I prospects but not long on good shooting by one team.  Victorious Emmaus, the alma mater of former Pitt big man Aaron Gray, shot 54 percent from the field and a scorching 10-17 from long range en route to their 84-74 win.

Ryan Onushko (5’9″ Sr. SG) led the winners with 22 points, going 6-7 from the field and making all four three-pointers.  For Bethlehem, Pedro Perez (6’3″ Sr. SF) had a game-high 26 points and seven rebounds, and diminutive point guard Al Blount (5’8″ Jr. PG) added 20.

Gilchrist Lives Up to Billing

As is usually the case, St. Patrick’s is loaded this year.  They feature North Carolina commit Dexter Strickland (6’3″ Sr. SG), George Mason signee Paris Bennett (6’6″ Sr. SF) and Kyrie Irving (6’1″ Jr. SG).  But the player who impressed the most in their convincing win over Blair Academy was a little younger, game MVP Michael Gilchrist (6’7″ So. SF-PF).

There has been a lot of buzz about Gilchrist, and certainly is worthy of it.  He’s long and athletic, very active and around the ball often.  While he has three-point range, that’s hardly his forte offensively; his best attribute is his nose for the ball because he makes plays off it.  His stat line was not deceiving at all: 17 points on 6-10 shooting, seven rebounds, four assists and five steals.

Gilchrist epitomized the way St. Patrick’s dominated the game, as the Celtics were aggressive all along at both ends of the floor.  They pressed the Buccaneers and got baskets off of it, and also ran off misses.  Gilchrist showed that he has quite a ceiling, as his body has a ways to go physically.

Blair Has No Life Until Reserves Enter

For whatever reason, Blair Academy didn’t show a lot of life against St. Patrick’s.  While the Buccaneers were certainly the less talented team, they never gave themselves a chance in this game.  They trailed 30-13 at halftime, and it wasn’t even that close.

In the third quarter, coach Joe Mantegna made a wholesale substitution to put in all reserves, and suddenly the Buccaneers had some life.  They made it look respectable, even though they were more over-matched talent-wise on the court.

The selection of the team’s player of the game was a little questionable, as it was Rutgers-bound Austin Johnson (6’9″ Sr. SF-PF).  While it was hard to pick someone from a team that struggled so, Johnson had seven points and five rebounds and generally struggled.  He’s played much better than he did on Sunday.  Our call is Nathan Healy (6’7″ Sr. SF), who had eight points and seven boards after shaking off a couple of easy misses.

Patterson Shines in Second Half

St. Benedict’s isn’t lacking for talent in all classes.  But the player who really led them through the second half and some of overtime was Pittsburgh-bound Lamar Patterson (6’5 Sr. SF), who finished with 21 points and five boards in the victory.

Patterson is very athletic and plays bigger than his size.  He handles better than your average wing and looks like someone who will fit the way Pittsburgh plays, as he’s got the mature body and physical style their players have had.

In the first half, he did very little.  He was such a non-factor, anyone seeing him for the first time had to wonder what the Panthers saw in him.  But he came alive in the second half and made a few plays in overtime, and his efforts earned him the team’s player of the game.

Unheralded Guards Help Bishop McNamara

Another Pittsburgh-bound forward, Talib Zanna (6’9″ Sr. PF), is the man most know from Bishop McNamara.  While Zanna impressed with 21 points and 14 rebounds before fouling out, it was a couple of guards who had key plays and led the team as the Mustangs forced overtime in a game that was tight for most of the 32 minutes of regulation.

Unsigned point guard Brenden Bazilio (6’1″ Sr. PG) and North Carolina-A&T signee Lawrence Smith (6’4″ Sr. SG-SF) each had a key role in this game.  Bazilio looks like a solid floor leader that could be a nice late pickup for a mid-major team.  The lefty floor leader has a good body and capably ran the show, although the box score shows no assists.  He comes to play and made some good decisions with the ball en route to scoring 12 points on 4-6 shooting.

Smith had just 10 points and three rebounds, but he added a couple of steals and plays bigger than his size.  He made a clutch three-pointer with 1.9 seconds left to send the game to overtime.  He’s a versatile wing who won’t blow you away with physical gifts, but can play the game.

Where Was He All Game?

For much of the game, Temple-bound Khalif Wyatt (6’3″ Sr. SG) wasn’t much of a factor.  He seemed passive at both ends of the court, and there wasn’t much to gather from him.  It wasn’t clear if his reputation was deserved or not.  Then the third quarter neared an end, and things changed.

From that point on, Wyatt came alive.  He got the ball more on offense and demanded it, and seemed to have much more energy on both ends.  After struggling to score for much of the game, he was unstoppable in the latter part of the fourth quarter as Norristown rallied from a 59-47 deficit to take home the victory.

Between clutch three-pointers and a couple of defensive plays, Wyatt was the key to the rally.  With that, you could easily have looked past his 7-20 effort from the field that included a 3-13 showing from long range.  He was 10-12 at the line en route to 27 points, grabbed seven rebounds, handed out three assists and had three steals.

Wyatt has a good body, though his upper body could get into better shape.  He’s just a plus athlete, but he looks like he has a good basketball IQ.  If he plays more like he did in the latter part of Sunday’s game, Temple will have a good pickup.

Other Player Notes

Paris Bennett (6’6″ Sr. SF, St. Patrick’s HS) didn’t have a big game, but showed some of what he can do.  The George Mason-bound wing is versatile and has a mature body, doesn’t force anything, and is a solid complementary player on the loaded Celtics with the ability to be a team’s go-to guy.

Aaron Brown (6’4″ Jr. SG-SF, St. Benedict’s) had a quietly good game for his team off the bench.  He was active and got out in transition, showed some ball skills and has a decent body that he could stand to get in a little better shape.  He has a chance to be a good prospect with some work.

Jaleel Clark (6’5″ Sr. SF-PF, Parkland HS) had a big game in a losing effort, going for 28 points on 12-19 shooting and 13 rebounds.  Before fouling out, he carried his team at times, battling inside and leading a couple of rallies.  He looks like an undersized power forward, as most of his damage was done close to the basket and a few times on the post.

Brandon Coleman (6’7″ Jr. PF, Bishop McNamara HS) had a very deceiving stat line of nine points on 4-5 shooting, two rebounds and two blocked shots.  He was very active and efficient while in the game, finishing well near the basket and playing his role well.  His body isn’t mature yet and he isn’t counted on for much, so what he showed here as well as being a plus athlete add up to him being a prospect and one who should show more in another year.

Kyrie Irving (6’1″ Jr. SG, St. Patrick’s HS) scored 17 points of his own a little quietly, although he was very aggressive with the ball.  He’s athletic and stronger than he looks, was a little shaky shooting the ball but appears to be more of a scorer anyway.  If he starts making that jumper, watch out.

Tamir Jackson (6’2″ Sr. SG, St. Benedict’s) helped close out the game at the foul line as he was 8-9 from the charity stripe in his 16-point effort.  Already a solid scorer, he continues to shot an improving touch with his jumper, which will only make the Rice-bound guard more dangerous.

Myck Kabongo (6’1″ So. PG, St. Benedict’s) had a quiet game in the box score, scoring 12 points, grabbing six boards and handing out four assists.  He had the ball in his hands often and was the primary player running the show, and though he didn’t make all the biggest plays, he had a bigger hand in the win than the stat sheet might suggest.  The Texas commit has a high upside as his body is certainly not there yet.

Matt Muhr (5’11″ Sr. SG, Parkland HS) is an excellent shooter who made several clutch shots late in the game.  He went for 15 points on 3-7 shooting from long range, but also had four turnovers.  Not a point guard, he’s an undersized shooter who is likely a non-Division I player.

Tavon Sledge (5’11″ So. PG, St. Benedict’s) is a player of the future, but one with a lot of upside.  He’s very quick and a great leaper, which he showed off when he ran down the court to block a shot on a 3-on-1.  Even at his size, he grabbed four rebounds in relatively limited minutes.

Dexter Strickland (6’3″ Sr. SG, St. Patrick’s HS) is very athletic but doesn’t have a clear position in the backcourt.  His body isn’t there yet physically, but he’s much more of a scorer than a shooter although he showed signs of an improving touch from outside the paint.  That would bode well since the North Carolina-bound guard is a little undersized at the shooting guard spot to begin with.

Tristan Thompson (6’9″ Jr. PF, St. Benedict’s) has a world of potential, and the Texas commit posted a double-double with 16 points and 12 rebounds.  The lefty is long and a plus athlete, has some ball skills but could improve there, and was okay at the foul line late in the game, although there’s room for improvement there.

