Air Force embracing New York, NIT opportunity
March 26, 2007
NEW YORK (AP) - Matt McCraw and his wide-eyed Air Force teammates were cruising on a fireboat in the Hudson River as guests of the New York Fire Department, when they stopped in front of the Statue of Liberty.
For a few moments, the excited group of young basketball players turned quiet.
"You always see it in encyclopedias and on the Internet, but actually seeing her right there, that was awesome," McCraw said Tuesday with a broad smile. "We also went to ground zero, and that was really humbling and put everything in perspective for us, why we're in our business and why we're protecting the freedom of people in the United States."
Air Force (26-8) is in New York as one of four semifinalists in the National Invitation Tournament, where they'll take on Clemson (24-10) in one of the games at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night.
West Virginia (25-9) faces Mississippi State (21-13) in the other game, with the winners playing for the championship Thursday night. All four semifinals teams were top seeds in the NIT's new bracket system.
The Falcons, whose tour of Manhattan on Monday also included visits to a few firehouses that lost members during the terrorist attacks, have been constantly greeted by strangers and reminded that they're appreciated for more than what they do on the basketball court.
"At breakfast today, I was walking to get my plate at the buffet and there were some ladies sitting right there and they were all Army moms and wives," coach Jeff Bzdelik said during an NIT coaches' luncheon at a midtown hotel. "They had tremendous respect for what my players stand for, and one of the moms had lost her son 18 months ago in Iraq. We were all embracing."
Air Force, a sentimental favorite, has gone from being snubbed by the NCAA tournament selection committee to getting within a win of a chance at a title. After the Falcons beat DePaul last Wednesday to reach the semifinals, the players and fans broke into a wild on-court celebration.
"When it became evident that we would not make the NCAA, I gathered my team together and gave them a history lesson about the NIT," Bzdelik said. "I told them that we should embrace this opportunity."
And the Falcons certainly have. They've won four straight - their first postseason victories in 17 years following a four-game skid, and are in the semifinals of the tournament for the first time.
Air Force, which has already set a team record for wins, is led by a Princeton-style offense that includes McCraw (10.8 points and 3.0 assists), and senior forwards Dan Nwaelele (14.3 points) and Jacob Burtschi (13.6 and 6.0 rebounds).
Standing in the Falcons' way is a Clemson team that beat Syracuse to reach the NIT semifinals for the second time, and first since 1999. Clemson, which has never played Air Force, has a balanced scoring attack, led by sophomore forward K.C. Rivers (13.7) and junior forward James Mays (12.4).
After starting the season 17-0, the Tigers stumbled late and lost to Florida State in the first round of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
"To be able to attach 'champions' behind our name would be pretty special," coach Oliver Purnell said. "If we are going to move on, we are going to have to play one of our best games of the year."
West Virginia is becoming quite familiar with New York, making its second trip in three weeks after playing in the Big East tournament.
"Playing at Madison Square Garden is a big deal," sophomore guard Alex Ruoff said. "Because we've played here before, we're not going to be star-struck."
The Mountaineers certainly don't need to be, not when their offense ranks fourth in the country with 10.7 3-pointers a game. Add that to coach John Beilein's tough 1-3-1 defense, and Mississippi State knows it's in for a tough matchup.
"Everybody talks about how good he is offensively, but he doesn't get enough credit for his defense," Bulldogs coach Rick Stansbury said. "That defense is very unique in itself. Everybody calls it a 1-3-1, but only he knows what it really is. I have watched film, but I have no clue what it is yet."
They'll have to figure it out soon, especially with West Virginia looking to win its first NIT title since 1942. The Mountaineers last made the semifinals in 1981, and this year's team is here largely because of underrated shooter Frank Young. The senior forward is averaging 24.3 points in three NIT games.
Stansbury has led the Bulldogs to the NIT semifinals for the first time in school history, and he's done it with nine freshmen or sophomores on his roster. Mississippi State has quickly earned a reputation for being fast and difficult to defend, especially sophomore guard Jamont Gordon, who leads the team with 16.2 points and 7.2 rebounds per game.
"He's the whole package," Beilein said. "He's a do-everything player. The other guys know their roles so well and they get the ball to the right guy at the right time."
