| Thursday, March 9
By Bill Doherty
Special to ESPN.com |
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The Atlantic 10 ACC tournaments don't figure to offer nearly half the drama that the Big East's annual off-Broadway production figures to have. The reason? Unless an upstart comes out of nowhere to knock off pre-tourney favorites Temple and Duke, then the A-10 figures to get two or possibly three bids (Temple and Dayton are locks and the winner of St. Bonaventure-Xavier might get in too) while the ACC figures to get four teams in the field of 64 (regular season champ Duke, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina).
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ACC
N.C. State vs. Virginia (Friday)
A weak non-conference slate has left the Cavaliers on the bubble, even though they tied with North Carolina for third in ACC regular season standings. A win here should make the Cavaliers an NCAA tourney lock though, especially with two wins over North Carolina and one over Maryland. "I'm a worrier by nature, so I'd like to see us win a game or two in the ACC tournament to solidify our NCAA bid," said Virginia coach Pete Gillen. "I believe that we're in, but you don't want to take any chances." If its Cinderella run to the 1997 ACC tourney final is any indication, N.C. State won't go quietly in this one.
Atlantic 10
St. Bonaventure vs. Xavier (Thursday)
If Xavier beats Rhode Island as expected in the A-10's first round Wednesday night, then this game will serve as an NCAA tourney elimination game for one of these two bubble teams. Xavier has the more impressive non-conference wins (over Cincinnati and Louisville), but the Bonnies won the first head-to-head meeting and won two more A-10 conference games during the regular season. The loser of this game is definitely NIT-bound, while the winner might sneak into the Big Dance.
Big East
Notre Dame vs. Rutgers and Villanova vs. Pittsbugh (Wednesday)
Notre Dame and Villanova find themselves squarely on the bubble heading into the Big East tourney. They'll need to win these first-round games and then pull upsets on Thursday (if Notre Dame wins, then they get Miami in the Big East quarters, while Nova plays St. John's if they topple Pitt) in order to be happy come Selection Sunday.
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While things seem pretty settled in the A-10 and ACC, the Big East tourney begins with more unanswered questions than a weeks worth of "Jeopardy" episodes. Will current bubble teams Villanova (19-11) and Notre Dame (18-13) get the two wins they need to get an NCAA Tournament invite? And will suddenly sliding Seton Hall (20-8) right itself this week?
Let's start with the bubble teams. Villanova seemed like an NCAA tourney lock prior to its ugly second-half collapse against Troy Bell-less Boston College. The Wildcats had a nine-point lead with 13 minutes left before suffering a total meltdown against the league's worst team. Suddenly, the Wildcats are on the outside looking in. Nova guard Jermaine Medley knows he'll have to be at his best in the Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden if the Wildcats are to get an NCAA bid after an the upset loss to BC last Saturday. They committed 28 turnovers, with Medley contributing five.
The loss made it almost imperative that they win two games in New York to have a chance -- and that means they'll have to avenge a 79-70 loss to Pitt back on Jan. 26 and then beat St. John's on their home floor in the second round.
"I don't think we'll be nervous," Medley said. "I think we'll have that hungry taste in our mouths. I know our guys and how we respond to situations. We're going to go to New York hungry. If we do that, we're going to win."
Notre Dame finds itself in the same must-win dilemma as the Wildcats. Conventional wisdom says the Irish won't get in unless they beat Rutgers Wednesday and Miami in Thursday's second round, giving them 19 wins. Few published projections include Notre Dame among the field of 64. Even ESPN's Digger Phelps has said anything short of two Big East tournament wins for the Irish probably spells N-I-T, seemingly a four-letter word in South Bend.
Can the Irish come back from the grave? A lot depends on the play of Notre Dame's 6-foot-6 sophomore forward David Graves. Big East MVP Troy Murphy figures to get his usual numbers, but the lifespan of Notre Dame's Big East tournament run depends on Graves. As if he didn't know.
"If you look at the consistent teams in the tournament and past tournaments in college basketball, they all have more than just one great player," Graves said. "I do think that when I play well, the team plays well, and when I don't, we struggle."
Proof comes from Graves' scoring totals in the four Notre Dame losses that nudged the Irish closer to the NIT and further away from the NCAA. He averaged just nine points in defeats to Rutgers, Pittsburgh, Villanova and Syracuse -- four below his average. And against Providence, perhaps the final stamp on the RSVP to the NIT, Graves did not score until the last 90 seconds even though he finished with 15.