Jon Ward (6’9″ Sr. PF-C, Parkland HS) has a good frame inside and looks to have some good fundamentals as well, but he missed too many shots close to the basket.  He had eight rebounds, but going 1-8 on mostly close shots isn’t good.

Rashad Whack (6’3″ Sr. SG, Bishop McNamara HS) didn’t play well in this game, certainly not up to the reputation he’s gained that led him to George Mason, where he signed.  He looks like a gunner with a very shaky handle, and although he has a good body his skills appear to be lacking.  He fouled out with just five points on 2-11 shooting and didn’t show great shot selection.

UIC Flames at Wright State

DAYTON – When we last left off Wright State had just held Loyola to just four field goals in the second half as they beat them 68-47 on Thursday night.  Tonight Wright State held University of Illinois-Chicago to just five buckets in the second half and a school record 31 points in the game as the Raiders win 57-31.

The defensive wonders for Wright State included holding UIC to just 26.2 percent shooting (11-42) for the game and also holding UIC’s first team Horizon League Player Josh Mayo to just six points and eight shots.  To stop Mayo the Raiders used N’Gai Evans some and Will Graham a lot to guard him.

Wright State coach Brad Brownell said he used Graham because of his experience and all of the little things to he brings to the games.

He said, ‘Will has just been in the battles a longtime in this league. He is never the primary player.  He is a glue guy, he holds your players together.  He will never wow you with shooting but he wows you with a lot of other plays that a lot of casual fans miss.”

Wright State player Pat Tabler added, “We were just trying to limit his touches. They do a lot of dribbling and fill behinds.  We just didn’t want to slide off of him to help”

When the game started, UIC (10-9, 3-6 HL) used the first six minutes of the game to build a five point lead on three short jumpers by Scott Vandermeer and a 3-pointer by Tori Boyd to go ahead 9-4.

At the 3:38 mark Wright State’s Troy Tabler hit a 3-pointer to put Wright State up 15-13 and they held the lead for the rest of the game.  By the time the first half ended Wright State (12-8, 6-3 HL) went up by 10 points at 23-13 on two more 3-pointers Todd Brown  and a layup by Cooper Land.

In the second half UIC cut the lead to seven points at the 16:42 mark on a jumper by Boyd making it 30-23 but that was as close as the Flames got.  Wright State just kept pushing the score up until the Raiders went up 26 points on the last bucket of the game when Land put in a layup with 44 seconds left.

After the game UIC coach Jimmy Collins appeared almost 45 minutes after the game and he hopping mad.  The delay in appearing in the media room was because he was meeting with his team in their locker room.

“I have never been so embarrassed in all my years of coaching.  I have never been affiliated with a team that wouldn’t fight, said Collins.  “Wight State has a good team and we quit. Brad does a good job with those kids.  They are spirited, they are high fiving each other and picking each other up.”

Collins said they have plays designed to get Mayo the ball but some of his players are selfish and just didn’t want to set picks for Mayo.

“Our game plan was to get people the ball, to be poised, play smart and to play together, “ added Collins.  “We didn’t do that.”

Brown led a scorers with 23 points on a 9-18 shooting performance and Vandermeer led UIC with 10 points.

Brownell was pleased with his team’s performance tonight and on Thursday against Loyola.

“Clearly one of our better performances, I am really please of how our kids played defensively,” said Brownell.  “We showed some maturity.  We struggled early just a bit offensively, but we kept our poise and pulled through.  Our kids were really ready, we played with a lot of confidence.”

Notes:

• The Raiders set a new school record by allowing only 31 points tonight breaking the 35 points record they set earlier this season against Toledo on December 9th  when they won 50-35.
• One of Wright State’s best players, John David Gardner played just seven minutes tonight and came out with an on-going nagging hip injury.
• UIC leads the all-time series with Wright State 20-19.
• UIC’s next game is Wednesday at Green Bay at 8 p.m.
• Wright State’s next game is Wednesday at Youngstown State at 7 p.m.

Wildcats Hang Tough, Hold Off Quinnipiac

DURHAM, N.H. – Dane DiLiegro opened and closed the game with authority, but it took a team effort during his absence to overcome a tenacious Quinnipiac team and earn a 77-70 victory.

With the win UNH improved to 3-1 on the season. Eric Gilchrese scored 20 points, while Mike Christensen added 17 and Alvin Abreu came off the bench for 14, as the Wildcats overcame 25 points each from Quinnipiac’s combo of DeMario Anderson and Evann Baker.

The local media might still be ignoring the Wildcats, but it’s apparent to everyone who’s seen them play that this New Hampshire team is for real. The Wildcats opened the season with a near upset of Boston College and haven’t lost since, improving every game. This years team isn’t the pushover that UNH has been in the past, and opponents are taking notice, as Wildcats’ Coach Bill Herrion reflected after the win.

“The more games you play, the more tapes get out, and in the first couple of games you can catch people off guard, maybe people don’t know you that well,” said Herrion. “Well guess what, were 3-1, were not going to be surprising people anymore.”

Quinnipiac’s game plan was to attack the Wildcats in the post, as head Coach Tom Moore stated, “Initially what we wanted to do was try to score inside on those guys.” However, this strategy seemed futile early on, as DiLiegro continued to make his presence felt in the middle for New Hampshire.

After winning the opening tip, the freshman ripped down the rebound of an errant shot over two defenders, flashed a nifty spin move in the post and finished off despite hard contact from Quinnipiac’s Justin Rutty. DiLiegro quickly established himself on the defensive end, as on the ensuing possession he first deflected Rutty’s jumper, and then annihilated Louis Brookins’ lay up, eliciting a road from the crowd.

His early performance won the respect of the opposing coach, as after the game Moore raved about the young freshman, saying, “DiLiegro is an aggressive player, he’s a good defender, he’s a really aggressive rebounder, he has great strength and great energy for a freshman. He’s going to be a terrific player for these guys.”

Unfortunately for the Wildcats, DiLiegro also picked up two offensive fouls within the first three minutes, and was forced to the bench for the rest of the first half.

“He’s still really learning how to play,” said Herrion, “He plays very hard. His fouls were just ticky-tack fouls that he doesn’t need to commit. He’s got to learn how to play without fouling, but he’s a big, strong, physical kid, and he plays hard.”

Without DiLiegro on the floor, what had been advantage in the post for UNH quickly became a disadvantage as they got much smaller and much less physical in a hurry. New Hampshire could normally count on sophomore captain Radar Onguetou to step in and provide physicality and smart, tough-nosed defense, but Onguetou has been dealing with a persistent leg injury early in the season, and his effectiveness has been greatly limited. “Radar is banged up,” said Herrion, “he’s hobbling, but he gives you terrific effort. He’s just struggling offensively.”

The injury to Onguetou, and DiLiegro’s foul trouble affected the Wildcats the most on the defensive end, as Quinnipiac immediately began to have success scoring around the basket. UNH was forced to play freshmen James Valladares and Rony Tchatchoua extensively, and while their efforts were admirable, the absence of DiLiegro was apparent.

“Losing Dane was big,” said junior guard Tyrece Gibbs. “It’s always good to know that your shot blocker is behind you when you get posted up. Without him, it was a lot more stressful.”

Quinnipiac’s guards, whom had struggled to shoot over DiLiegro in the first three minutes, began to score at will once he left the floor. DeMario Anderson and Evann Baker each scored twelve points in the first half, coming almost entirely from posting up on the low block, as the Bobcats scored twenty points in the post during the opening period.

The points in the paint were especially troubling to Herrion, as Quinnipiac didn’t make a single first half three-pointer, yet controlled the game twelve minutes in. “We need to get tougher, collectively, defensively around the basket,” said the third-year coach.

Trailing by six with eight minutes to go, UNH was on the verge of letting the game get out of control, but the Wildcats, in what has been a staple of theirs so far this year, dug their heels in and clawed their way back into the game. What was most impressive during the Wildcats run was that they did it largely without the help of their best players, as captain’s Mike Christensen and Gibbs struggled the entire half. Last season, UNH lacked scoring depth, as their offense revolved around getting departed senior Blogoj Janev the ball and getting out of his way. As Janev went, so went the team, and if Janev, and to a lesser extent Christensen and Gibbs, struggled on offense, UNH didn’t stand a chance.

