From lumps to lead
After early setbacks, Spartans atop brutal Big Ten
Posted: Tuesday February 02, 1999 09:35 PM
After losing to Temple, Duke and Connecticut earlier this season, Michigan State has reeled off eight straight wins to take sole possession of first place in the Big Ten, following Tuesday's 70-68 win at Penn State.
Junior point guard Mateen Cleaves is still only making about a quarter of his 3-point attempts. But he's doing a better job of running the offense, and he's getting more help from his teammates.
Sophomore guard Charlie Bell, who struggled earlier in the season, scored 14 points in last week's critical win over 15th-ranked Ohio State, and sixth man Morris Peterson leads the team in scoring. The Spartans have only been outrebounded once this season, and coach Tom Izzo told me this team has "no egos and no phonies." That chemistry will be tested in a grueling stretch coming up as the Spartans play five league games in 11 days.
Unsure thing
It's been said that one of the surest paths to success is to hire a former Rick Pitino assistant as coach. But that wasn't the case at Pittsburgh, where Ralph Willard announced Monday that he will resign at the end of the season.
Willard was an assistant to Pitino at Kentucky and with the New York Knicks, but his five years in Pittsburgh were a disaster, yielding no NCAA tournament appearances and a great deal of roster upheaval. The final straw came Jan. 16 when freshman guard Fred Primus was arrested for allegedly stealing $2,200 worth of jewelry. Athletics director Steve Pederson kicked Primus off the team over Willard's objections, and last week Pederson announced publicly that Willard would be evaluated at the end of the season.
Willard decided to quit before he was fired. A list of possible successors includes Fran Fraschilla, the former St. John's coach, as well as Siena's Paul Hewitt, Drexel's Bill Herrion and Delaware's Mike Brey.
The green light
Late last month the NCAA finally ruled Long Beach, Calif., phenom Schea Cotton academically eligible to play in Division I next season. Cotton had previously signed letters of intent with UCLA and North Carolina State, only to have the NCAA rule him ineligible for academic reasons.
This time around, however, N.C. State will not be recruiting Cotton because coach Herb Sendek has no more scholarships to give. That leaves the door open for Rhode Island's Jim Harrick, who knows Cotton from his days at UCLA, and South Florida's Seth Greenberg, who coached Cotton's brother James at Long Beach State. Connecticut, Syracuse and Arizona State are also being mentioned as possibilities. Meanwhile, Cotton will finish the season at Long Beach City College, where he's currently scoring better than 26 points per game.
Sports Illustrated writer-reporter Seth Davis covers the college basketball beat and appears regularly on CNN/Sports Illustrated.
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