Inside College Basketball
Posted: Wednesday January 13, 1999 11:08 AM
This week's topics:
Wake-up Call | Lady Vols (Cough) Rising
John Thompson Resigns | DePaul
Weekly Seed Report | The Buzzer
Wake-up Call Long-sleeping Auburn is a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed 15-0
By Tim Crothers, Grant Wahl, Seth Davis and L. Jon Wertheim
Auburn athletic director David Housel recalls a Tigers basketball
game in the early 1970s, during the unremarkable tenure of coach
Bill Lynn, at which Housel noticed a woman sound asleep in
Beard-Eaves Memorial Coliseum. The sight may not have been so
memorable to Housel had the woman not been Lynn's wife, Martha.
Martha Lynn stands as a symbol for Auburn basketball, which has
been somniferous for the vast majority of its 93 seasons. The
Tigers have won one SEC regular-season title, and that was 39
years ago. They have earned just five NCAA tournament
invitations, none of them since 1988. When Cliff Ellis became
coach in '94, fewer than 1,000 fans showed up for his first home
game. "I took over a team that had won just 11 games and had lost
two guys to the NBA, so I knew I had a lot of shaking hands and
kissing babies to do," Ellis says, "but I've always loved the
challenge of building a program when it's down."
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Tigers Daymeon Fishback and Adrian Chilliest stormed the boards in the defeat of Arkansas. Bob Rosato |
Ellis, 53, who had coached with middling success at South
Alabama and Clemson, arrived preaching a five-year plan. Sure
enough, this is his fifth season, and the Tigers were 15-0
through Sunday and ranked eighth. Last week Ellis proudly showed
off a recent note from Georgia Tech coach Bobby Cremins that
read, "Cliff...Auburn #15! What the hell is going on? You the
man...."
The Tigers are a blue-collar team that leads the SEC in
rebounding, steals and scoring defense, featuring ball hawks like
junior point guard Doc Robinson and 7-foot junior shot blocker
Mamadou N'diaye. The offense is fueled by forward Chris Porter, a
6'7", 218-pound transfer from Chipola Junior College in Marianna,
Fla., who may be Auburn's best recruit since Charles Barkley.
Porter, who was producing a team-leading 16.7 points and 8.7
rebounds a game, grew up in Abbeville, Ala., idolizing Barkley,
and while he isn't quite as round a mound as Sir Charles was in
his college days, his ability to clear space in the lane for easy
baskets is reminiscent of Barkley's. "Auburn hasn't had a lot of
success since Barkley left [in 1984]," Porter says. "Since I was
a little kid, I've dreamed of playing a part in making Auburn a
winner again."
As the Tigers have crept up the rankings, they have encountered
skeptics. Before Auburn's Jan. 2 game against Tennessee, Vols
coach Jerry Green said of the Tigers' spotless record, "I think
that has more to do with scheduling than Auburn being good." The
Tigers thumped Tennessee 90-68 for their most lopsided win over
the Vols in 71 years. Four days later Auburn defeated No. 19
Arkansas 83-66 for its first victory over a ranked team this
season. "The Tigers are for real," Razorbacks coach Nolan
Richardson said after the game. "It's a long season, but from a
talent standpoint there's no question that they're a top 10
team." Auburn survived another test last Saturday night by
rallying from a 19-point deficit in the final 10:30 to defeat LSU
73-70. It was their first win in their last 11 games in Baton
Rouge.
The football-crazed fans in Auburn are gradually being converted.
At the University Barber Shop on College Street, barber Bubba
Bowling insists talk of basketball is outnumbering discussions of
football recruiting and hunting for the first January he can
remember. The standing-room-only crowds for the games against
Tennessee and Arkansas represented the Tigers' first back-to-back
sellouts in 31 years. Joyous Auburn fans stormed the court after
the latter victory, eager to celebrate after a miserable 3-8
football season during which coach Terry Bowden resigned.
On the misty morning after the Tigers' win over the Razorbacks,
Auburn senior guard Bryant Smith was walking downtown for
breakfast when he noticed that fans had littered the trees at
Toomer's Corner with toilet paper, a customary football victory
ritual that had scarcely ever been performed during basketball
season. "I said to myself, It's about time," Smith says. "That's
the moment I really started believing that Auburn could be a
basketball school."