This year’s Wildcats squad has done a complete one-eighty. While Gibbs and Christensen (and starter Tyrone Conley) struggled to find the hoop in the first half, UNH’s bench took over. The Wildcats’ transition from last season was on full display, as New Hampshire’s speed and athleticism combined with their newfound bench depth turned the tide. Valladares scored on a nifty reverse lay up, Alvin Abreu nailed a jumper in transition, and Tchatchoua threw down an acrobatic two-handed slam in traffic, and suddenly it was a two-point game.

Abreu and fellow guard Eric Gilchrese then took over, as they seemed to feed off each other and excel in transition, with Gilchrese scoring several buckets leading the fast break and setting up Abreu for two huge three-pointers. Mike Christensen then got in on the action, nailing a deep three, and Onguetuo finished off a gutsy drive in traffic, and New Hampshire went into the half with a commanding 40-30 lead.

Abreu, who scored eleven first half points, was especially huge for the Wildcats, as his three’s were not only timely, but momentum changing, as they were each from well beyond NBA range. Abreu was fearless shooting over defenders, and played with a confidence and poise rarely displayed by freshmen. Abreu’s play in the first half earned him praise from both his own coach, as well as his opponent’s.

“Alvin Abreu offensively gave us a big lift,” stated Herrion, while Moore added “Alvin Abreu is terrific, in terms of his offensive confidence and his swagger.”

The influx of new talent has been huge for the Wildcats, as they are much more athletic and much more fearless then they have been in years past. But the youth movement has also given Coach Herrion some heartburn in the early going, as they may lack the experience to go for the knockout punch when their opponent is weak.

“I don’t know if we’re old enough yet, or experienced enough yet, to really know how to put people away and run somebody out of the building” commented Herrion.

The Wildcats once again did not put their opponent away when they had the chance, as Quinnipiac’s combo of Andrerson and Baker once again went to work. Anderson scored in the post and found Baker for easy buckets when New Hampshire doubled down on him. New Hampshire’s inability to switch over to the open man when playing zone defense has been a troubling trend this year, and it was evident Sunday as Quinnipiac’s guard duo each scored 25 points.

“Defensively, I’m not real happy, I mean two guys get fifty out of their seventy,” said Herrion. Added Gibbs: “that’s lay ups all around the basket.”

But UNH’s veteran leadership, something that also seemed to be lacking last season, proved to be the difference, as Gibbs and Christensen came up big when it counted the most. With Quinnipiac surging Gibbs finished off a terrific up and under move to put New Hampshire up 59-53. Another Quinnipiac run cut the lead to one with five minutes left, but New Hampshire once again answered back, as Christensen first nailed a jumper in traffic to put UNH up three with five minutes left. The Cougars fired back, again cutting the lead to one, but Christensen once again stopped the bleeding, nailing a deep three to put the Wildcats up 65-61 with four minutes left.

Quinnipiac had one final run in them, but Eric Gilchrese, the America East player of the game, put on a gutsy performance when it mattered most to help seal the game. Gilchrese’s competitive streak had already been on display earlier, when he and Quinnipiac guard Casey Cosgrove got into a verbal dispute that escalated into a shoving match at halftime, resulting in offsetting technical fouls. Gilchrese downplayed the incident, saying, “He was competing, I was competing, we bumped heads, and that’s what happened. When the game gets close like that, I’m not backing down from anybody, and that’s what happens with good competitors.”

As competitive as Gilchrese was in the first half, it paled in comparison to his gutsy performance in the game’s closing minutes. He has battled bad cramps often during the young season, but here he took a hard foul near the three-minute mark, and was visibly limping on his way to the free throw line before icing both chances from the charity stripe. A minute later, Gilchrese picked Evann Baker’s pocket and took it coast to coast for a lay up, pushing the score to 72-63. After once again converting in traffic, Gilchrese was limping badly as he got back on defense, and after an awkward attempt to block Cosgrove’s three, Gilchrese lay sprawled on the ground clutching his leg in obvious pain.

But with less than two minutes left, and Quinnipiac within six, leaving the game was not an option for Gilchrese, whom hobbled back onto the court to gut the rest of the game out.

“It was really my call,” said Gilchrese, “I looked up the clock and it said a minute fifty-four seconds left, and I just wanted to tough it out… when I got back over to the bench, I told Coach that I was ready and wanted to tough it out.”

Gilchrese’s physical abilities have given New Hampshire something that they have been sorely lacking in recent years, as he is a true point guard who can score in transition as well as set his teammates up by getting them the ball in scoring position. But it’s his toughness and leadership that may be the most beneficial to the young Wildcats. After his refusal to come out, New Hampshire put the game away, as Mike Christensen sank two free throws to put New Hampshire up 74 to 67.

In a true “statement game” for New Hampshire, DiLiegro closed it out with a statement of his own, as he corralled a half court pass from Christensen, and threw down an emphatic two-handed dunk right over Anderson while being fouled. DiLiegro completed the three-point play by icing his free throw and giving New Hampshire a 77-70 win.

The win was huge for New Hampshire, as the Wildcats are now riding a three-game winning streak, and the benefits of getting off to a good start are not lost on their coach.

“At UNH, we’re just trying to win games, we’re going to respect and appreciate every win that we get,” said Herrion. “Winning early in the year helps your confidence and it helps you’re practice.”

Herrion even joked that, “When you win early, you can keep their attention every day in practice, you can keep them motivated, and they will really listen to what you say.”

Just being able to joke after a game was an accomplishment of its own for Herrion, whom came under fire from fans early and often last season, as the Wildcats seemed unmotivated, and disorganized, and by the end of the season some fans were even calling for Herrion’s head. But fans need to understand that its not easy to turn around any program, especially one with the history of ineptitude that New Hampshire has. Turning around this program is one of the hardest jobs in college basketball, as it’s an incredibly tough sell on recruits, and fans need to temper their expectation. It will take time for Herrion to bring in a team full of players whom will play in his system.

“We missed the whole first year, we didn’t recruit anybody the first year when we got the job,” Herrion reflected. “And we only want kids who want to be here. I think we have kids right now that are really competitive, that love to play, and that want to be here and appreciate the opportunity. It’s not going to be a quick fix turning this around… and it’s not going to happen over night.”

The Wildcats still have a long way to go before they are truly contenders for a conference title, and dreams of an NCAA birth are still a long ways away, but it is easy to get excited about this team, as they are easily the best squad that New Hampshire has fielded in the past five years. And while the Wildcats have struggled on the defensive end, the positives far outweigh the negatives at this point, as UNH already can boast several things that have been lacking in the past, the first being a team which doesn’t need to rely on one player to provide most of the scoring.

“The nice thing about our team is that Tyrece Gibbs, who was huge versus BC, wasn’t a huge factor offensively today, and we won the game,” said Herrion. “Last week at Central Connecticut he gets three fouls five minutes into the game, he only plays like twenty minutes and we win the game, that’s positive.”

And while New Hampshire has struggled to put teams away, perhaps even more importantly they haven’t gotten rattled like many most teams have, and they have displayed the ability to recover from their mistakes and still come out on top. Said Herrion: “The nice thing is, in the Central game last Saturday and today, we had control of both games in the second half, then both teams made runs at us and we withstood it. That’s positive.”

But perhaps the biggest gain this season is simply the Wildcats’ ability to give everything they have day in and day out. Last season’s squad seemed to quit on Herrion half-way through the year, but there is absolutely no let up in these Wildcats.

“It’s clearly about us out there this year, we just come together as a team when things get rough and stick it through,” said Gibbs. “Heart is the biggest thing right now, because when it got late in the game, we could either fold or pull through, and we pulled through pretty well.”

Horizon Notebook: Butler Too Good for Green Bay in Battle for First Place

INDIANAPOLIS – The Wisconsin-Green Bay team may not have read this space recently (or if they did, they chose not to believe), as we had long decided that the Horizon regular season belongs to Butler. In fact, the only question that remains in the mind of this writer is whether Butler will lose a single game, either in the Horizon regular season or in a conference tournament in which it will need to win but twice, both games at home. But I will forgive Tod Kowalczyk, his staff and his players if they thought otherwise, coming into Hinkle for their first meeting with Butler with but a single conference loss. And even if only technically speaking, the Phoenix were correct, as a win on Butler’s home court would have left both teams with one loss, with Green Bay having won head-to-head. But it was not to be.

