It's all in the cards
Posted: Monday March 01, 1999 08:45 PM
After Tennessee lost at home to Mississippi State on Feb. 6, Vols coach Jerry Green decided to have assistant coach Chris Ferguson hold up cue cards that called for highly specific offensive plays. It's an idea Green borrowed from Stanford coach Mike Montgomery, and so far it's working. Tennessee has won six straight games since then, including Saturday's 68-61 win over Kentucky, and appears to have locked up an NCAA Tournament bid.
The Vols are still not getting enough scoring from their big men but are tough to beat when guards Tony Harris and Brandon Wharton are hitting their shots. Green told me he believes the cue-card system is helping Harris and Wharton get more open looks. "I thought we were just standing around too much on offense," he said. "Now we're moving more, we're passing more and the quality of our shots has improved."
Out of the Forest, into the Dance?
At 7-9 in the ACC -- and 16-12 overall -- Wake Forest also seems to have played its way into the tournament. But remember, the Demon Deacons posted the same conference record last year and were sent to the NIT.
After five straight ACC losses in January, Wake coach Dave Odom specifically instructed his staff never to mention the NCAA tournament to the players. He also added 30 minutes to his team's daily practices at a time when coaches traditionally scale back. It would seem that a win over N.C. State on Friday in the ACC tournament would lock up a bid for Wake, but Odom learned from last year's disappointment not to think too much about that. "I'm not going back to worrying and guessing," he told me. "If I allowed myself to do that, it would drive me crazy."
Coaching buzz
The springtime coaching carousel is already being set into motion, which means it's a good time to be considered a "hot young coach."
Topping everyone's list this year will once again be Southwest Missouri State coach Steve Alford, the former Indiana star who coached the Bears to a 20-10 record this season. Alford is a leading candidate for, among others, the Iowa job.
Another hot prospect is Appalachian State coach Buzz Peterson, Michael Jordan's former roommate at North Carolina. Peterson may be the front-runner at Vanderbilt. Other names expected to be on short lists this spring include Siena coach Paul Hewitt, who almost got the St. John's job last year; Delaware coach Mike Brey, a former assistant at Duke; and Northern Arizona's Ben Howland, who has already interviewed at Pittsburgh and will get a long look from San Diego State.
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