"As a player, it's frustrating because we're trying our hardest and some nights we can't put it together and some nights we can," Graves said. "Right now, we should be worrying about what seed we're going to be (in the NCAA), not if we're going to get in at all."
While most of the pre-Big East hype has been about Notre Dame and Villanova's NCAA hopes, Seton Hall is another potential bubble team worth keeping an eye this week. Almost Big East coach has chimed in, declaring them In. Dick Vitale insists they are a lock.
It seems everyone wants to place Seton Hall in the NCAA Tournament. So why is now the time the Pirates should worry most? With everyone who does not matter telling them are in, the Pirates could be only one loss from missing out. Look beyond the campaigning coaches and you see a team begging for heartache.
"Seton Hall is the fifth-place team in the Big East," said St. John's coach Mike Jarvis. "I have to think we're getting at least five bids. I'd say they're getting in."
Still, the question looms for Seton Hall: How lucky do you feel? The Pirates ended the suspense by beating 12th-place Providence 85-65 on Wednesday -- no Big East team with 20 overall wins and 10 conference victories has ever been left out.
Around the East
He's ba-a-a-a-ck: Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski is optimistic that freshman sixth man Michael Dunleavy Jr. will play this weekend in the ACC Tournament -- if only in a limited role. The 6-foot-7 Dunleavy, who averages 9.5 points and 4.2 rebounds, has missed the last four games with mononucleosis.
If Dunleavy returns in any capacity this week, Krzyzewski said, it would help the No. 2 Blue Devils next week when the NCAA Tournament begins.
"If' he's able to play a few minutes, get comfortable back on the court, it would answer a lot of questions," Krzyzewski said. "If he played five minutes, this is all if, he would know how to adjust after a game, like how tired he got. And (it would help) me adjust to the number of minutes he might play (in the NCAA Tournament)."
Dunleavy has ridden an exercise bike and shot free throws this week. He underwent more tests Tuesday, the results of which weren't expected back until early Wednesday. Krzyzewski said mononucleosis typically has a "window" of roughly 21 days, and Tuesday was Dunleavy's 21st day. Krzyzewski said he won't jeopardize his team's chances in the NCAA Tournament -- like rushing Dunleavy back -- to improve Duke's shot at the ACC title.
"I'm going to be very careful about whatever the doctors tell me and how I use him, if I use him," Krzyzewski said. "The NCAA Tournament is more important. That doesn't mean we're not going to try to go after the ACC tournament. We're not going to try to kill our team, either."
He's ba-a-a-a-ck, part II: Kevin Lyde, Temple's 6-9 sophomore center, has been cleared to play in the Atlantic 10 tournament, where the Owls will try to win the tourney crown for the first time in 10 years. Lyde was held out of Saturday's regular-season finale at George Washington while Temple investigated whether Lyde's immediate family or his AAU coach had paid for a summer course in 1997, when he was a junior at Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Va.
Temple took the action hoping to expedite the process. It worked. Lyde's penalty, which includes his pledge to repay the amount in question (around $1,000), was consistent with recent precedents.
"It's a rule that nobody was even aware of," coach John Chaney said. "We're talking about something that took place before we ever knew him. Are they now going to look at every kid who goes to prep school? There's a lot of them. How far are they going to go? That's the question I think needs to be addressed."
Lyde averages 6.1 points and a team-high 7.6 rebounds, despite being plagued by back spasms this season. The seventh-ranked Owls (23-5) did not want Lyde's eligibility question hanging over them heading into what could be an interesting postseason run, beginning with the first-round game against Virginia Tech or Fordham.
To that end, Temple hired a Kansas law firm that specializes in such cases, Bond, Schoeneck and King. Temple found that a violation did occur. The NCAA concurred and accepted the one-game suspension as sufficient punishment.
"We're very pleased that the NCAA was able to rule on this matter so promptly," Temple athletic director Dave O'Brien. "By doing so, we've minimized what could potentially have been an unfair situation for Kevin Lyde. Now, we can just move on and play basketball, the way it should be at this time of the season."
Staying focused: North Carolina senior point guard Ed Cota says he has tried not to be distracted by his pending court date, along with teammate Terrence Newby, on charges of inflicting serious injury and simple assault stemming from a Halloween night altercation in Chapel Hill. A court date has been set for April 3 -- the day of the NCAA Tournament title game -- after two delays. The original trial date was Jan. 19.
"It's definitely something I think about every day, but when I'm playing basketball, I try to put it out of my mind," Cota said. "I don't want it to be a distraction."