Having already anointed Butler regular season champs, we’ve decided three corollary things in this space. First, that the real battleground in the Horizon is for the second seed in the tournament, which also provides that awful double-bye and a home semi-final game. Second, that with both Wisconsin teams, Wright State and Cleveland State the obvious contenders for second, each is now rooting strongly for Butler when it plays any of the other contenders; thus, deep down Milwaukee, WSU and CSU were all rooting for the Bulldogs to beat Green Bay Thursday night. Third, that even though Green Bay and Milwaukee came into Thursday night’s games with just one loss, Wright State with three, and CSU with four (Milwaukee now has two losses, after falling to Valpo Thursday night), the Wisconsin schools having yet to face Butler even once, the race for second is tighter than the difference between one loss and four might otherwise indicate. That is, at 4-4 going into their game Saturday night at Youngstown State, preseason favorite Cleveland State is still very much alive for that cherished second spot. Of course, coming off a week in which they were oh-for-Wisconsin, the Vikings certainly have to win tomorrow night at YSU to stay in the race for second.

With that as a backdrop, Thursday night’s game went very much like lots of Butler’s games this season. Saddled with two early fouls, center Matt Howard played only 10 first-half minutes. And with forward Willie Veasley also in foul trouble (he played just 5 minutes and had three fouls before halftime), Butler played from behind the entire half (trailing by as many as 6), but its players kept the game at their signature controlled pace. And as was the case in earlier wins over Northwestern, Cleveland State, UAB, Detroit and Illinois-Chicago, Butler trailed at the half, though by just three points, at 25-22. In that slow and low-scoring half, Green Bay’s 6-0 junior guard Troy Cotton dominated, by scoring 10 of Green Bay’s 25 points (on 3-4 shooting, 2-2 from the arc), grabbing a team-high four boards, and most of all by holding one of Butler’s sharpshooting frosh Shelvin Mack scoreless, his pressure allowing Mack to shoot just three times, all from the arc, hitting none.

But just as in those five earlier games (and in their single loss to Ohio State), Butler came out of the locker room strong, and took over the game. (At OSU, the Bulldogs trailed by 6 at the intermission, cut the lead in half in the second stanza, and had a Gordon Hayward trey in the air at the final buzzer that would have tied the game). Strong defense, particularly by the guards, Howard’s rebounding, and Veasley’s all-around aggressive play took the game back. And even with just Howard and Hayward scoring at their usual rate, by the ten minute mark of the second what was a three-point deficit had become a six-point lead (41-35). Then, when a pretty Hayward feed got a previously scoreless Mack a shot under the goal at the eleven minute mark, Mack belatedly joined the party, and Butler’s three scorers all contributing was too much for Green Bay to overcome. The game wasn’t as close as the 68-59 final score.

Howard had 15 (on 4-7) and eight boards. Hayward had 14 (on 5-9, 2-5 from the arc) and 6 boards. Mack had 11 (on 4-7, and also 2-5 from the arc), five boards, and a monstrous eight assists. In fact, as we approach the halfway point of the conference season, it was incredibly obvious that Butler’s two freshmen shooters, Hayward and Mack, also love playing together, setting up one another to score, and feeding off of one another’s energy. For the losers, diminutive lefty guard Rahmon Fletcher did all he could to keep his team close in the second half, scoring 17 of his 22 after intermission, on 7-12 shooting. But he was overmatched by Butler all half long, in particular by Butler’s two frosh playing together as beautifully as they did.

Green Bay coach Kowalczyk talked about Butler’s strong defense after the game, focusing on a series of “7 possessions during which we turned the ball over 4 times.” He followed up that “because Butler plays so slow, each possession is that much more valuable.”

Mimicking former Arizona Cardinals coach Dennis Green’s famous comments about the Chicago Bears, Butler coach Brad Stevens began his press conference complimenting Green Bay’s defense, telling us that “they [Green Bay] were exactly what we thought they’d be.” In response to questions he was candid that in a number of games this year his now 17-1 team has shot poorly in the first half, causing a first-half or halftime deficit.

When I asked him about his team’s controlled pace, and if or when he might allow his talented freshmen to play a bit faster, he responded that he’s already trying to cause that to happen, that this edition of the Bulldogs has succeeded in getting the ball up the floor more quickly than last year’s group in a number of games, and attributed the slowness of tonight’s first half to strong Green Bay defense. He then proceeded to compliment Gordon Hayward’s unselfish team-oriented attitude, at the same time making clear that he wants Hayward to shoot from the perimeter every single time he’s open, and that when Hayward is crowded by a defender Stevens wants him to drive hard to the goal. Not surprisingly, Stevens wouldn’t focus for very long on his gaudy 17-1 record to start the season (the best start in team history), telling us that “if we start looking at that instead of our next opponent, that’s the best way to make sure that we’ll no longer have a something-and-one record.”

While Green Bay moves on to more beatable Valparaiso for a game Saturday night, Butler will remain at home and entertain that other Wisconsin team, which stumbled badly at Valpo Thursday night, falling 63-51, that game at 2 p.m. Saturday. You can bet that the Panthers, who Stevens called “scary-good offensively,” will bring their A-game to Indianapolis, hoping to find a way to beat Butler and salvage a split on their swing through Indiana. You can also bet that Green Bay – along with WSU and CSU – will be rooting for Butler to beat Milwaukee Saturday, and stay undefeated.

Horizon News and Notes

• Don’t forget the Friday 9 p.m. eastern Horizon ESPNU game, Friday night featuring Cleveland State at Youngstown State. And CSU had better not take those pesky Penguins lightly, as they are mighty dangerous on their home court.
• Thursday night’s game being the first chance this writer has had to see Wisconsin-Green Bay in person, I got a chance to watch last year’s Horizon Defensive Player of the Year, Phoenix 3-man Terry Evans, who spent most of the night shadowing Butler’s Gordon Hayward. In this writer’s opinion, Evans helped off of Hayward more than he should have, dug for dribbles and lunged for passes, and as a result Hayward scored well, and had open looks that could have resulted in his scoring way more than his 14. While one match-up in one game – a difficult one at that – isn’t enough to reach a firm judgment, from what I saw tonight, much as is the case for Cleveland State’s Cedric Jackson (the only player in the league with more steals), for Evans steals aren’t a positive statistic. I’d be more impressed if Evans played tough hard-nosed position defense, tightened up his spacing, and forced his man to turn his side or back to the goal, and to take more difficult shots. This night, Evans wasn’t even the best defensive player on his team; Troy Cotton was, for his terrific work on Shelvin Mack, holding Mack scoreless for the first 31 minutes.

Losing Hasn’t Slowed Dartmouth’s Barnett

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Alex Barnett remembered something his coach said about their Ivy League travel partner.  Dartmouth last won at Harvard in 1999, despite having some chances since then to pull out a win at Lavietes Pavilion.  Fifth-year head coach Terry Dunn was determined to change that, and, it turns out, his senior star had something to do with it.

“Coach said he was going to bring a team here one day that was going to get a win,” Barnett said after the Big Green knocked off the Crimson 75-66 in overtime on Saturday.  “I’m just so happy it happened to be during my senior year.  At least I was on one of those teams that got a win at Harvard.”

Barnett played no small role in the win that broke the skid.  He scored 30 points, 18 of which came in the second half and overtime, going 6-8 from the field in that span.  A number of those shots were in the clutch, at times where Dartmouth was holding off the Crimson in regulation and then when they took control in the extra session.

That wasn’t a given at one point, when he picked up his third foul less than four minutes into the second half.  With the Big Green clinging to a one-point lead at the time, it seemed like that would be the chance for Harvard to make a run and take over the game.  But that run never came, as the Crimson were lucky to tie the game at 48 with just under ten minutes to play.  That’s when Barnett took over.

After the tie, Barnett came right back in the game, and on the next possession he hit a jumper to put the Big Green back on top after they got an offensive rebound.  He then added two free throws to make it a four-point lead.  With under five minutes to go, the Crimson finally regained the lead at 57-56 on two free throws by Keith Wright, but it was short-lived as Barnett hit another jumper 18 seconds later to start a 6-0 run of his own that put them ahead until Jeremy Lin’s layup with 1.1 seconds left sent it to overtime.

In the extra session, Barnett outscored Harvard all by himself with six more points.  He scored the first two points of overtime and the last two as well.

“I’m a leader on this team as a senior, and I just feel like when there’s pressure, or there’s times when we need a bucket, I have to get the ball,” the senior wing said.  “My teammates, they feel like they can put the ball in my hands because they trust in me, and they feel that I’ll be able to come through in the clutch.  I’ve missed a couple of shots in the past, but they keep depending on me, they keep having faith in me, so that gives me confidence to keep playing through and keep making shots.”