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Too much Tar
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. The night completely had unraveled on Tim Floyd, USC's best shot reduced to a glancing blow. They had come in waves and waves, Carolina blue trampling the Trojans with fast breaks that looked like they were shot out of cannons in the frantic final minutes Friday night.
So, there was Floyd watching one of his stars, Taj Gibson, foul out in the final moments, watching an upset bid diagrammed right from his old coach Don Haskins' defensive chalkboard come tumbling down on him. In his hands, he had a couple sheets of paper, so he just walked out on the floor and tossed them in the air. This was his way of saying bleep it, a fit of frustration born out of the locomotive that had come thundering down the tracks.
The Tar Heels beat the Trojans 74-64, beat them going away, despite a moment in the second half when USC had the Heels humbled and trailing by 16 points. It was a moment when UNC players kept looking to Roy Williams, waiting for the timeout he wouldn't call. "He's just telling us to get the ball up the floor and continue to play," Marcus Ginyard said. "He has a ridiculous amount of confidence in this team."
For as ridiculously talented as these Tar Heels are, as deeply stocked with talent as anyone in the nation, why wouldn't Williams? Eventually, North Carolina imposed its will on USC, and so here comes the 25th anniversary of Michael Jordan's jumper and Fred Brown's wayward pass in the 1982 national title game. Here come Carolina and Georgetown on Sunday, this time with a trip to the Final Four on the line.
Every No. 1 seed has had its scare in these NCAAs, and Carolina had its turn with the Trojans. For most of the early part of the night, resistance was futile in the face of the Trojans. USC's lead kept swelling, running into double figures, until Carolina wore down the Trojans with its staggering ability. Throughout this tournament, the story has been the two freshmen destined to go first and second in the NBA draft, Ohio State's Greg Oden and Texas' Kevin Durant, but here were those condor wings of Brandan Wright, the 6-foot-9 Heel freshman, who has made a strong bid to be that No. 3 pick should he make the leap.
"Nah, I'm not even thinking about that right now," he would say after his 21 points and nine rebounds and damage done in that late-game barrage of 18 straight points that reduced USC to rubble. There will be a time for Wright, but Friday night, with Tyler Hansbrough limited to five points, Wright made these Tar Heels his own.
"[Wright] had both armpits above the rim," Floyd said.
He hadn't played his best basketball in this tournament, but Wright was brilliant with his team looking at elimination. They'll need his best to beat Georgetown, which has the length inside to contend with Carolina's size. There's no time to waste trying to win a national championship with Wright on the floor, because the kid would be running some risk on returning as a sophomore.
Everything is here for the Heels now, everything in place. Those guards, Ginyard and Ty Lawson, finally got loose, and ran the ball down the Trojans' throats. Some scary sight in the Jersey Meadowlands, some frantic, fabulous finish to the Sweet 16. Once the rocks start rattling at the top of the mountain, unsettling and starting to tumble, the avalanche comes. And when it does, Tim Floyd takes those papers in his hands, tosses them in the air and the USC Trojans are done.
They never knew what hit them.
Copyright 2007 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved
Noah knows the real Madness in New Orleans isn't basketball
SPORTS COMMENTARY
Mike Bianchi
Published March 18, 2007
NEW ORLEANS As he and his team toured the Lower Ninth Ward here this past week, Joakim Noah was sad and mad at the same time.
He saw the perpetual poverty and the enduring hopelessness left by Hurricane Katrina. He saw an inner city where crime has gone up and power lines are still down. He heard stories of people trapped in their houses as floodwaters rose to the roofs. And he saw the rotted remnants of those same houses, now abandoned and marked with 'Xs' by the national guard a deathly code for how many corpses were found inside.
"It was an experience I'll never forget," says Noah, the star and social conscience of a University of Florida basketball team that will take on Purdue today in the second round of the NCAA Midwest Region at New Orleans Arena. "It's been a year-and-a-half since Katrina, but in some areas, it looks like the hurricane hit just last week."
He shakes his head.
