|
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE |  |
Atlantic-10's status symbol
Posted: Tuesday March 07, 2000 02:44 AM
By Ron Chimelis, Special to CNNSI.com Just when St. Bonaventure seemed to be fading from the NCAA Tournament picture, the Bonnies managed to claw their way back in. But the job for the Bonnies, the third team in a league that may only get two spots, probably isn't finished yet. St. Bonaventure's fate is just one of the subplots of the Atlantic 10 tournament that opens Wednesday at Philadelphia's First Union Spectrum. In a season where the championship seems practically pre-ordained to Temple -- with or without suspended center Kevin Lyde -- the most compelling stories center around whether St. Bonaventure and Xavier will pick up the one or two victories needed to put them into the 64-team field. The issue should reveal whether the league's stature has dipped so much that even that won't be enough. "For our league to go from five teams to three to two (in the NCAA field) in three years would be a disaster," said Xavier coach Skip Prosser, whose team routed St. Joseph's 94-66 in Sunday's final home game at Cincinnati Gardens. The Musketeers move into their own new facility next year, but their NCAA chances for this year took a hit with last week's 65-64 loss at St. Bonaventure. That game had the feel of a first-round tournament matchup. Xavier (19-10) will play Rhode Island Wednesday in the A-10 first round. The Rams have lost 22 of their last 24, so an Xavier victory is assumed, but also won't be worth much. But then Xavier would play St. Bonaventure, which has won five of its last six and clinched second place in the East Division with an 86-69 rout over Massachusetts last week. The Bonnies drew a first-round bye and bring an RPI of 48 into the conference tournament. That figure isn't enough to help, but looks quite good next to Xavier's 73. A mediocre finish cost Xavier an NCAA bid last year, and Prosser sounds worried that his team may be on the wrong side of the dividing line again. He doesn't want the Musketeers left out because the league is no longer well-regarded enough to get the close calls. "We finished 5-6 last year," said Prosser, whose team beat Cincinnati this season. "This season, in our last 11 games, we're 8-3. I'd also like some of the people who criticize the A-10 to go play in some of the places we have to go -- St. Bonaventure, Fordham, Dayton, for goodness sake -- and see how hard it is to win at these places." It seems almost certain that Xavier needs two victories to solidify a spot, and there's no guarantee that even that would be enough. As for St. Bonaventure (19-8), which hadn't won 19 games since 1982-83, the feeling is that one more victory shouldn't be necessary, but probably is. "They've played well all year," UMass coach Bruiser Flint said in the Bonnies' defense. "They lost some games in the conference, but everybody does. No question they should be in." Wednesday's first-round games, with the exception of Xavier-Rhode Island, do not carry NCAA implications. UMass-Duquesne may be the most significant if only to help determine the future of Flint, whose 15-14 team has lost three straight to jeopardize the NIT spot that might save the coach's job. At 15-15, UMass would still qualify for the NIT. But a four-game losing streak and a loss to a Duquesne team that's on a 1-12 tailspin could chase the NIT selectors away, possibly spelling the end for the coach who inherited John Calipari's team after the 1996 Final Four. Virginia Tech, which leaves for the Big East after this season, meets Fordham, which has not won an A-10 tournament game since it entered the league in 1995. This is the Rams' best team and best chance yet, but that didn't stop coach Bob Hill from questioning whether his team believes it. "We had a practice Sunday, and three guys were on time," Hill said Monday. "Everybody else walked in late. They don't seem to understand that this is the real season." The other first-rounder is St. Joseph's-La Salle. For St. Joe's, a 3-8 finish to a 12-15 regular season dulled the excitement of upsetting Temple Mar. 1. What hardly anyone questions is whether there is any reason to think Temple will not win its first A-10 tournament title since 1990. Asked if any other team could beat the Owls, Rhode Island coach Jerry DeGregorio answered with one word: "No." That leaves Dayton (21-7), which is believed to have a solid grip on an NCAA spot to fend off the others for the right to be considered the best of the rest.
The final wordIt is apparently a happy ending after all for Xavier senior Darnell Williams, who missed all of last season with knee surgery and then began this year as a player somewhat below the level he'd shown before the injury. But Williams averaged 18 points a game in his final eight regular-season games, and burned St. Joseph's for 23 even though the Hawks put their best defender, N'aim Crenshaw, on him. "All the good times outweigh the bad," Williams said. "You want to leave on a positive note." "He's had a lot of bounce in his game lately," Prosser said of his 6-5 senior, who switched to a lighter brace on his repaired right knee. "And he's been playing pretty consistently."
The case for LydeOutspoken for his entire career, Temple coach John Chaney found himself in an unusual position with the suspension of Lyde. The former McDonald's All-American was under investigation for whether his AAU coach paid for a high school summer school course he took in 1997. Chaney has almost always had something to say about NCAA regulations, and almost always it's been negative. But usually, his comments have come in regard to generic issues, not a situation involving his own program. Predictably, Chaney was furious about the Lyde suspension. The Owls are considered so strong that they can win without him in the Atlantic 10, as they did while shooting 60 percent in a 98-67 rout over George Washington on Saturday. But the 6-9 Lyde, a sophomore, would be needed for Temple to work its way through the NCAA field and into its first Final Four in 42 years. Chaney thinks the sudden NCAA interest in how athletes pay their bills before reaching college has racist overtones. "I've seen attacks in sports that minorities play," he charged. "I've never seen it in the so-called privileged sports, like ice hockey. You've got to ask yourself why -- is it because blacks and Hispanics play basketball and football? "I guess next time, the NCAA will be investigating kids in diapers," he ranted, complaining that it's impossible to hold colleges accountable for what athletes do in high school. "I say leave it alone. Let the kids and their families deal with it." From a basketball standpoint, Temple without Lyde is a team that may have a hole in the middle of its vaunted zone, at least when it faces teams of comparable size. He was sixth in the A-10 in rebounding (7.3 per game) and third in blocked shots (1.65 per game). Temple has size on the bench, but not size with anything approaching Lyde's level of talent. Ron Rollerson (6-10, 290 pounds) can fill in, and Lamont Barnes (6-10), a starting power forward who has had an adequate but unspectacular senior year, can play center. He would, if Temple wants to insert 6-6 Keaton Sanders into the starting lineup or play three guards. Lyde is an unsung contributor to the Owls' zone, partly because the forwards have been overshadowed by the spectacular play of the guards at the top -- especially turnover-creating Pepe Sanchez, but also Quincy Wadley and Lynn Greer. Temple can hide Lyde's absence in the A-10, but if the Owls run up against an NCAA tournament team of comparable size that can penetrate the zone, his absence would become much more critical.
Ron Chimelis covers the Atlantic 10 for the Springfield (Mass.) Union-News.
| ||||||||||||||||