One of those shots came just two weeks earlier.  After Dartmouth led for much of the game in Hanover, Harvard took a one-point lead with 12.4 seconds left.  Barnett had a mid-range shot at the buzzer that could have won it, but it didn’t go and the Crimson escaped with a win.

In hindsight, Barnett’s third foul on Saturday night might have been a blessing in disguise.  The biggest reason is that the Big Green never fell behind while he was out.  But Dunn also saw something else that appeared to help.

“He was able to rest his legs for about 10 minutes, and seemed to be the freshest guy on the floor down the stretch,” said Dunn.  “He was certainly the difference in the overtime.”

Over his career, Barnett has been overshadowed by others because his team has struggled.  Most who are knowledgeable about the Ivy League feel he may be the best player, but he hasn’t received a lot of big honors because the Big Green have had just one double-digit win season thus far.  A competitor of his for one of the top players in the league echoed that sentiment.

“Barnett’s a big-time player,” said Lin.  “I think he could be Player of the Year if his team wins a lot more games down the road, but talent-wise, he’s one of, if not the, best players in the Ivy League.”

Barnett won a lot of games in high school at Cardinal Ritter in St. Louis, so the college years have been a little different.  He was a coup for Dartmouth, a player talented enough to play at a little higher level (though not necessarily a high-major), and while he didn’t have a major impact as a freshman, he broke out as a sophomore.  Both last season and thus far this year, he has greatly improved his jump shot, especially from long range where he’s now making about 41 percent of his three-point shots on the season.

Despite the lack of winning – Saturday’s win also broke an eight-game losing streak and is just the third of the season for the Big Green – Barnett has continued to play.  He’s done so in much the same way that he’s continued to take the big shot for his team and has been the guy they go to when they need a basket.

“It’s been rough, coming from high school where we were known for winning,” Barnett reflected.  “It was rough, but I love the game of basketball, so I’m not going to quit, I’m going to keep playing.  I love it, that’s why I’m going to stick with it.”

Dunn noted that Barnett has been resilient, which the team needs if they are to have any chance of winning in the Ivy League.  He needs help, and there are some other veterans on the team as well as a freshman with some very good potential in Jabari Trotter.  While Barnett has to play well, his support cast does as well, and there’s some optimism on that front as Ivy League play gets set to begin in earnest next weekend as the back-to-back game nights commence.

“I love this team,” Barnett said.  “The freshmen have been maturing, they’re developing.  Other people are stepping up that have been here in the past.”

Wolfpack Playing with Heavy Hearts

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – Coaches talk all the time about playing for 40 minutes.  You don’t win games playing 20, 30, 35 or even 39 minutes unless you’re significantly better than a team.  Even then, a full 40-minute effort is what’s needed to get a win.  Right now, that’s the big battle North Carolina State is facing, and their latest example is their 79-68 loss at Boston College on Saturday.

Certainly, the Wolfpack were playing with heavy hearts.  They all heard the news that women’s basketball coach Kay Yow passed away in the morning, and her impact on the community in Raleigh can’t be stated in words.  A moment of silence was held in her honor before the game.

That may have been one factor in their first half struggles, where the Wolfpack stayed with the Eagles early before an 8-0 Eagle run made it 30-19 late in the half en route to a 42-27 halftime score.  The Wolfpack struggled mightily on the glass, being out-rebounded 29-15 in the first half (46-25 for the game), with the Eagles’ 15 offensive rebounds being enough for a tie in the opening frame.  That was an area they figured they might have an edge, but there was an explanation for the disparity.

“I thought they were more aggressive than we were, more physical.,” said head coach Sidney Lowe.  “We weren’t battling in there or really going after it, and if we wanted to get back in this ballgame, we had to pick it up.”

In the second half, North Carolina State came alive and ran off 16 unanswered points to get within 47-44.  They would get within three on three other occasions, but no closer, and the Eagles pulled away after the final media timeout.

The Wolfpack’s big run was just not enough after a bad first half.

“The thing that’s been a problem with us is putting good halves with bad halves,” said junior guard Farnold Degand, who was playing in front of friends and family as he grew up in Mattapan.  “One game, we play a good first half and a bad second half, the next we play a bad first half and a good second half.  We’ve just got to come together and play a whole good game as a team.”

In recent games, turnovers have been the big problem for the Wolfpack, but that wasn’t the case on Saturday.  They entered Saturday having turned the ball over 18.6 times in the prior five games, but gave it away just 10 times against the Eagles.  The big issue was on the glass, where the Wolfpack came in out-rebounding opponents by nearly six per game on the season.  The Eagles turned their 22 offensive rebounds into just 15 second-chance points, but they took more possessions away on a day where the Wolfpack weren’t giving them away at the offensive end.

What stood out to Lowe, as much as anything, was the consistency of effort throughout the game.  That’s been an issue all season, and one stat that can point to it is the team’s scoring by half.  Good teams are typically stronger in the second half in the scoring column, but not the Wolfpack.  While they have scored five more points in the second half than the first on the season, that’s a smaller margin than many teams.  But the biggest issue is what they give up, as they have a +69 margin in the first half and only a +21 in the second.

“That’s been one of our issues this year,” said the third-year head coach.  “We’ll play well for 30, 35 minutes, and it’s that five-minute stretch that a team might make a 10-0 run or something like that and get us down.  We’ve been in just about every game, but if we were to play 40 minutes, we certainly would have won some of those games.  That’s been one of our Achilles’ heels, not being able to play 40 minutes.”

It’s helped land the Wolfpack in the bottom three of the ACC with a 1-4 mark after Saturday.

Other Notable Games

Duke 85, Maryland 44: This was never a ballgame, as the score might indicate.  It was the worst loss for the Terrapins under Gary Williams.

Marquette 79, DePaul 70: The Golden Eagles continue their hot streak, as they have now won nine straight and are 6-0 in the Big East.

Memphis 54, Tennessee 52: The stakes weren’t quite as high as last year, but once again the road team comes out on top between these two.

Kentucky 61, Alabama 51: The Wildcats pick one up on the road to go to 5-0 in the SEC behind another solid game from Jodie Meeks (27 points).

Auburn 73, Arkansas 51: The Razorbacks fall to 0-4 in the SEC with this home loss, making their big wins right before conference play less relevant.

Connecticut 69, Notre Dame 61: The Huskies continue their prowess on the road and snap Notre Dame’s 45-game home winning streak.

Villanova70, South Florida 61: The Wildcats get back to .500 in Big East play with a tough road win.

Washington 86, UCLA 75: A big win for the Huskies, who continue their surge by winning their fourth straight and 13th in 14 tries.  They are alone atop the Pac-10 at 6-1.

California 76, Oregon 69: The Golden Bears bounce back from their loss to Oregon State on Thursday night and send the Ducks into an 0-9 hole in the Pac-10.

Oregon State 77, Stanford 62: Winning at Cal on Thursday was a surprise, but sweeping the Bay Area trip for the first time in 16 years is a shocker.

Xavier 80, LSU 70: The Musketeers continue to roll, winning their eighth straight, five of which have been on the road.

Kansas 82, Iowa State 67: The young Jayhawks continue to grow up in early Big 12 play, improving to 4-0 with this road win behind 26 points and five assists from Sherron Collins.

Missouri 97, Texas Tech 86: The Tigers improve to 4-1 in the Big 12 with this win, quietly in the race for the top early on.

Illinois 64, Wisconsin 57: Two teams playing different than expectations, but in the opposite manner.  The Illini go to 5-2 in Big Ten play, while the Badgers are 3-4.

Penn State 63, Iowa 59: Don’t look now, but the Nittany Lions are 5-3 in the Big Ten.

Utah State 67, Hawaii 51: The Aggies just keep on winning, improving to 19-1 overall and 7-0 in the WAC.

VCU 76, George Mason 71: The Rams win the first of two big home games, with a first-place showdown against Northeastern up next on Tuesday.

Northeastern 58, Old Dominion 42: A big win for the Huskies, who get their first-ever win in Norfolk and set up the aforementioned showdown in Richmond on Tuesday night.

Drexel 62, William & Mary 49: Few expected the Dragons to be in the mix for the conference race, but they’re 6-3 in the CAA following this win.

Siena 82, Niagara 65: At this point, you can just about hand the top seed in the MAAC Tournament over to the Saints, as they knock off one of their top challengers in convincing fashion to go three games up on the next two teams in the standings.

