| | By Andy Katz
ESPN.com
The coaches keep mentioning Wisconsin. And when they do, they talk about 19-17 Michigan State at the half of the national semifinal game. They don't want to see it again. Neither do fans.
But rules aren't going to change. The only way the games will be less physical in the NCAA Tournament is if the officials alter the way they blow their whistles.
Like try using them earlier in the game.
Rough play is the only point of emphasis this season, and was detailed Wednesday through a mandatory Division I head coaches' extensive video presentation of plays which were allowed during the NCAA Tournament.
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“ |
Every game is called differently and it's
up to you to adjust as a coach and as a team, officials aren't going to adjust to you. I
like physical play, not dirty. ” |
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— Rick Majerus, Utah head coach |
"We need to get back to the game where there are cutters and screeners," said Stanford's Mike Montgomery, whose term on the rules committee just ended. "We don't want more rules. Some officials will do it and some won't. The tournament is worst of all because we're putting people in a disadvantage of not letting them play the game. There has to be a balance, but they've got to start the year calling the stuff."
Montgomery said there is talk of having officials advance in the NCAA Tournament only if they call earlier games tighter and don't allow rough play in the post or anywhere on the court.
Montgomery said the rules committee even received a letter from Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany imploring the committee to do something with the rules to prevent another physical Big Ten season. But the rules committee's response was simple: there are rules, and it's the Big Ten supervisor of officials responsibility to enforce them.
"We appreciate the effort of these teams, but it's not fair because you can't alter the cuts and hold guys," Montgomery said. "We want them to allow kids to play offense and defense."
But Wisconsin resents being singled out as the culprit for physical play last season. The Badgers pride themselves on hard-nosed, position defense.
"That's totally unfair," Wisconsin assistant Shawn Hood said. "We play physical, but we don't foul. What do they want, to turn it into the NBA? European basketball? Do they want the offensive player to have all the advantages? Do they want us to de-emphasize defense?
"We don't play dirty, we play aggressive. We don't chuck and we don't grab."
Hood said he doesn't want this officiating trend to turn into the officials picking on Wisconsin. But defensive-minded coaches agree with the Badgers.
"Every game is called differently and it's up to you to adjust as a coach and as a team, officials aren't going to adjust to you," Utah's Rick Majerus said. "I like physical play, not dirty."
LSU coach John Brady said if the officials had called the Tigers' loss to the Badgers tighter, then it might have loosened up the game more and been more advantageous to the Tigers. But he wasn't complaining about the way his game was officiated during the NCAA Tournament's Sweet 16.
"They were more rugged than us, but we play that old Tim Floyd defense of clutch and grab," said Brady, a disciple of Floyd's, who is now the head coach of the Chicago Bulls. "Our league (SEC) has always done a good job of getting a hold of the officiating."
But there are other teams like Wisconsin who have benefited from a loosely called tournament.
"Tulsa went to the Elite Eight when they bumped you on every shot and got away with it," SMU's Mike Dement said. "Tulsa wouldn't have won 34 games if it were called differently. But if they start calling it differently, the games will be a lot longer and they won't tolerate that. I don't anticipate a whole lot of changes."
But the key will be whether or not the older officials will call the games. The same officials usually advance in the tournament. Younger officials might be discouraged from calling tighter games if the older, more experienced officials blow off the request.
"The NBA became a joke with all that physical play, but now ours is that way with all the holding," DePaul's Pat Kennedy said. "The commissioners and the athletic directors need to get involved with the NCAA officiating."
But, so far, the consensus seems to be that physical play is out.
"Our game got too rough and skilled players were basically turning into bar room bouncers," Gonzaga's Mark Few said. "We end up with 52-48 games. It doesn't resemble basketball the way it should be played."
Time to answer to the NCAA
NCAA spokesperson Jane Jankowski said Thursday that seven players have been reported for accepting extra benefits for education prior to entering college.
That means the seven players, including New Mexico's Zeke Johnson, will have to sit 30 percent of their team's schedule (three games) for receiving the benefit before Aug. 1. Players are not liable to pay back the money, nor would they be subject to further penalty. Jankowski said this is a one-time amnesty.
The suspensions don't have to be served during the first three games of the season, although in Johnson's case that seems like the most likely scenario, according to New Mexico coach Fran Fraschilla.
Jankowski said the individual schools would release the names of the players at their own discretion.