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Lady Vols (Cough) Rising: Sick of Being No. 2
Tennessee senior forward Chamique Holdsclaw had made five of her
first six shots when she struggled to the bench five minutes into
last Sunday's showdown at No. 1 Connecticut. "My chest is
burning," she complained. Then Holdsclaw, the reigning national
player of the year, made like George Bush in Japan and vomited a
bellyful of mucus into a towel. Moments later Lady Vols sophomore
guard Semeka Randall came to the sideline and, rising to the
challenge, also hurled -- right onto the floor in the northeast
corner of Gampel Pavilion.
It wasn't long before the Lady Vols finally purged themselves
just as completely of their hard-to-stomach 78-68 upset loss to
Purdue on Nov. 15, which had knocked them out of the No. 1
ranking. Before an SRO crowd of 10,027, a few of whom paid $200 a
ticket, Holdsclaw and Randall fought off their stomach ailments
and finished with 25 points each in a 92-81 win over the Huskies.
The victory ended UConn's 54-game home court winning streak -- the
nation's longest for women or men -- and reestablished 13-1
Tennessee as the favorite to win the national title, which would
be its fourth in as many years. "We needed to quit saying what we
were going to do and get out there and do it," Randall said.
"Against Purdue we were going through the motions, playing with
blank stares on our faces. Today we showed that we still have
heart. We're still a dominant team."
No player had needed a re-awakening more than Holdsclaw. On Jan.
3, in her homecoming to New York City, where she had led Christ
the King High to a 106-4 record, four state titles and one
national crown, she played her worst game of the season, scoring
eight points in a 68-54 defeat of Rutgers at Madison Square
Garden. "I just kind of sat around in that game," Holdsclaw said
on Sunday between wheezes that made her sound like a mating
walrus. "It wasn't like I couldn't do anything. I didn't even
try." Holdsclaw's meekness had led to a harangue in practice last
week from coach Pat Summitt, who challenged her to play for 40
minutes. "No one can stop you off the dribble," Summitt told
Holdsclaw, "but you have to attack!"
Despite her illness, Holdsclaw had 16 points at halftime on
Sunday. She'd scored on a battery of moves against double- and
triple-teaming, from baseline jumpers to in-the-lane leaners to
bull-rush layups. What's more, her timing in the second half was
impeccable. Her five consecutive points with less than eight
minutes remaining helped Tennessee to a 70-68 lead, and the Vols
outscored UConn 22-13 down the stretch. "We had someone near her
every time she took a shot in the second half," said UConn coach
Geno Auriemma, who looked as if he wanted to throw up too.
As Holdsclaw stepped outside into the cold New England air, she
coughed one last time and considered the shift in the balance of
power. "This is a big win," she said. "We just beat the Number 1
team in the country." She was right, of course, but she also
sounded as if she knew who was No. 1 all along.
-- Grant Wahl
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John Thompson Resigns: A Deflating Departure
John Thompson has long kept a deflated basketball in his office
at Georgetown's McDonough Arena to symbolize just how fleeting
the game can be. "Get an education," Thompson implored his
players when they inquired about the ball, "because once this
thing loses its nine pounds of air, you still have a future." For
the time being, anyway, it's Thompson's turn to contemplate his
life after basketball. Last Friday, flanked by dozens of current
and former players, including Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning and
Dikembe Mutombo, Thompson announced that, after 27 years as the
Hoyas coach, he was throwing in the towel -- presumably the
ubiquitous white one that he often had draped over a shoulder as
he worked the sideline.
Befitting a man who has always been fiercely private -- his media
guide bio lists neither his birth date, his hobbies nor the names
of his children -- Thompson's curiously timed resignation was
shrouded in mystery. His initial explanation was only that "I
need to address things in my personal life." But before
speculation ran rampant, Thompson elaborated that his decision
was prompted by marital strife.
In September 1997, Thompson filed for divorce from his wife of
more than 32 years, Gwendolyn. She, in turn, filed a counterclaim
in which she alleged that, since their separation in September
1996, John failed to share marital property with her (including
proceeds from the sale of their house for $325,000 in 1997) and
that he "refused general requests as well as specific requests
for help," including the payment of her dental bills. John's
attorney, Savalle Sims, said on Monday that her client has no
comment on the allegations.
