9. UMass
They're strong and deep, but if the Minutemen can't learn to hit the three-pointer, their Final Four hopes are a long shot
Posted: Wednesday November 18, 1998 01:45 PM
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A consistent Ketner is the key for the Minutemen. Manny Millan |
Nearly
every day since he became coach at UMass in
June 1996, Bruiser Flint has talked on the phone to his
predecessor, John Calipari. They've chatted about players,
about strategy, about personal matters. But none of the
discussions the two have had were as gratifying to Flint as
the one that took place
last month, a few days after fall practice began. "John
told me that we have more weapons this year than we've had
in the past and that our margin for error has
increased," recalls Flint. "That's when it really
started to dawn on me that we could have a
very good
team."
That sort of talk makes it easy to forget that just 22
months ago Flint was a first-year coach presiding over a
6-9 team and looking very much like a man headed for the
gallows. But after molding two collections of young, raw
players into
NCAA tournament entries, the 33-year-old Flint is on the short list of the
brightest young coaches in the country. Now, with eight
players who averaged at least 13 minutes returning from a
21-11 squad, he has a deep and mature crop to work with.
For the first time
since Calipari left to coach the New Jersey Nets, the Minutemen
have serious designs on the Final Four. "We've grown
up," says senior center Lari Ketner, a potential NBA
lottery pick. "We have the talent
to go as far as
anybody."
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| STARTING LINEUP |
| POS. | HT. | CLASS | KEY STAT |
| SF Mike Babul* | 6'6" | Jr. | 4.1 ppg |
| PF Ajmal Basit | 6'9" | Jr. | 50.3 FG% |
| C Lari Ketner* | 6'10" | Sr. | 15.2 ppg |
| SG Monty Mack* | 6'3" | Jr. | 13.8 ppg |
| PG Charlton Clarke* | 6'3" | Sr. | 12.6 ppg |
'97-98 record: 21-11
Final rank (coaches' poll): unranked
*Returning starter
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One of four returning starters, Ketner didn't begin playing
organized basketball until he was a sophomore at Roman
Catholic
High
in Philadelphia, and he's still a work in progress. Last
season he averaged 15.2 points and 7.4 boards, but against
collapsing zone defenses he seemed to disappear—no
easy trick for a
6'10" 268-pounder. Occasionally, though, Ketner
outhustled, outmuscled and outplayed some of the top big men
in the country. To wit: He held Kansas's Raef LaFrentz to
6-for-16 shooting while scoring 14 points; he limited Purdue's
Brad Miller to
3-of-10 shooting while racking up 14 points; and he held George
Washington's Alexander Koul to six points while scoring 21
in a game last January. "For us to be the team we need
to be," says Ketner, "I need to keep the light on
all the time instead of
turning it off and
on."
To open up space inside for Ketner and forwards Ajmal Basit
and Kitwana Rhymer, UMass needs guards Charlton Clarke,
Monty Mack and Jonathan DePina to improve their long-range
marksmanship, which will force teams to extend their zones.
In 1997-98 the
Minutemen shot 33.9% from beyond the arc, good for 170th out of
the 306
Division I schools. Ultimately, how far into March this team goes
will be determined by how
frequently Clarke
and Co. knock down the 20-footer.
"If we hit from
the outside, we'll be
tough," says Flint,
echoing what his consigliere, Calipari, told the players at
UMass's
first practice of the
fall. "That's the only way we'll take it to the next
level."
—Lars Anderson
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