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Thursday, December 14, 2000
Barnes restores respectability to Ole Miss
By Pat Forde
Special to ESPN.com
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Rod Barnes was a small-town Mississippian of modest renown when he arrived as a player at Ole Miss in 1984. There wasn't much reason to suspect that the guard from Bentonia would have much of a lasting impact on the Rebels' basketball program.
A sweet sixteen years later, Barnes is building an unexpected legacy out of little more than Mississippi Yearning: sheer determination, insuperable work ethic and unwavering program loyalty.
|  | | Rod Barnes has brought some pride back to Mississippi basketball.
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Just 34 years old, Barnes has spent nearly half his life in service to the state university.
His overachieving playing career ended after 1,201 points scored (17th in school history) and 456 assists distributed (second in school annals). And after logging time as a graduate assistant and a full-time assistant coach, Barnes is now in his third year as the man in charge at his alma mater.
He has taken over from former boss Rob Evans and kept Ole Miss basketball a viable commodity, something not easily done for a traditional fringe program in the hyper-competitive Southeastern Conference. Barnes directed the Rebels' first-ever NCAA Tournament victory in 1999, then oversaw two NIT wins last year. Now he has Ole Miss a surprising 8-0 -- its best start since 1936 -- and ranked 23rd in the nation by the Associated Press poll.
"To be doing as well as we are, it's just not adding up," Barnes said, pleasantly mystified at how this has come to be. "Our kids have just really put the work in. Some teams out-talent people, but that's not the way we're doing it.
"When I played I was just thankful for the opportunity to play every day. It's a privelege, a blessing. I see a lot of that from this team."
This Mississippi team, picked by more than one preseason magazine to finish last in the SEC Western Division, is making its mark with defense. Only Virginia Commonwealth has broken the 70-point mark against the Rebels, and opponents are averaging fewer than 60 per game.
"We're guarding pretty well," Barnes said. "We're playing 10-11 players, and they've bought into the fact that we can play defense every night."
The big victory to date was over a ranked Oklahoma squad, the highlight of Ole Miss' current 41-game home winning streak in non-conference games. Winning at Memphis last week didn't hurt a bit, either.
There is little reason to expect sustained success at Mississippi. The gym, Tad Smith Coliseum, is the league's laughingstock, an outdated bandbox that saw a full house of 8,000-plus just once last season, against hated rival Mississippi State. The tradition is threadbare. Only one coach in school history has a winning career record in SEC games, and he worked in the 1930s.
The first, second and third priorities are football, football and football.
And the most practical reason of all: the in-state talent has traditionally matriculated elsewhere.
Chris Jackson and Ronnie Henderson went to LSU. Othella Harrington to Georgetown. James "Hollywood" Robinson and Antonio McDyess to Alabama. Lorenzen Wright to Memphis. Back in the 1980s, Louisville was fueling Final Four teams with Mississippians Lancaster Gordon, Charles Jones and Kenny Payne.
Even Evans, who put Ole Miss on the map with consecutive 20-win seasons before bolting for Arizona State, had a hard time recruiting the state. He made most of his hay with Nolan Richardson's rejects from Arkansas.
But Barnes is shifting the balance. His current roster shows nine Mississippians, four Arkansans and one Alabamian.
Everything about his program says homebody.
"We go in a 150-mile radius from here and call it our home base," Barnes said. "We've lost a lot of battles over the years, but it's starting to turn our way more.
"We feel, as we continue to win, more of the kids will want to stay home and come to our place. We want to uncover all the stones and make sure we have an impact here at home."
Chief among Mississippians is senior widebody Rahim Lockhart of Mendenhall, a 6-8, 250-pounder who said no to Louisville and is currently averaging a double-double (15.1 points and 10 rebounds, both team highs). After him comes the youth movement: freshmen Justin Reed and Aaron Harper, both of Provine. Reed is starting at small forward and is second on the team in points (11.0) and rebounds (6.6). Harper is Ole Miss' best perimeter shooter and the No. 3 scorer at 9.6 per game.
"They're young, but they're impact-type players," Barnes said. "They've put us in a position to be successful three, four years down the road. (Recruiting Reed and Harper) kept our program at the level where we can compete."
After a pair of manageable home games against Southeastern Louisiana and Troy State comes the next high-profile opportunity: the Pearl Harbor Invitational in Hawaii. Ole Miss could arrive 9-0, where a potential second-round matchup with USC looms.
"We'll get another chance there," Barnes said, "to maybe take that next step."
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Games of the Week
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Kentucky at Michigan State
Saturday
Just when the Wildcats appeared to have it back together, it fell apart again at Georgia Tech. Kentucky was again strafed from the perimeter by modestly hyped players (Halston Lane and Shaun Fein did the honors this time, even more obscure a duo than Penn State's brothers Crispin). Everyone knows who Charlie Bell and Marcus Taylor are, so perhaps the Cats will elect to guard them.
Marquette at Xavier
Saturday
Tom Crean's Golden Eagles catch the Musketeers at what could be the perfect time: coming off the annual bloodbath with Cincinnati. Marquette is playing its usual no-quarter defense, but still is searching for its offensive cohesion. This would be a nice December statement game.
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Don't forget Southern Miss
There's another surprising program in the state of Mississippi, and it's also doing it with defense. Southern Miss is off to a 7-1 start, in large part because it is holding opponents to 40.8 percent shooting (27.1 from 3-point range) and 59.6 points per game. Nobody has cracked 70 on the Golden Eagles.
"You talk about defense," said admiring Saint Louis coach Lorenzo Romar. "They guard you as well as anyone."
The Golden Eagles brought some additional motivation with them into this season, after recent postseason snubs. In 1997-98, Southern Miss won 22 games but was relegated to the NIT. Last year Southern Miss won 17 games but didn't even sniff the NIT -- even though eight other Conference USA teams went into postseason play.