At the hastily convened press conference to announce his
departure, Thompson stressed repeatedly that he was merely
resigning from his coaching position and not retiring. Taking his
place was Craig Esherick, a former Hoyas player, a graduate of
Georgetown Law School and a 17-year Thompson acolyte, who was to
receive a multiyear contract. Esherick was ambivalent about
succeeding his mentor, but in many ways the timing couldn't be
better for him. The Hoyas were off to an 0-4 start in the Big
East under Thompson, so expectations were hardly lofty for the
rest of the season, and Esherick had a successful debut last
Saturday as Georgetown upended Providence 75-70. Help is also on
the way next year when the Hoyas will welcome their most highly
regarded recruiting class in some time, anchored by 6'10" Wesley
Wilson of Vallejo, Calif. "I'm excited about the challenge," says
Esherick, "but I realize I'm a complete fool to follow in
[Thompson's] footsteps."
Indeed, Thompson's career was burnished with excellence. In 1984
he became the first African-American coach to win an NCAA title,
and four years later he was the coach of the U.S. Olympic team.
He has won 596 games, and his record for developing elite big men
is matched perhaps only by John Wooden's. Thompson's teams,
typified by asphyxiating defense and a merciless, mirthless
disposition, didn't endure a losing season in the past quarter
century. Thompson's ultimate legacy, however, might be that of an
outspoken advocate for minority athletes, a proponent of tough
love who disdained public scrutiny of his program and encouraged
his players "to take a stand." At its worst that advice produced
the belligerence that came to be known as Hoya Paranoia. On the
other hand it was hardly coincidence that the two most vocal
union reps in the NBA lockout negotiations were Thompson
proteges, Ewing and Mourning.
Thompson's bluster, however, was leavened by his unstinting
loyalty to his players, many of whom he regarded as sons. One of
college basketball's most enduring images is that of Thompson
tenderly hugging Fred Brown after Brown's mental miscue
effectively cost the Hoyas the 1982 NCAA championship. It's a bit
ironic that rancorous legal proceedings involving his family
necessitated Thompson's resignation. "Coach always talked about
'the [Georgetown] family,' and we always knew he was there for
us," says Jaren Jackson, an NBA free agent who played for
Thompson in the late '80s. "Maybe now it's our turn to support
him a little bit" -- at least until his basketball is again filled
with air.
-- L. Jon Wertheim
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DePaul: Mired in a Meyer Mess
DePaul's Alumni Hall is located on Ray Meyer Drive, across the
street from where the $12 million Ray Meyer Fitness and
Recreation Center is being constructed. At a banquet held on the
court in Alumni Hall last Saturday night, DePaul inducted each
member of the Blue Demons' 1979 Final Four team into its Hall of
Fame in honor of the 20th anniversary of those Blue Demons. It
should have been a propitious occasion to fete the man known
simply as Coach Ray, who during his 42 years as the DePaul coach
embodied Blue Demons basketball. Ray, however, chose not to
attend, indicating he still harbors ill will toward the athletic
department over the way the school treated his son, Joey, who was
fired as coach in April 1997, after having had a 3-23 record in
his 13th season.
"I wouldn't feel comfortable there," Ray, 85, said two days
before the banquet. "I don't say the university wasn't justified
in firing Joey, but I'm not happy with what went on behind the
scenes. I don't think Joey had the backing of the university
during his last few years."
It's no secret that Joey and athletic director Bill Bradshaw did
not see eye to eye toward the end of Joey's time as coach.
Bradshaw, who came to DePaul in 1986, insists now that Meyer had
"full and complete backing [from the university] in every way."
However, Bradshaw did little to quell rampant speculation during
Meyer's last few seasons that his job was in jeopardy as the
losses mounted and the program was placed on one year's probation
for NCAA violations.
Meyer also had to contend with a university policy mandating that
athletes maintain a 2.0 cumulative academic average throughout
the season. The 1995-96 team started out 7-3 -- including a big win
at Indiana -- before two of its best players, Juan Gay and Charles
Gelatt, were ruled academically ineligible for the rest of the
season. The Blue Demons lost their next 13 games. Meyer's
successor, Pat Kennedy, doesn't have to worry about being
similarly snakebit because the cumulative-average policy was
dropped in the fall of '97. Bradshaw says the decision to do so
had been in the works for several years.