Butler 78, UW-Milwaukee 48: The Bulldogs continue their run through the Horizon League, now with a 9-0 mark.

Portland 73, Pepperdine 58: Quietly, the Pilots are 4-1 in West Coast play and 13-7 overall.

Cornell 83, Columbia 72: The Big Red join Yale atop the Ivy League at 2-0.

Holy Cross 71, American 62: After a lot of struggles in non-league play, the Crusaders are 4-1 and atop the Patriot League after winning this early showdown at home.

Akron 68, Kent State 54: Who would have figured that young, rebuilding Akron would have a better record (10-8) than Kent State (8-11) at this point?

Wright State Shuts Down Loyola

DAYTON, Ohio – Another day, another defensive gem for the Wright State Raiders as they held Loyola to 29.4 percent shooting for the game and 15.4 percent in the second half to get a homecourt win, 68-47.

The final score was not a true indication of how tight the game was until the end. It took a Wright State defensive lock-down that held Loyola scoreless from the 9:46 mark until there was 2:02 left in the game to put the Ramblers away for good. In the same time frame the Raiders were not exactly shooting lights out, but they did manage to score 14 points thanks to their foul shooting, which accounted for nine of those points.

Loyola’s Walt Gibler finally got some points on the board to end the scoring drought when he made two free throws after getting fouled by Will Graham. Two more free throws by Loyola’s Courtney Stanley and the Ramblers were done scoring for the game. They made just four field goals in the second half.

“Their defense is very good, we had to have better ball movement and defend better against the three,” said Loyola coach Jim Whitesell. “We have to rebound better too. We played well for spurts, we just didn’t have enough good minutes to beat Wright State.”

Wright State (11-8, 5-3 Horizon) held a 41-30 lead at the half. The Ramblers came out and went on a 10-3 run in the first five minutes to cut the lead to 44-40 on a layup by J. R. Blount, another by Gibler and a 3-pointer by Justin Cerasoli. After that Loyola (11-9, 3-5 HL) scored just seven more points in the game.

For Wright State, in the second half Cory Cooperwood came alive to score 10 points after not scoring in the first half.

In the first half Cerasoli hit a 3-pointer 52 seconds into the game to give Loyola their biggest lead of the game at 3-0. The score went back and forth until with 11:26 left in the first half Loyola had a 17-15 lead, then 43 seconds later when Wright State’s Todd Brown hit a 3-pointer to give the Raiders the lead that would hold the rest of the game.

The game plan the Raiders used worked well. Wright State coach Brad Brownell wanted his team to concentrate on rebounding and defending Loyola’s guards and it worked pretty well with the Raiders holding a 38-30 rebounding edge and keeping Loyola’s guards from scoring in double figures.

He said, “We did what we were trying to do. Their guards are so good, you are trying to keep them from penetrating. Then you want to keep them off the glass. Offensively we tried to be aggressive and try to have a little better flow.”

Notes

• Wright State has won 11 of the last 13 games, losing only to ranked programs, Wake Forest and Butler, both on the road.
• When Loyola scores at least 70 points, good things happen. Last year the Ramblers were 7-0 hitting the 70 mark. Dating back to the 2005-06 season they are 17-2 when scoring 70 and this year they are 5-1.
• Wright State leads the all-time series 16-14.
• Loyola’s next game is on Saturday at Detroit at 1:05 p.m., and it is televised on Fox Sports Detroit.
• Wright State’s next game is Saturday against UIC at home at 7 p.m.

Vaughan’s Terrific Outing Makes us Appreciate the Game

BOSTON – Thankfully, it appears John Vaughan will be okay after what happened Wednesday night at Matthews Arena. A report on Thursday said he will be out for at least a week, but it’s certainly better than being a life-changing injury, which some at the arena surely feared. The obvious reason to be happy has nothing to do with basketball, as over 2,300 worried people in the arena were practically silent for several minutes while he was down on the floor. The less obvious reason is that it allows us to better appreciate what was a tremendous college basketball game where both teams showed a lot. Because let’s face it, if Vaughan had come away with a serious, even life-changing injury, it would be hard to think about basketball at all right now – much like it was for everyone involved in the game.

There was some irony to it as well considering the setting and the coach. For George Mason head coach Jim Larranaga, it reminded him of something earlier in his tenure. Seven years ago, former Patriot Darren Tarver collapsed during a pickup game. He had the same heart condition the late Reggie Lewis – Northeastern’s all-time greatest player – had. Fortunately, the story had a happy ending in that Tarver is still with us.

“Fortunately for us and for Darren especially, there was a gentleman, Dr. Dave Beaver, who specializes in teaching CPR,” Larranaga recalled. “He was next door – his office is next door to the gym – and he got in there and applied CPR until the EMTs got there. When I was observing, Darren was out cold, EMTs put a portable defibrillator on him, jump-started his heart because he had flat-lined, and were able to revive him. He now lives with a pacemaker in his chest.”

To a man, Northeastern’s players and coaches said the post-game celebration of their 58-57 win over George Mason was a bit muted. Sure, there was the initial celebration once the final buzzer had sounded, but the locker room was a bit different. They all understand that there’s basketball, and there’s life, and seeing what happened to Vaughan was a reminder.

“First and foremost, our thoughts, our concerns and our prayers are with John Vaughan,” said Northeastern head coach Bill Coen. “We’re out here playing a basketball game, and sometimes you get caught up just in the emotion of the game. That was just a reminder to all of us that this is just a game. There are more important things going on. Our thoughts and prayers are with him, and we hope he has a speedy recovery and can join his team.”

“It’s a win, but it kind of puts a damper on things,” said Husky junior Matt Janning, who led the way with 20 points. “Everybody’s thinking about him. Guys know who he is, it’s not like he’s an enemy. Everybody’s thinking about him and hoping for the best.”

Indeed, how do you go back on the court and continue playing the final minutes of the game after this has happened? It was surely easier said than done.

“It’s tough,” Janning reflected. “We sat there for 10, 15 minutes. But like Coach said, you’ve got different thoughts. You’re thinking about him, you’re thinking about what you’re trying to do out there. We were fortunate to come out with the win.”

And what a win it was. The obvious thing is that the Huskies are now in a three-way tie atop the Colonial Athletic Association with a 7-1 mark. But more important was how they won the game, and that was the case even before the drama at the end of the game.

For most of the game, the Huskies had the lead and were only semi-seriously threatened. George Mason stayed within striking distance, but the difference was more than one possession for a large majority of the game. After Northeastern went up 5-2 early on, George Mason got within three eight times, and on all but one occasion, the Huskies scored again on either the next possession or the one right after it. It was that one occasion that was part of the final drama.

Vaughan went down after the first of two free throws by Nkem Ojougboh, who played a far better game than his final stat line (four points, seven boards and one block) would suggest. When the game finally resumed, the Patriots went on a 6-0 run to take a 57-56 lead with less than a minute to play. It looked like it might be a textbook story: a player goes down, the team rallies around and wins an emotional game for him. That it was a road game and against an opponent nipping at their heels in the standings would only add to it.

But then the Huskies showed the kind of toughness that makes them a contender in this conference. They shook off everything working against them – a loss of focus, the psychological impact of losing a lead they held the entire game, and the momentum of an opponent surely trying to win one for their player. With 25 seconds left, Manny Adako converted a pass from Baptiste Bataille to give the Huskies their final lead of the game at 58-57. The Huskies were able to keep George Mason from getting off a shot to win the game in the final seconds.

To come back and win against a team ready to claim an emotional road win, which the Huskies did, is big for this team. It can’t be underestimated, considering that not only would they have blown a lead they held all game in a crucial matchup, but also that they were able to rebound after a late struggle that could have cost them. It also comes as they’re about to go on a crucial road trip that takes them to Old Dominion and VCU.

“It’s nice to be back up there,” said Janning, who was 8-13 from the field. “We played well today. We were slow after what happened.”

Coen thought the Huskies lost focus after Vaughan went down, and it was clear. But you also have to give credit in that late run to the Patriots, who came alive and were surely trying to win one for their senior, who’s had a fine career and was leading them on the evening as he had 19 points on 7-10 shooting, including 5-7 from long range. So much was stacked against them – being on the road, trailing all game, having their best player go down – and they rallied to have a chance to win the game.

“We put ourselves in a position with two and a half minutes to go to have a chance to win,” said Larranaga. “Heck, with 20 seconds to go or 30 seconds to go we were up one.”