"There were some things involved that we really couldn't control at that point," Green said of last year's NIT snub. "There were matchups they were considering, some that didn't work out. When (CUSA) put four teams in the NIT, there wasn't room for us."
This year Southern Miss seems intent on demanding that room be made for it in the postseason. Everyone took notice when the Golden Eagles beat Arkansas at Fayetteville, and their two-point defeat to Iowa State at the Cyclones' tournament was a quality loss.
As he did last year, underrated small forward David Wall is leading the way. He's averaging 15.8 points per game and shooting nearly 50 percent from three-point range -- another key for Team Green. (Southern Miss has outscored opponents 195-96 on 3s.)
"I think David Wall was absolutely one of the best players in the league last year," Marquette coach Tom Crean said. "He's having another great year, and with the new players they brought in, they've been fantastic. I think he (Green) is doing a great job with them."
If Southern Miss wants to take the guesswork out of March, a victory at Auburn (Dec. 30) would help. That's the Golden Eagles' last quality non-league opponent.
Allison sighting
In one of the more ironic events of the season, former Kentucky starting guard Desmond Allison quietly returned to campus to play an NAIA game last weekend -- just two days after Kentucky lessened the severity of its student-athlete alcohol policy that led Allison to leave school last spring.
Allison was suspended before the NCAA Tournament for driving under the influence. Under the old school policy, any athlete found guilty of a DUI forfeits his scholarship, so Allison transferred to Martin Methodist, a tiny school in Tennessee.
Last Saturday, two days after the school announced that athletes could keep their scholarships after a DUI, Allison produced a modest nine points, nine rebounds and seven assists in a two-point loss to Transylvania.
Six woeful degrees of Coach Cal separation
It's not a great time for the John Calipari Coaching Tree -- starting with the trunk. Coach Cal's return to the college game has been ugly so far, as Memphis has struggled to a 2-6 start against a tough schedule.
Add in the fact that former assistant Bill Bayno was canned at UNLV on Tuesday and former assistant James "Bruiser" Flint is on life-support at UMass, and it's not a merry Christmas in the Cal-zone.
At Memphis, the biggest problem is playing well at crunch time.
"We're in every game," Calipari said. "We just don't know how to finish them off. We just don't know how to play smart enough -- and rough and tough enough -- to finish the game."
Indefinite suspensions for forward John Grice and guard Courtney Trask for violating unspecified team rules have not helped. Neither was the broken hand big man Shamel Jones suffered in a recent practice.
Around the South
Conference USA
If anyone is struggling more than Memphis, it's Louisville. The Cardinals are 2-5, losers of four straight, and are winless in the continental U.S. after some early success in Hawaii.
Coach Denny Crum is so flummoxed that he selected his starting lineup against Western Kentucky by holding a foul-shooting contest. That put his best players, guards Marques Maybin and Reece Gaines, on the bench to start. U of L played well early but blew a 13-point lead to lose that game.
The potential good news: swingman Erik Brown, who led the nation's freshmen in scoring at Morehead State in 1998-99 before transferring, could become academically eligible for the Cards this week.
UAB coach Murry Bartow said he doesn't expect fierce power forward Myron Ransom to play this year after suffering a knee injury in August. "We were hopeful that by late November he'd be back, but his strength isn't back."
Marquette is dealing with its own health problems. Leading scorer Brian Wardle broke his nose, and assorted minor injuries and illnesses have reduced the practice roster to as few as six players recently. The Golden Eagles are 4-2 after six straight home games. "The defense and rebounding are keeping us alive in games," Crean said.
After encountering academic problems, Houston is hoping to get forward Kenny Younger soon. "It's really down to him doing well in the classroom," coach Ray McCallum said. "We'll probably know later this week."
As if red-hot Charlotte needed any more help, center KenKay Jones has come back from injury and seems ready to roll. He blocked four shots in nine minutes against Davidson last week.
SEC
Regular-season games left to see Alabama freshman sensation Gerald Wallace as a collegian: 23. Wallace was named SEC Player of the Week after scpromg 27 points against Grambling and 26 against Akron. For the season he is averaging 20.3 points, 7.5 rebounds and 2.3 steals -- coming off the bench. Honk if you think he's outta here next spring.
Arkansas is 0-2 when it has more turnovers than assists, 6-0 when the numbers are reversed.
Auburn is showing some resilience since the season-ending knee injury to leading scorer and rebounder Mack McGadney. The Tigers beat Louisiana-Lafayette and Detroit last week and are 3-0 since McGadney went down.
Florida gets its final decent non-conference test Saturday when it plays Gonzaga in Miami. You might recall that the Bulldogs eliminated the Gators in the 1999 West Regional semifinals.
LSU is finding players to take up the scoring slack left by Stromile Swift and Jabari Smith. Sophomores Collis Temple and Ronald Dupree both scored career highs against Texas Southern, Dupree going for 23 and Temple 22. The Tigers' schedule remains pathetically soft until a Dec. 20 trip to Arizona.
South Carolina got a morale-boosting win at Clemson last week, ending a six-game losing streak to its in-state rival. Coach Eddie Fogler inserted power forward Tony Kitchings into the starting lineup and he responded with a career-high 23 points.
Vanderbilt started four freshmen in defeating Florida State last week, running the baby-faced Commodores' record to 8-1.
Quote to Note
"You're kidding. We're not a Top 25 team. We can't even get out of our own way right now."
-- Denny Crum, after being informed that his 2-5 Cardinals are still receiving votes in the ESPN/USA Today coaches' poll.
Pat Forde of the Louisville Courier-Journal is a regular contributor to ESPN.com
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