To his credit Kennedy has proved he can do what Joey could not:
recruit Chicago. DePaul's freshman class, one of the best in the
nation, includes three Windy City natives in guard Quentin
Richardson and forwards Bobby Simmons and Lance Williams. Another
formidable group has already signed letters of intent for next
year. Yet Kennedy, whose team was 8-6 through Sunday, says his
recruiting efforts have been sabotaged by people faithful to the
Meyers. "I was unprepared for that coming in," he says.
Ray plans to be in attendance when the recreation center bearing
his name opens within the next year or so. "I'd do anything for
that building. That's for the students," he says. While he
doesn't rule out a reconciliation with DePaul's athletic
department, it doesn't appear that will happen soon. "I would
never say never," he says, "but it's not the proper time for me.
Let's just say, I haven't gotten over everything yet."
-- Seth Davis
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The Buzz
Last week's report ended with a note of skepticism about the
lofty standing of the Big Ten in our rankings, and, sure enough,
the conference of the big shoulders underwent great upheaval this
week. Indiana, which was a third seed, lost to Michigan and Ohio
State, and dropped out of the rankings. Michigan State slipped a
peg to a No. 3 seed, thanks to its road defeat at the hands of
Wisconsin, and Purdue nearly vanished from the poll when it also
fell to the Badgers. There was good news for the Big Ten,
however: Ohio State was the biggest winner of the week, vaulting
to a share of the league lead and a No. 4 seed in our poll with
its victory over the Hoosiers.
Another big winner was Auburn, which leaped from a four seed to a
two on the strength of its demolition of Arkansas. Arizona
improved as well, moving up to a No. 2 by knocking off USC,
Washington State and Washington, while UCLA fell a notch, to a
No. 3 seed, with a lackluster week that included a loss at Oregon
State.
The most surprising development was the lone vote cast for Toledo
(9-2) as a No. 4 seed. Don't laugh. The Rockets were ranked 11th
in the RPI last week, were rated ninth in strength of schedule
and had a 5-0 record at week's end against top 100 teams in the
RPI. They're worth keeping an eye on.
EAST
1. Connecticut (13-0)
2. Auburn (15-0)
3. North Carolina (14-3)
4. Ohio State (13-3)
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WEST
1. Stanford (13-2)
2. Maryland (15-2)
3. Michigan State (12-4)
4. St. John's (13-3)
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SOUTH
1. Duke (15-1)
2. Arizona (11-1)
3. Iowa (12-1)
4. Kansas (11-3)
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MIDWEST
1. Cincinnati (15-0)
2. Kentucky (14-3)
3. UCLA (11-3)
4. Purdue (13-3)
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Back to the top
The Buzzer
What has happened to Massachusetts? The Minutemen were 21-11 last
season and have most of the same crew back, but after last
Saturday's 53-50 loss at St. Bonaventure, they were 5-8. A clue
to their troubles can be found in a three-hour meeting the UMass
coaches and players held on Jan. 6, a day after a 19-point home
court loss to Iona. The subject: 6'10", 285-pound senior center
Lari Ketner , who through Sunday was averaging 10.4 points this
season. "Lari can't carry this team, and we talked about sharing
the load if we are going to turn this thing around," says coach
Bruiser Flint ....
Last year Arizona State was dogged off the court by revelations
about a 1993-94 point-shaving scandal and on the court by a
squad of undisciplined players who racked up 18 technical fouls
for trash-talking and/or mouthing off to officials. This season,
under no-nonsense first-year coach Rob Evans , the Sun Devils
have only one T, which is part of the reason they had improved
to 10-6....
In Washington State's media guide, sophomore Cedric Clark claims
he was a walk-on member of the scout team at Arizona in 1996-97
and traveled to Indianapolis when the Wildcats won the national
title. Nice try, Cedric. In fact, he was a practice player for
the Arizona women's team....
The early favorite for coach of the year is Ohio State's Jim
O'Brien , whose Buckeyes were 8-22 last year but through Sunday
were 13-3 and ranked 21st.
--B.J. Schecter
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Issue date: January 18, 1999
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