All of what Larranaga knew after the game, before he headed to Beth Israel Hospital to be with Vaughan, was positive. There were reasons to be optimistic, as Larranaga said medical personnel took his blood pressure and pulse and felt both were okay, and there was a message he shared with trainer Debi Corbatto.

“I think the only message that John shared with Debi that she shared with me is he asked if he could go back in,” Larranaga said. “I think that was a good sign.”

A good sign that we can really appreciate the game after all.

Lots Of Overtime For Boston University

BOSTON – You can be forgiven for thinking that Boston University likes multiple overtime games.  The Terriers have had two of them three days apart, winning in four overtimes against Stony Brook on Monday and surviving two overtimes against UMBC on Thursday for an 80-77 win.

But the depleted Terriers could have used a break from the extra sessions.  John Holland played all 60 minutes on Monday and another 44 on Thursday, and while he made a clutch three-pointer to start the second overtime and finished with 18 points and nine rebounds, there was a quick way to sum up how he felt after the game.

“I’m tired, man,” the sophomore wing quipped.  “I feel a little tired and fatigued, but it’s part of the season.”

The Terriers’ other big star, Corey Lowe, said he had a feeling of déjà vu.

“Here we go again-type thing,” was how Lowe described overtime approaching.  “Just talking to their players, everyone was just shocked that this was going on.”

The timing isn’t great for the Terriers, who are in the midst of four games in nine days and are already down in numbers to the point where Dennis Wolff is playing a lot of zone defense.  But on Thursday, the same was the case for the Retrievers, who only dressed eight players and had two play all 50 minutes, another play 49 and one more play 48.  So if there was ever going to be a war of attrition, Thursday’s game was just that.

It didn’t have to be this way for the Terriers, who had a 39-22 halftime lead and looked firmly in control.  But they struggled to make shots, and gradually the Retrievers came back, eventually tying the game at 61 on a Matt Spadafora three-pointer.  At times during the first overtime, UMBC looked like they had the edge, but the Terriers were able to send it to a second extra session and held on.

With six overtimes in a few days, the Terriers have certainly tested their depth, as well as their star players, who have had to give them a lot more already.  Thus far, they have responded, especially Lowe, who had 26 points and six assists on Thursday.

“He’s had very good concentration in practice, and he’s been focused,” Wolff said of Lowe.

More importantly, Scott Brittain continues to emerge as a post scorer for the Terriers.  The junior forward had a season-high 18 points on 7-11 shooting before fouling out in the first overtime.  In conference games, he is averaging just under 12 points per contest.  His confidence appears to be improving, and it’s showing in the results.

“This is one of the best games he’s played, maybe in his career here,” Wolff said of Brittain.  “He was very active, scored a little in the post and gave us a little bit of a presence.”

Thus far, the play of Holland, Lowe and Brittain has gone a long way towards surviving this span for the Terriers.  It’s proven to be more challenging that first thought, as both multiple overtime games came at home.  Wolff said he could see the effects of fatigue in the second half of Thursday night’s game, although he was also a little concerned at their shoot-around earlier in the day.  At this point, their mentality seems to be that of a team in the tournament: survive and advance.

“We’ve got to get through this week,” said Wolff, who added that they have practiced lightly in recent days and will do so in the next couple of days.  “This is a brutal week, this is four games in seven days.  This is hard whether we are playing eight or nine guys.”

If they get through this week, the Terriers will be better off, especially if they can go 4-for-4 in that stretch.  They have already won the first three.  Asked how he would feel if they pull off another win on Sunday, Wolff said, “I think we would wake up Monday morning feeling pretty good about the week we just had.”

It has been quite a week, and the Terriers have survived thus far.  They might get to like the overtime games if the results stay the same.

Providence’s Inside Work Key In Toppling Cincinnati

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Lost in the story that caught everyone’s attention on Saturday night and even Monday night in Providence is a great development on the court.  While the big story is part and parcel of what’s going on, in the long run it’s not as important.

No one expected Friar guard Jeff Xavier to play on Monday night.  Less than 48 hours earlier, his eye was swelled shut after a freak play when he drove to the basket and caught part of Marquette forward Joseph Fulce.  Xavier was on the ground face-down and kicking, which is never a good sign.  How bad was it?

“I thought my eyeball came out for a second.  I thought I was holding my eyeball,” the senior guard said.  “It hurt really bad, and I didn’t know what really happened.  I was kind of in a dazed mode.”

Although it looked like incidental contact, which is how Xavier felt when he got to see the play later, one person didn’t agree.  Xavier’s older brother, Jonathan, walked down from the stands, jumped in between two Friars on the bench and walked onto the court to talk to an official about the play.  Thankfully, the incident didn’t turn into anything remotely serious.

Xavier said he still felt a lot of pain on Sunday, but when he woke up on Monday morning, he knew he would play.  He was cleared later in the day and started the game, and received a huge ovation from the Friar faithful when announced as a starter.  Again, no one expected this.

“I never would have guessed that he would have been able to play tonight for one minute,” said head coach Keno Davis.  “From everything that we had heard yesterday, it was going to be Thursday was doubtful.”

Xavier didn’t have a big game, but there’s no question his presence alone lifted the team.  More importantly, for the second straight game, the Friar offense had a different look and better results.  This time, it led to a victory, as the Friars knocked off Cincinnati 72-50.

For a lot of non-conference play, Providence lived and died by the three-point shot.  They settled for those shots all too often early in a possession, not even working the ball to get a shot in the flow of the offense.  The ball almost never went inside-out.  On occasion, a few players would slash and make things happen, but there was never any consistency to it.

On Saturday, there was clearly an emphasis on getting the ball inside.  That should be just about any team’s plan against Marquette, a team with three terrific perimeter starters but a question mark inside.  The Friars would drive and even make entry passes inside, and they scored 32 of 45 first-half points in the paint for a five-point lead, and kept that going in the second half to build a 13-point lead.  They lost the game largely because of key turnovers down the stretch and an inability to keep their momentum.

Against Cincinnati, the same emphasis on going inside was there.  More often, it came from dribble penetration, and they made several excellent interior passes.  They kept attacking, and when it was all said and done they scored 50 of their 72 points in the paint.  Cincinnati had just 24 in the paint.

In fact, there was a point in the second half where the Friars seemed to be reverting to their old form of settling for three-pointers.  Not surprisingly, it didn’t work for them, and Cincinnati was able to stay within striking distance.  Then Randall Hanke came into the game and became a force inside.

Hanke scored 15 points on 7-7 shooting, as the Friars kept finding him inside and on the break a couple of times.  The senior big man knows how to finish, as he’s converted nearly 68 percent of his shots over his career, so it’s clear that getting the ball to him might be a good idea.

He wasn’t alone.  Jonathan Kale scored 14 points on 5-6 shooting, all but one coming right near the basket.  The emotional leader of the Friars, he’s not a guy they count on for scoring, but if he gets the ball in close, he’s capable of scoring.

Notice a pattern here?  Get the ball inside, and good things can happen.

“I think what we’ve found is that we’ve got an ability to score in different ways and win a ballgame in different ways,” said Davis.  “We can shoot the three, we can rebound, we can go inside, we can drive, we can penetrate.”

Going inside can work for their athletic wings as well.  It’s been well-established that Weyinmi Efejuku, who’s playing with a heavy heart after the recent passing of his father, is more than athletic enough to score on slashes, and Brian McKenzie and emerging Marshon Brooks can do so as well.  If they establish themselves that way, it can only help open up opportunities to shoot it from long range.

The last two games have shown that the Friars can be effective and even win when they get the ball inside to try to score.  As much as it helped to have Xavier back in the lineup after what happened two days earlier, the bigger development is the offensive change.  They got a boost Monday from Xavier’s return, but the new offensive emphasis will boost them as long as they keep that up.

For Shame! It’s the End of Live April Basketball

It must really chap the NCAA’s hide that they have no way to truly regulate travel team basketball with high school players.  It is out of their jurisdiction, but make no mistake: they have had their sights set on this for a while now.  And on Friday, their latest bad move came to pass, as this April and those in future years will not have any live weekends of travel team basketball for Division I coaches to evaluate.

At the 2009 NCAA Convention on Friday, proposal 2007-30-C became a final piece of legislation, as 54 percent (188) voted to support it and 45 percent (154) voted to override it.  During the 60-day override period after the legislation was adopted last April, 62 requests to override came in, well above the 30 needed to initially defeat the measure.  But since the number was less than 100, the board of directors could still adopt it pending a full membership vote at the convention, and opted to do so in August.