"It makes you wonder, 'Do we really care?' "
This is what I love about Joakim Noah: He's not just a student of the game; he's a student of the world. He's doesn't spout cliches; he talks issues. With his 1960s ponytail and anti-establishment mentality, Noah is a flower child a half-century too late. If he weren't a famous college basketball player, he'd probably be carrying a protest sign: "More trees, less Bush!"
"One of the most beautiful things about this country is that you get to speak your mind," Noah says. "Sometimes, I think people forget that."
Noah might not be the best player in college basketball, but he's certainly the most interesting. You can agree or disagree with his political viewpoint, but at least he has a political viewpoint. Half of the college basketball players today couldn't tell you who the vice president is; Noah likely can name President Bush's entire cabinet and then tell you why they are all so wrong about the war in Iraq.
After Florida won the national championship last season, Noah nearly refused to make the ceremonial visit to the White House to meet President Bush. Only after UF Coach Billy Donovan had a conference with his star player did Noah finally acquiesce. However, he did not wear a tie to the White House and left his shirt untucked -- perhaps a silent protest to Bush's politics.
"I didn't want to go because I don't agree with the president's views and what he stands for," says Noah, who has dual citizenship in the United States and France. "But after talking with Coach Donovan, I didn't want to put that negative publicity on the team."
Donovan and Noah are polar political opposites. Donovan is a conservative Republican, Noah a liberal Democrat. Donovan is a devout Catholic; Noah doesn't adhere to organized religion.
There have been times past when Noah has engaged Donovan in political debates. He even tried to get Donovan to go see Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore's politically charged anti-Bush documentary.
"Jo is just an advocate for peace," Donovan says. "With all that's going on in the world, he's always looking at how events affect people's lives. On the day Katrina hit New Orleans, I saw Jo, and the first thing he said to me was, 'We have to do something to help those people.' "
Why is it then that Noah is reviled instead of revered? He's been cursed by the coach at Vanderbilt. The Georgia pep band mocked him with chants of "Ugly." LSU fans chided him by calling him "Caveman."
We say we want our athletes to play with passion. How much more passionate can you get than Noah pounding his chest and pumping his fist?
We say we want our athletes to play for the love of the game. Noah turned down a chance to be the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft just so he could stay in school for another year.
We say we want our athletes to have color and charisma and joy and jubilation. Noah danced on national TV after the Gators won the SEC Tournament and blew kisses to UCLA's cheerleaders when he tumbled into them during the national championship game last year.
We say we want our athletes to be more than just dumb jocks whose view of the world stretches no further than the 3-point line. Noah once gathered his teammates together to see City of God -- a subtitled foreign film about the horrors of living in the slums of South America.
"We play basketball," Noah says. "There are a lot of things more important than what we do."
Like New Orleans, a great American city turning into America's greatest shame.
"The suffering that's still here is something everybody in the world should know about," Noah says. "It's really sad the way this was dealt with."
Let's hear it for this not-so-average Jo, one of those preciously rare athletes who's more interested in taking a stand than making a buck.
Mike Bianchi can be reached at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com.
@ 2007 Orlando Sentinel Communications
Nittany Lions fall short
March 9, 2007
State College Centre Daily Times
CHICAGO -- It has been a risky and often destructive game for Penn State all season long -- pick what's not going to beat you and hope that the alternative isn't an entire disaster.
Thursday, against an Illinois team that had pounded the Nittany Lions inside two weeks ago, Penn State decided to take away the paint. When it did, the alternative -- in the form of Fighting Illini point guard Chester Frazier -- made it pay.
Frazier scored 16 of his career-high 21 points during a wild second half as sixth-seeded Illinois (22-10) ended Penn State's season and moved on to the second round of the Big Ten Tournament with a 66-60 win in the United Center.
The Fighting Illini will meet No. 3 seed Indiana in a 9:10 p.m. quarterfinal tonight. The Nittany Lions (11-19), who got a career-high 22 points and a tournament-record seven 3-pointers from junior guard Mike Walker, will set to work preparing for next season.
"We didn't stop playing, we didn't quit, we kept playing to the end," said Penn State forward Geary Claxton. "We just came up short. But I think we gave a good effort tonight."