What might be a distraction are the in-state buzzards flying around UNC coach Bill Guthridge, whose team enters the ACC tournament at 18-12. On this week's ACC coaches teleconference (which usually amounts to a love-in between the media and the coaches), Guthridge was asked what it's like to coach a team that's slow and isn't feared as much as it once was and also whether he feared for "coaching mortality," if the Heels didn't advance far in the ACC and NCAA tourneys.
His response? "I hadn't taken any time to think about my coaching mortality," said Guthridge. "I'm just trying to do the best job that I can and I'm staying focused on our next game and right now, that's Wake Forest."
Quick fix: After UNC Wilmington coach Jerry Wainwright lost a point guard in Billy Donlon who set a school record for career assists (456) and a two-guard in Stan Simmons who scored 1,319 career points, many CAA observers expected UNCW's guard play to slip a great deal. It didn't and as a result the Seahawks are bound for NCAA's Bracketville for the first time in school history, thanks to a pair of talented newcomers in freshman shooting whiz Brett Blizzard and JUCO import Barron Thelmon at the point.
Blizzard is one of the nation's best freshmen you've probably never heard of. The 6-3 guard from Tallahassee is blessed with a textbook jumper and a high hoops IQ. The latter isn't surprising. His dad Al, is a former college basketball player and was his son's prep coach. Blizzard's mother, Sandra, is a former college basketball player and remains a sounding board about the sport. But it takes more than that to make a player, and Blizzard clearly has that extra quality. Blizzard was the overwhelming choice as the Colonial Athletic Association's Rookie of the Year and he's the first freshman to make first-team all-CAA and to win the CAA tourney MVP award.
"Brett renews my faith that there are still kids out there who understand the value of fundamentals and understand that the more you work at something the better you'll get at it," Wainwright said. "He's a throwback. If you ask him to shoot 200 jumpers, he'll shoot 300. I pinch myself every morning that we have him."
Rival coaches probably want to punch Wainwright for plucking Blizzard out of Tallahassee. Florida State, the hometown school, wanted Blizzard if he was willing to walk-on for a year. He wasn't. "I felt I had worked too hard to walk-on anywhere," Blizzard said.
So he listened to Wainwright's pitch, signed on the dotted line, showed up stronger than he'd been and became the Seahawks' main offensive weapon. Blizzard averages 15.9 points, the only double-figures scorer on the UNCW roster. He's shooting 47.2 percent from 3-point range and 77 percent from the foul line. Plus, Blizzard owns the Seahawks' school records for 3-pointers in a season (93 and counting) and steals (61).
His running mate in the backcourt is the 6-1 Thelmon, a tough inner-city Chicago kid who wins wherever he goes. Prior to coming to UNC Wilmington, Thelmon ran the point for Indian Hills (Iowa) Community College, where his team went 75-1 and won two national titles. Among his teammates at Indian Hills was current Cincinnati star Pete Mickeal. Thelmon could take better care of the basketball (79 turnovers, 62 assists this season), but he's second on the team in scoring (9.4 ppg). He can hit from behind either stripe (.429 3-PT, .791 FT) and is the table setter in Wainwright's deliberate offense. How deliberate? Like Temple, UNC Wilmington wins with suffocating defense and a peel-the-shot-clock-down-near-zero offense. And of course, its rebuilt backcourt.
Happy ending: To say that Rhode Island coach Jerry DeGregorio had a rough first year would be an understatement. His injury-riddled and therefore shorthanded Rams (5-24) are 5-8 when they had their starting five healthy and winless when 6-9 center Luther Clay and 6-9 forward Tiger Womack, an LSU transfer, have been sidelined with injuries. But, DeGregorio's season has ended on an up note. He got engaged this past weekend and considers himself that luckiest man walking.
"I just hope that I do as well as in the April signing period as I did this past weekend," DeGregorio quipped.
Quotes of the week
"All the attention and kind words that I've received from the media and opposing coaches in the past couple weeks have been kind of embarrassing. I never knew I was this popular. Too bad I have so many skeletons in my closet or I'd think about running for (political) office."
-- Georgia Tech coach Bobby Cremins as he prepared for his final ACC tournament
"What's next? Are we going to go back and start checking a kid's diapers to see if they got some fives or 10s from their aunt or grandmother?"
-- Temple coach John Chaney on the NCAA's current war on AAU programs
Bill Doherty, a freelance writer from Bethlehem, Pa., is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. |  |
