Presbyterian to play 25 away games in 1st D-I season

Presbyterian College players, like guard Al'Lonzo Coleman here against Clemson, have gotten used to playing on opponents' home courts. Courtesy of Presbyterian College athletics

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The least-exploited home-court advantage in Division I belongs to a 1,300-student liberal arts school in Clinton, S.C. The tenants of the Ross E. Templeton Physical Education Center, Presbyterian College's Blue Hose, play quite well there: they have a .930 home winning percentage over the past four seasons, and are undefeated at home this season. But they have not been playing there very often of late, turning the Templeton Center into the loneliest good gym in America.

Tuesday's 52-35 win over Army, which was witnessed by a sellout crowd of 2,500, was just Presbyterian's second home game of 2007-08, and its first since a win over Radford on Dec. 1. The Blue Hose, as new converts to D-I, won't join the Big South Conference until next season, and won't be eligible for the NCAA tournament until 2011-12. As independents this season, they have been relegated to the role of hard-luck vagabonds.

Presbyterian will play 25 of its 30 games on the road and has logged more than 14,000 miles in planes and buses thus far. What some would call a death march, the school's head coach of 19 years, Gregg Nibert, calls a "dream season." And while his team has put scares into such behemoths as N.C. State, Wake Forest and Georgia Tech, the Blue Hose's record reflects the futility of their mission: They are 2-0 at home, 0-20 on the road.

"We knew we weren't going to win 20 games, but I'm proud to be a part of this team," said senior guard Pat Kiscaden, who played his first three seasons with Presbyterian in D-II. "Nobody wants to hear what you did in D-II, but now I can say I played against all these ACC teams, and Ohio State. This will be my most memorable season."

Still, Kiscaden admitted to feeling out of sorts heading into Tuesday's homecoming against Army; between Dec. 14 and New Year's, while the Blue Hose were in the midst of a stretch of 11 straight away games, he slept in his own bed only three times, and barely set foot in the Templeton Center. "I feel like I'm not even familiar with my gym anymore," he said. "It's weird. I haven't shot with our balls all that much. We've played more games at The Pit in New Mexico" -- three, in the fittingly named Basketball Traveler's Invitational in mid-November -- "than we have at home."

Presbyterian's schedule is a savage one that Nibert built out of necessity, starting back in 2006. "I was at the major AAU tournaments, asking guys like Thad Matta, 'Will you play us?'" he said. "And obviously we had to go to their places." Only two D-I teams (Radford and Army) were willing to venture to Clinton, and none would play Presbyterian if it wasn't an "RPI counter" -- that is, a team that plays at least 21 games against D-I opponents.

Nibert's staff members have become pseudo-travel agents as a result: Associate head coach Ronny Fisher handles plane-trip planning, trainer Nelson Jones handles bus-trip planning, and assistant Justin Smith handles meals, calling ahead to place orders in hopes of beating the team's de facto food shot clock: a goal of 15 minutes or less spent picking up the grub.

There is one silver lining to this nomadic season: guarantee money. Piles of it. Fifteen of the Blue Hose's 25 away games came with significant paychecks from the host, ranging anywhere from $25,000 to $85,000, with travel costs built into some of the higher-end figures. From those games, Presbyterian will earn a total of $650,000, which Nibert hopes will help them jump from 11 scholarships to a full load of 13, and make various improvements to the school's basketball facilities. The 650K is a step up from what the Blue Hose earned last year in D-II, when their only revenue stream came from ticket sales.

"D-I teams wouldn't play us [before this year], so an entire season might net something like three or four thousand dollars," said Nibert. "That's why this D-I decision will go down in history as the best move we've ever made."

Presbyterian is earning its money. It opened the season in Lincoln, Neb., then spent five days in Albuquerque later in November. The Blue Hose ventured to West Point to meet Army -- and later explored Manhattan as a team -- on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. They spent 11 straight days on the road, from Dec. 14-24, first busing to Columbus, Ohio, to meet the Buckeyes, then flying to California to face UC-Davis, Fresno State and San Jose State. They were heckled incessantly for the randomness of their mascot, which is a Scotsman in blue socks. And they began 2008 with a three-game gantlet of Wake Forest, N.C. State and Georgia Tech. Junior Bryan Bostic said he no longer even unpacks his suitcase: "I just wash what needs to be washed, and leave my stuff in there, even when we're back home," he said.

The most demoralizing moment, aside from the losing, came at the end of the 11-game road trip to Ohio and California, which was intended to be 10-day road trip. The first leg of the Blue Hose's journey home, from San Jose to Las Vegas, was held up for more 30 minutes due to a mechanical problem. They ran to their next gate in Vegas, only, as Fisher recalls, "to see the door closed, and the pilot sitting in the plane, looking at us as he backed up toward the runway." Their flight to Charlotte was gone.

Presbyterian was stuck in Vegas for the night, put up by the airline at a Hampton Inn on the strip. It wasn't the worst city in which to be stranded, but when it's Dec. 23 and you were only given the 24th and 25th off for Christmas, any delay is agonizing. And the players, most of whom weren't 21, did not get to hit the tables.

"We went to the mall," Bostic said. And the highlight? "That, probably, was seeing Flava Flav. I think he was shopping with his son."

Most of the Blue Hose didn't arrive back in Clinton until 5:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve. Bostic then hopped in his car and drove two-and-a-half more hours to his family's home in Norcross, Ga. Fisher and his family headed north to meet relatives in Asheville. Nibert made it to a 7 p.m. church service in town with his family. Nibert had given a few players an early present, sending a small group that included freshman star Al'lonzo Coleman as well as Kiscaden back to Charlotte from Vegas on the 23rd when a few standby seats opened up on a flight much later in the day.

Coleman got the nod to go standby because he was from Charlotte, and could easily be picked up by his family upon arrival. But Kiscaden, who's from Oviedo, Fla., was facing the reality of having to spend Christmas away from home. With the late arrival, there wasn't going to be enough time to drive to Oviedo -- about seven hours away -- and still make it back for practice on the 26th.

At the Charlotte airport, however, he was in for a surprise.

"I was coming down the escalator to baggage claim, and there were my parents, my two sisters and my brother, waiting there for me, saying, 'Merry Christmas!'" Kiscaden recalled. "I was like, 'This is great.' I hadn't seen them in a few months, and they had borrowed a Suburban and driven up to meet me."

The Kiscadens, like the Blue Hose, had taken to the road. In a Charlotte Embassy Suites, they celebrated an improvised Christmas, giving Pat an interlude of joy in a season of defeats away from home.