Penn State's effort during the final six minutes, when it sliced a 13-point Illini lead to two, and its effort during the first seven minutes, when it opened the game on a 13-2 run, was indicative of the inspired basketball the Nittany Lions have played in spots all season.
The listless 27 or so minutes in between showed why the season has included so many losses.
The constant was Penn State's insistence on denying Illinois' forays into the middle, where forwards Shaun Pruitt, Warren Carter and Brian Randle lit up the Nittany Lions for 47 combined points in a 68-50 win in University Park on Feb. 24. With both guards in Penn State's 2-3 zone digging deep into the high post, it was apparent from the opening tip that the Illini would have to get their points another way.
"We thought that we would try to take that away as best we could," Penn State coach Ed DeChellis said. "We thought we would try to make somebody else step up and beat us and somebody did."
That was Frazier, the injury-riddled sophomore who had scored in double figures just twice in 14 Big Ten games and had made 7 of his 20 conference 3-point tries. With senior marksman Rich McBride again struggling to find his rhythm (McBride, 1-of-7 for three points in the first meeting, was 1-of-9 for three points Thursday), Frazier picked up the slack and then some, hitting 5-of-9 from behind the arc and hitting two free throws to ice the game with 12 seconds left.
"They tend to shade to Rich more ... I'm not so good from deep," Frazier said. "They took away the flashes (to the high post) and I made some open shots."
Frazier had some help. Carter scored 19 points -- stepping outside to hit three 3-pointers when things weren't available in the paint -- Pruitt had 10 rebounds to go along with eight points and McBride set a career-high with 10 assists. Randle had 11 points and did another terrific defensive job on Claxton. It was a dogged performance from an Illinois team still on the NCAA Tournament bubble.
"We knew it would be a gut-check game," Illinois coach Bruce Weber said. "We knew they would make adjustments (from the first meeting). We knew we weren't gonna get it inside."
The Nittany Lions found it difficult to get their usual inside points as well. Claxton struggled to a 3-of-13 night and finished with 10 points and nine rebounds, while Jamelle Cornley had just eight points and three boards in 40 minutes. But Walker, who had just three points with just over 10 minutes remaining, was nearly enough offense himself the rest of the way.
A Frazier 3-pointer gave Illinois a 41-25 lead with 12:52 left and the Nittany Lions looked ready to head for the locker room. But Claxton's layup sparked a 13-3 Penn State run over the next five minutes.
By that point, Walker had found his touch. He twice answered a Frazier three with one of his own, getting fouled on the second and completing the 4-point play to keep Penn State within nine, 54-45, with 4:40 to play.
"More pressure goes on the shooters when you get down 10 or 15 points," he said, "and the shooters have to make shots. Luckily the shots went in."
Carter answered with a three to push the margin back to 12, but the Nittany Lions wouldn't go away. A 12-2 run, with points from five different Lions, made it 59-57 with 1:38 left. But Pruitt scored on a nice feed from Carter and the Illini made five of their last six free throws to run their record in tournament games in the United Center to 7-0.
Penn State, which fell to 5-10 in the tournament, lost for the 15th time in 16 games but refused to hand this one to the Illini.
"We've been a very resilient team all year," DeChellis said. "We've had a couple (blowout losses), but for the most part our kids have really fought back and been consistent that way."
On the other hand, opponents have been just as consistent in taking what Penn State gives them.
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UC Santa Barbara 64, Pacific 49
March 2, 2007
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) -Alex Harris scored 22 points to lead UC Santa Barbara to a 64-49 basketball victory over the University of Pacific Thursday.
The Gauchos (17-10, 8-5 Big West Conference) clinched a first-round bye in next week's league tournament with the win.
Anthony Esparza scored 16 points and Wolfgang Raffety added 11 for Pacific (11-17, 5-8), which shot only 35.2 percent and fell behind by as many as 20 points, 53-33, with 10:14 to go.
James Powell made all four of his 3-point tries, including three in the first half, to help UCSB take a 29-23 lead. Powell finished with 14 points as the Gauchos made 10-of-19 shots from the 3-point line and shot 45.1 percent overall.
Cecil Brown added 10 points and four assists for the Gauchos.
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