22 Valparaiso

Huddled in a corner of the Hoosier hoops heartland, Valparaiso has two Croats on its roster, matching its total of native Indianans. The Crusaders also boast a Czech, a Finn and a Latvian. It's no coincidence that Valpo's four straight visits to the NCAA tournament began with the onset of the program's foreign invasion back in '95. "We couldn't recruit any tall players from America so we figured out where to find them," assistant coach Scott Drew explains. "Luckily for us, not a lot of Europeans know the difference between Valpo and Kentucky or UConn."

Relying on what Drew calls the domino theory, one Croat led to another, and the international pipeline eventually produced this season's Best Player You've Never Heard Of, Lubos Barton, a 6'8" sophomore forward from Ceska Lipa, Czech Republic. Barton is a gym rat who scored 27 points in his college debut and led the Crusaders in scoring (13.8 points a game), steals (50) and three-pointers (62) in his first season. In last summer's European championships Barton was the tournament's second-leading scorer, averaging 18.7 points and sinking 19 of 31 three-pointers. "I turned down offers to play pro ball in Europe because I still have a lot to learn about basketball," Barton says. "I didn't know who Michael Jordan was until a few years ago."

Barton will be supported by a world atlas of teammates, most notably forward Ivan Vujic of Split, Croatia; center Antti Nikkila from Kangasala, Finland; forward Raitis Grafs of Riga, Latvia; and guard Milo Stovall from... Kalamazoo, Mich. Thanks to its crucial assist from Eastern Europe, Valparaiso is the only Division I school to have won its conference regular-season and tournament titles each of the last five years. With its string of NCAA invites, however, the program may soon be stripped of its status as a lovable underdog. "We've taken great pride in being labeled the Cinderella team of the '90s," Crusaders coach Homer Drew says. "We can only hope the clock never strikes midnight at Valpo."

[This article contains a table. Please see hardcopy of magazine or PDF.]