The new rule was enacted in response to last season's high-profile suspensions during the regular season for the same offenses. Michigan's Jamal Crawford, St. John's Erick Barkley, Missouri's Kareem Rush, UCLA's JaRon Rush, Oklahoma State's Andre Williams and Cincinnati's DerMarr Johnson were each suspended for a various number of games. Johnson only sat one game, while Rush missed over 20 -- although his included an alleged payment from an agent.
Players have to admit whether or not they took money or benefits within 30 days after signing their confidential student athlete statement. But the statement doesn't have to be signed until right before the first game. So, players could end up signing the statement in November and not have to sit games until conference season.
Jankowski said the schools were given a memo on the subject in May and a reminder in August.
Jankowski said she doesn't expect more than five to seven high-profile players to be affected by this rule, but the NCAA knows who went to prep school and who didn't, which means Jankowski and the NCAA will "be following up on a few situations."
A number of high-profile players might find themselves responding to the NCAA as to whether or not they got help going to prep school from a third party. This does not include family support or scholarships.
St. John's Omar Cook (Christ the King High, N.Y.), Connecticut's Caron Butler (Maine Central Institute), Kentucky's Jason Parker (Fork Union Academy, Va.), Michigan's Bernard Robinson (New Hampton School, N.H.) and Auburn's Abdou Diame (Oak Hill Academy, Va.) all could be future players affected by this rule. And there are more, with at least nine other prep school players among the consensus top 50 incoming freshmen.
Weekly chatter
Temple was close to fixing its Cincinnati problem when the Owls got Gonzaga to agree to play in place of the Bearcats on Jan. 20. But the Bulldogs got put off, at least for now, by ABC.
Gonzaga was told there was a problem with the Zags playing on ABC that early in the day. But unless the game is on national television, Gonzaga won't go through the trouble of changing its West Coast Conference schedule.
To accommodate the switch, the Bulldogs would have to move its Jan. 20 game at Portland, possibly to Jan. 6. The Pilots would have to agree to the move, but the feeling in the WCC is that they would if it meant a national television game for Gonzaga and the league. A simple home-and-home game wouldn't be enough for the league to change schedules and alter promotional material at the respective schools this late into the semester.
Temple is banking on getting Gonzaga, and would return the game, after Cincinnati backed out of the game. The Bearcats didn't know the rules that an exempted tournament counts as one game, even if three are played. Cincinnati overscheduled and put off its return game at Temple after hosting the Owls last season. Temple has said the Bearcats would come back to Philadelphia consecutive seasons in 2001-02 and 2002-03 to make up for the mishap.
The Owls are familiar with a team backing down from them. Kentucky did it last year when it refused to play Temple on New Year's Eve. Cincinnati originally wanted to get out of its game at Dayton but couldn't for regional reasons. UNLV is the only other non-conference road game. Cincinnati wasn't about to give up a home game, which could bring in over $200,000 -- or enough to fund a single sport.
Meanwhile, Temple got a huge lift when big guard/small forward David Hawkins was released from his Tulane national letter and allowed to play at Temple this season. Tulane released Hawkins when he didn't want to play for the Green Wave after Perry Clark left for Miami. Hawkins gives the Owls another scoring forward Mark Karcher left for early for the NBA.
Hawkins isn't as good a scorer as Karcher but is a better defender and athlete, according to Temple's staff.
Gonzaga is still waiting for sophomore forward Zach Gourde to get healthy after knee surgery. In his absence, the Bulldogs are going with either junior college forwards Anthony Reason or Alex Hernandez.
But Gonzaga coach Mark Few might go with swing guard Jimmy Tricco next to forwards Mark Spink and Casey Calvary. The backcourt is set with Washington transfer Dan Dickau and freshman Blake Stepp.
Summer tournaments are lining up to secure the best teams for the two weeks of evaluation in July, 2001. A few problems have arisen, though. Adidas reps said they're looking at a tournament on the East Coast to run after the ABCD Camp in New Jersey. The reason is there aren't enough days to allow for travel back to the West Coast.
ABCD and Nike camps will dominate the first week. The last week of the evaluation period will have the Adidas Big Time Tournament in Las Vegas competing against the Nike Peach Jam tournament in Augusta, Ga. Any other tournaments will compete against each other to get teams.
One summer-league coach said he might run tournaments during the dead period, charge the recruiting analysts and set up a 1-900 number for college coaches. He also said that teams would soon ask for guarantees to play in tournaments, claiming the better teams would force the college coaches to be at their specific tournament.
"I'm not paying any teams," tournament organizer Dana Pump said.
If Dominguez High (Compton, Calif.) center Tyson Chandler is on a college campus next fall, he'll shock college coaches, Nike and NBA scouts. Sources at all three said Chandler has let it be known that he will declare for the draft in May, 2001.