As has been stated and elaborated on here before, there are a number of practical reasons to hope that this legislation would be defeated.  This legislation will certainly not accomplish what it allegedly sets out to, but make things worse.  On top of that, there’s so much hypocrisy and grandstanding among those supporting it that it’s probably symbolic that the full membership vote on it took place just outside Washington – a place where those two traits are certainly not in short supply.

The hypocrisy and grandstanding all concern academics.  A key motive for this was related to academics, as the legislation’s text expressed a concern about missed class time by student-athletes who participate in these events.  Put aside that this concern is overblown and misses the fact that live weekends in April often include the week that schools are on vacation, as well as the fact that only a small number of the student-athletes even play to the end of these events on Sunday.  That’s reality, but it’s not as important.

The reality is that making these events dead to Division I coaches is not going to mean an end of the events by a long shot.  Players play; they go to these events to compete.  Getting seen by Division I coaches is just the icing on the cake.  There are plenty of such events in May on dead weekends, and even in April on weekends like the Final Four, where coaches cannot be on the road, or even national SAT/ACT week.  Supporters think college coaches attending these events is a tacit endorsement of less academic focus, which is nothing short of ridiculous.

But more to the point, Damon Evans, the athletic director at Georgia and the chair of the newly-formed NCAA Leadership Council, said in the NCAA’s release on this, “By overriding this particular piece of legislation, what we would be saying to our prospective student-athletes is that academics doesn’t matter.”

This is a very interesting comment from an athletic director considering the turnover in head coaches every year.  Aside from NCAA violations, coaches are hired and fired based on wins and losses, not the academic achievement of their players.  Where has Evans been all these years when coaches have been fired despite having a solid graduation rate?  Doesn’t that tell prospective student-athletes that academics don’t matter, more powerfully than not allowing coaches to properly evaluate the young men they are recruiting?  I don’t recall Evans speaking out or trying to pass legislation that would change this so we can send a powerful message about the importance of academics to the student-athletes, current and prospective.

In fact, let’s keep an eye on the coaching situation at Evans’ school.  Dennis Felton has been speculated to be on the hot seat there, but the team’s media guide notes that he has a 100 percent graduation rate in a tenure that started after an academic scandal at the school with the prior coaching staff.  He entered this season with a 75-80 record, and the Bulldogs are currently 9-9 in 2008-09.  If the Bulldogs finish the season at, say, 17-16, giving him a record of 92-96, let’s see if Felton still has a job for next year in Athens.  Let’s see how much academics really matter to Evans.  Let’s see what kind of message we tell prospective student-athletes about how much academics matter.

Evans isn’t alone on this, however.  The Division I Men’s Basketball Issues Committee, a major supporter of this, is composed of several athletic directors.  These are the same people who fire coaches based on wins and losses, no matter the academics.  While coaches are held accountable for academics, save for a scandal that involves an NCAA investigation and sanctions, I don’t recall a coach getting fired because his players were consistently sub-par academic achievers, or even keeping his job because he graduated everyone.  Now all of a sudden athletic directors want to be concerned about academics?

Don’t believe for a second that the real motive behind this legislation has anything to do with academics.  That may be what supporters are publicly saying, but it’s inconsistent with most other actions and it doesn’t stand up to reality.  Put this in the category of their latest failed attempt to regulate travel team basketball at the high school level, because that’s what this really is.

Another reason this will be a failure is that the legislation is not going to accomplish a couple of things noted in the rationale for it.  Most notably, the legislation mentions that it wants to address “the disruption to the relationship between NCAA Division I basketball coaches and their own student-athletes during a critical academic time period and the increasing role of outside influences during the April contact period.”  Let’s look at both, because a few coaches had some things to say on these matters as well.

By taking away these recruiting weekends, coaches will now be on the road recruiting during the week in April, and at multiple sites.  Put aside the fact that this will be a budget-buster for a lot of schools – especially those outside of BCS conferences – and that we’re in a terrible economy right now, whereas they could see many kids in one setting on weekends in a more cost-effective manner.  The more relevant thing is that the current student-athletes are in class during the week, when coaches now have to recruit, and not on weekends.  This doesn’t seem to address a disruption to the relationship between the coach and current student-athletes at all – if anything, it seems to cause a new disruption because coaches won’t be on campus.

“The important things to me are being able to be with my team during the week and recruit on weekends,” says George Mason head coach Jim Larranaga.  “My feeling is that we’ve got to spend times with our own teams more, but if they change the rule, coaches are going to be gone Monday through Friday and home on weekends.  That to me doesn’t make sense.”

“Our coaches will be away from our programs more, in terms of academic and player management issues,” says Old Dominion head coach Blaine Taylor.  “We will have less staff presence during the spring, which is an important time.”

UNC-Wilmington head coach Benny Moss really summed up a lot of the pluses of having live weekends in April: “I want to be there when (his current players) are in class, help them, and then on the weekend, I can go to an event and see a larger number of kids at one venue to develop a deeper list.  It helps my budget, for July we get a bigger list, plus it allows me to be on campus during the week, when my players need me to be there.”

In short, this legislation not only takes college coaches out of the equation with prospective student-athletes, but also with their current ones, too.  The benefit of that escapes me, and I’m sure many others as well.

If the NCAA thinks that eliminating the live weekends in April will lessen the impact of outside influences on the kids, they must have caught too much of the Washington air that seems to put people there out of touch with reality.  By taking college coaches out of the equation – as mentioned earlier, this legislation will not mean an end to events like the Houston Kingwood Classic, Real Deal in the Rock (formerly Real Deal on the Hill) or King James Shooting Stars Classic – this legislation only adds to the opportunity for unsavory influences to be in kids’ lives.  Those outside influences will continue to have easy access to the kids, while college coaches have less access.

What will the end result of that be?  Inevitably, more transfers – and the number of transfers has already been alarming in recent years – as well as more cases like the O.J. Mayo saga at USC.  This isn’t to say that having live weekends in April would prevent that from happening – indeed, April had live weekends for every year that Mayo was a prep star – it will only help set the stage for more of it.  As long as college coaches have less and less access, as will occur from this legislation, outside influences have more and more opportunity to influence kids.

“We have to evaluate players, and we’re getting such limited access to them now, that’s why you’re seeing so many transfers – we don’t know them, they don’t know us, and our access is being limited even more,” says Delaware head coach Monte Ross.

It’s also worth noting that the bum rap that travel team basketball gets is a bit undeserved.  There are certainly issues there – anyone who is around it at all understands that there are plenty of politics in play – but quite frankly, travel team basketball and the Amateur Athletic Union have nothing on the NCAA.  Unfortunately, the NCAA is too out of touch to realize that.

“Obviously, just like there is in college basketball and all different sports, and all different aspects of life, there’s going to be a few bad people, there’s going to be some bad situations with certain people, but for the most part, it’s a huge positive,” says Hofstra head coach Tom Pecora.  “There’s bad high school coaches out there, there’s bad college coaches out there.  There’s bad doctors and there’s bad mechanics.  That’s life.  You don’t let those people dictate the way you’re going to go about doing business day-to-day.”

Another end result will be a negative for the people who have no voice whatsoever in all of this – the kids.  They will continue to play, contrary to the NCAA’s belief, but now late bloomers won’t be discovered by college coaches in the spring after their senior year.  More kids will fall through the cracks because they aren’t properly evaluated, especially if they live in an isolated area where coaches can’t easily get to and they are the only Division I prospect within a large radius.  And now that April is out of the picture, July becomes much more important – and the kids are already taxed during that crazy month with seemingly non-stop action.

While scouting services and other members of the media may observe players in April events, no one can determine a player’s suitability for their program like a college coach.  It isn’t just about talent; talent is only one part of it.  Coaches generally recruit players for a certain style of play and a certain way they run their program; that’s how teams develop distinct reputations in terms of how they play in addition to a level of success.  That’s why, even though we in the media still have access and can spot talent, our evaluations of players aren’t as meaningful as those of coaches.

The NCAA makes a boatload of money off student athletes – $545 million per year just from its television contract with CBS Sports.  Given that this legislation means coaches will have to spend more time away from current student-athletes, and also hurts the prospective student-athletes, is it any wonder that some think “NCAA” stands for “Nobody Cares About Athletes”?

The NCAA loves to talk a good game about the student-athletes, especially concerning academics, but like anything else in life, it’s in the “doing” that the story is told.  Their doing is not positive, and it just had another negative – all in its latest attempt to try and regulate travel team basketball.