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Keep the focus on the players
Posted: Tuesday February 22, 2000 04:11 PM
Sports Illustrated staff writer Grant Wahl will answer your questions every Tuesday during the college basketball season. Click here to send him a question. NEW YORK -- Got a chance to visit the new Rose Planetarium here yesterday, and I'd highly recommend it to anybody who wants to see a cool show. The best part, no question, is the Tom Hanks- led journey through the stars from earth to the great beyond. (Apparently, that Apollo 13 mishap didn't scare Tommy off from space travel.) At any rate, I don't mean to sound like Larry King here because, in fact, there's a reason that I mention the planetarium, and it is this: NOWHERE DOES IT SAY THAT COLLEGE BASKETBALL COACHES ARE THE !@#$% CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE! After watching ABC's broadcast of Temple-Cincinnati last Sunday, I fully expected to see the planets rotating around the giant mug of John Chaney. Here's a clue, ABC (and everyone else on TV): 1. Quit yapping about coaches (who don't, in fact, play the game) and start paying attention to the players. Chaney (zero points) had far, far less to do with Temple's upset than Mark Karcher (28 points), but how much did we hear about Karcher afterward? Almost nothing. 2. Don't EVER again reduce my view of the game from 25 inches to 12 just so we can watch a real-time comparison of Bob Huggins and Chaney doing ... what exactly? Kneeling passively on the sideline? They're watching the game; let us watch it, too. 3. Dump any and all former coaches from your broadcasts. Did anybody notice that the best insights on Temple-Cincinnati came from a former player (Cleveland Cavaliers legend Brad Daugherty, who regrettably said about 10 words during the entire broadcast) and the play-by-play guy ( Brent Musburger, whose surprisingly smart game analysis compensated for the vapid ramblings of partner Dick Vitale )? There's a reason why coaches (with a few exceptions, Chaney among them) have the most overblown egos in the sport. Just look at the talking heads who build them up: Digger Phelps and Vitale, who happen to be ... former coaches. You could argue that with fewer name players sticking around in college, it's a lot easier (and lazier) to pump up the coaches instead. True, but that's cheating the fans, who (last time I checked) came to see the players play the game. On to the 'Bag ... Do you think it was best that Cincinnati lost to Temple? And who is college
basketball's best player this
year?
"Best" as in what? That it was good for college basketball? That it was good for my sterling prediction that the Bearcats would run the table until the Final Four? I'm assuming you're wondering if losing might have been the best thing in the end for Cincinnati, and there you have a point. Perhaps Pete Mickeal will realize that he can't take off the first half anymore and still hope his team wins. Perhaps DerMarr Johnson will realize that he has too much talent to disappear for long stretches of time. And perhaps the Bearcats will realize that all it will take for their remarkable season to end come March is one subpar game and a couple of hot opposing shooters like Karcher and Lynn Greer. (Aside: Anybody catch Stanford beating Cal 101-50 on Saturday? The Cardinal played the single best game I've seen anybody play this year.) Best player in the country? Still Kenyon Martin, and not even close. What is the longest current winning streak? I ask this because I am a student
at Valparaiso University and we are on a nine-game streak and are a good bet for
spoiler in the
tournament.
What a strange season Valpo has had. Racked by injuries, the Crusaders started by losing nine of their first 11, and now they've won nine in a row to go to 13-11 and into a tie for first place atop the Mid-Continent Conference (with Southern Utah, Youngstown State and Oakland). Still, I don't expect the Crusaders to do much in the tournament even if they make it. (Their best win this year came in their first game, against SEC also-ran Mississippi State.) What's more, Valpo doesn't have the longest winning streak in the nation. That honor belongs to Utah State, which through Monday night's games had won 12 in a row. (The second-best streak is owned by Temple with 11 straight.) As I view a lot of "bubble watch" columns, I find it amazing --
considering strength of schedule, RPI and wins over Top 25 teams -- that
Louisville could still be considered on the bubble. I may be overlooking
something. Any
insight?
Well, Dion, it doesn't take much insight to point out that the 15-9 Cardinals lost six of seven during one stretch in January. Granted, they've now won five in a row and have beaten North Carolina, Utah and Syracuse (all at home), but they're looking at an 18-10 record at best heading into the C-USA tournament, which tells me Louisville will need to win at least one game there to feel secure about getting an NCAA bid. The truth is, those wins weren't that great; Louisville has had some lame losses (to VCU, UAB, UNC Charlotte at home, St. Louis and Georgetown); and its RPI (27, according to my bro Jerry Palm ) is two better than Missouri's. And do you think Missouri is a lock? I don't either. After Utah won its 51st straight home game Monday night against UNLV, what do
you see happening for at-large bids for the Mountain West? Could you see Utah,
BYU and UNLV all making
it?
Uh, no. Utah, at 20-5, should be in, and 16-7 UNLV has a decent shot, but I'll be shocked if BYU (15-7, but 5-5 in conference) makes it. Give the Cougars credit for recovering from last year's disaster, but not too much -- their best win of the year was against Arizona State, after all. What is up at Minnesota? There's an academic scandal up in the Land of 10,000
Lakes and the administration has the fortitude to fix it by "letting"
Clem Haskins go. Then it hires a coach dedicated to academics and he tells his
players that going to class is "non-negotiable." So Joel Przybilla
decides to test the mandate and consistently skip class. Along comes the
suspension, and he has the audacity to tell the media that if Clem Haskins is
still the coach he comes back. Is that because none of the players had to attend
class under
Haskins?
Make of Haskins' academic policies what you will (I think we have a pretty good idea of what they were -- or weren't). But also know that Przybilla gets my Punk of the Year Award for quitting the team. The guy has one 30-point game and decides he's all-world, when in fact he needs a lot more seasoning. Then again, if he's going to have that attitude, good riddance. What I still can't figure out is, why did Dan Monson take the Minnesota job in the first place? Maybe he's more of a visionary than I am, but I just don't see the payoff for all this pain, and he could have gotten an even better job had he stayed another year at Gonzaga. For our last question let's head out to Spartan land for our Deep Thought of the Week: Why do there need to be so many guys running out with folding chairs during
timeouts? What is so wrong with sitting on the
bench?
Nate, I'll assume that you ask this after having seen a Michigan State game, in which Tom Izzo's minions brought chairs onto the court during timeouts so that the players could sit there, instead of merely on the sidelines. Brilliant question. Why is this allowed? It's not like the other team is sending spies to eavesdrop on what's being said in the huddle. What's more, the Spartans are clearly creating an unnecessary problem for the baseline towel kid, who has to clean up all the fallen sweat on the playing surface after timeouts. It's a problem plaguing several programs whose coaches just aren't happy enough meeting on the bench. Hey, NCAA, get on this immediately!!! AND BEFORE I GO, let me thank the guy from the Doc Robinson fan club who wrote in to challenge my flaming of Auburn last week. Indeed, while our man agrees with me that Chris Porter has no range and Mamadou N'diaye may be the least intimidating 7-footer in the country, he points out correctly that Robinson has hit three game-winning shots this season. The Doctor still hasn't been in when I've seen him play, but we're all about fairness here at the 'Bag -- right, Auburn fans? See you next week.
Click here to send your college basketball
question to Grant Wahl.
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