LSU coach John Brady is expecting to hear next week if freshman guard JueMichael Young is eligible. Young, a partial qualifier who is practicing with the team, is looking for a waiver on his test score. Brady is expecting the tough, hard-nosed guard to help the Tigers immediately if he gets eligible.
But the Tigers don't need as much help in the backcourt. They're set with an SEC-level set of wings in Torris Bright, Lamont Roland, Brian Beshara and Ronald Dupree. Brady is leaning toward starting either 6-7, 250 junior college walk-on Jason Wilson (who turned down TCU and Texas Tech) or 6-8, 250, junior Brad Bridgewater.
"We're very average right now there and that's why we may start four perimeter players," Brady said. "It would have been nice if we still had Stromile (Swift). We can't score around the goal and we don't block shots. But do hit jumpers."
The Tigers answered their need inside for the 2001-02 season with three junior college commitments: 6-8, 245-pound Shawnson Johnson (Lee JC/Texas); 6-7, 225-pound Kendrick Brown (Okaloosa-Walton CC/Fla.) 6-6, 220 Thomas Davis (Kilgore JC/Texas) -- all three were originally from Louisiana.
DePaul doesn't have to change anything in practice with the eligibility of Andre Brown. The Blue Demons were allowed to use Brown in practice because he was a partial qualifier. During practice, Brown was starting with Steven Hunter and Lance Williams in a triple-post offense.
"It's a unique concept," DePaul coach Pat Kennedy said. "Steve is a long, slender kid who can block shots and change shots. Lance has a power game and Andre is a low-post kid. He's a poor man's Kenyon Martin. We may rotate Jon Oden in there too."
Kennedy has been using Bobby Simmons at small forward and big guard, making an imposing lineup even more menacing with essentially four forwards and Imari Sawyer or Rashon Burno at the point.
"For him to be eligible is really exciting because Andre has really been working hard," Kennedy said.
Hawaii is waiting to hear on two fronts what the NCAA management council does on exempted tournaments at its meeting next week. The Warriors have two concerns. They need the exempted tournaments to survive and continue to get marquee teams for the Rainbow Classic. But they also need the NCAA to continue to give schools a one-game exception if a team plays a single egular-season conference or non-conference game at Hawaii.
"If they change that, that will kill us,"' Hawaii coach Riley Wallace said.
The NCAA presently allows schools to play in an exempted tournament twice every four years, but once every four years off the mainland.
Meanwhile, some Mountain West coaches have tabbed Hawaii, not Fresno State, as a possible expansion member in the future. But Hawaii would have to return to paying for teams in the conference to travel to road games.
The Warriors are looking at lifting their ban on playing MWC teams after saying they wouldn't when the WAC split up two years ago. Wallace said the Warriors are looking at a pair of home-and-home series with BYU and Utah.
USC can't get through a season without injuries. Starting forward David Bluthenthal and reserve guard Robert Hutchinson are out with knee and finger injuries, respectively. But both should be back by the regular-season opener against Bradley Nov. 18 at the L.A. Sports Arena.
Stanford and Texas are trying to schedule a non-conference, made-for-TV game in Chicago next season. Stanford is also looking at playing Michigan State in a similar one-game deal in Las Vegas.
The Cardinal will play Purdue in next season's one-game deal at Indianapolis' Conseco Fieldhouse. Stanford is still looking for an opponent in the Pete Newell Challenge in 2001. Cal plays Michigan State in the other matchup.
If the NCAA goes through with its legislation of trying to get rid of exempted tournaments, then the one-game neutral site deals like the Newell Challenge will likely flourish.
"Teams are still going to want a big-time game and on a neutral court, even if it counts," said Stanford assistant Blaine Taylor, who handles the Cardinal schedule.
BYU is awaiting word from the NCAA to see which class Mormon Church missionaries count toward under the new "five in eight" rule for recruiting. The new rule states that schools can't sign more than five players in a given year, no more than eight in two. But what happens to Mormons who sign with BYU and then go on a mission for two years without enrolling in school.
"Which class are they in?" BYU assistant coach Dave Rose said. "That's what we need to find out. We signed Austin Ainge last year, but he went on a mission. Will he count toward the class of 2000 or the class of 2002 when he arrives as a freshman?"
The WAC's television package continues to be questionable. Fox's national games for the WAC didn't include SMU last season. This season, the favored Mustangs aren't on the slate, but Hawaii is on twice at Fresno State and hosting Tulsa.
Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com. His Weekly Word is updated Thursdays/Fridays throughout the year.
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