The NCAA East Region notebook …
GREENSBORO— Obviously, the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee has quite a sense of humor.
Few of the 65 spots in the bracket are set in stone, with near-endless possible matchups to be had. But certain scenarios pop up where it’s clear the committee just wants to have a little fun.
How else do you explain Roy Williams’ Kansas team heading to Winston-Salem last season so he could answer thousands of questions about the North Carolina coaching job?
Or Lefty Driesell’s Georgia State team heading to the West Region this year for a potential second-round matchup against Maryland, his former squad?
Then there’s the East Region, where the Missouri Tigers (19-12) drew a No. 9 seed. Gee, wouldn’t a Missouri win tonight pit head coach Quin Snyder against Duke in the second round?
Snyder, of course, spent 10 years in Durham, making three visits to the Final Four as a player (1986, ’88 and ’89) and two more as a coach (’94, ’99). He has plenty of fond memories of the Greensboro Coliseum.
“I can remember my freshman year. We won against Georgia Tech in the (ACC Tournament) finals and I still have those photos,”Snyder said. “It was fun just being a part of that team, even though I wasn’t a big producer.
“We’re pleased to be in the tournament and excited about the opportunity to come back to North Carolina.”
what a rush: Snyder and Missouri are making their second straight appearance in the NCAA Tournament, thanks in large part to forward Kareem Rush, who led the Big XII in scoring with 21.2 points per game.
Rush, a 6-foot-6 sophomore, also averaged 6.6 rebounds a game. He scored 30 or more points five times this season, including Mizzou’s most recent contest against Oklahoma. That was Rush’s second game back after missing seven contests with a thumb injury.
“He puts on a clinic every night. He is silky smooth,”said Georgia head coach Jim Harrick, whose team will try to stop Rush tonight at 10. “If you don’t guard him, he gets 40. If you do a decent job on him, he gets 30.”
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we belong: Harrick’s eighth-seeded Bulldogs tied a couple of NCAA records by making the tournament field.
Georgia, at 16-14 overall and 9-7 in the Southeastern Conference, have the worst record of any of the 65 teams in the tournament. Only four other at-large bids have gone to teams with 14 losses and only 10 teams have had as few as 16 wins and received a bid since the field expanded to 64 teams.
But, a strong nonconference schedule, making for a high RPI, turned the trick for the Dawgs.
“In the years I’ve been coaching, since 1979, I’ve gotten a memo from the league office saying to schedule hard teams,”Harrick said. “We went 9-7 in the toughest conference according to the RPI. We had road wins over Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech. So I don’t think we have to justify being here.”
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reunion: In another fun twist to the bracket, Harrick finds his former UCLA squad visiting Greensboro this weekend.
Harrick coached the Bruins for eight seasons, including 1995’s national championship squad, before his firing Nov. 6, 1996. Harrick had falsified an expense report from a recruiting dinner, then tried to cover up the mistake, which UCLA officials said led to his dismissal.
Harrick’s departure threw a young assistant coach named Steve Lavin into the fire. Lavin, 36, has won 21 or more games in his first five seasons and is 7-4 in the NCAA Tournament, including two trips to the Sweet 16 and one Elite Eight appearance.
Even that wasn’t good enough this year, though. When Rick Pitino left the Boston Celtics, UCLA officials actually talked to the legendary coach about the Bruins’ job, stunning the team.
“Coach Lavin very seldom talks about the challenges he has to face,”star senior Earl Watson said. “It’s a great example Coach Lavin has set for the team. We knew it could be a distraction if allowed. Coach Lavin distanced the team from it and we were able to move on and win some games.
“It wasn’t fair(to the team),”Watson added. “We’re trying to focus on winning games and for it to come up was like a slap in the face.”
Lavin, having survived Harrick’s departure and other ups and downs at the school, simply took it in stride.
“It was somewhat a par-for-the-course year at UCLA,”Lavin said. “The highs are always a little bit higher, the lows a little bit lower. We play under 11 championship banners, and because of the standard of excellence that John Wooden set, there is always going to be some drama.”
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far from home: The fourth-seeded Bruins (21-8) don’t seem to mind making the long trip out from L.A. while some of the Pac-10’s top teams stay out West.
“I don’t feel a challenge in being sent to the East,”Watson said. “To be the best, you have to beat the best, and I think the East is the toughest bracket.”
Someone else who didn’t mind coming to Greensboro? Dimitri Jorssen, of the Big West champion Utah State Aggies.
“This feels like home,”said the native of Theux, Belgium. “It’s green, there are a lot of trees. It feels like Belgium a little bit.”
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Identity crisis: Luckily, Hofstra head coach Jay Wright has changed his hair style a little bit. Otherwise, who knows what chaos could come from today’s 3 p.m. Utah State-UCLA matchup?
“Everybody comes up to me and asks, ‘Coach Lavin! Coach Lavin! Can I have your autograph?’ ” Wright said. “A lot of Division I coaches, some from the Pac-10, stop me and say, ‘Great season, good job!’ and I know they’re not talking about what I’m doing in the America East.
“A lot of times people won’t take my word for it that I’m not him and I have to give them his autograph,”added Wright. “I used to comb my hair straight back, but now I’ve changed it so I don’t look as much like him.”
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plenty to be proud of: Wright’s team is the hottest squad in the tourney. The 26-4 Pride, a No. 13 seed, own 18 straight wins, by far the longest streak in the nation.
“Our confidence is sky-high,”said leading scorer Norman Richardson. “We have the longest winning streak in the country and we want to use that to our advantage. We want to make as much noise as possible in this tournament.”
Hofstra, in the tournament for the second straight year, lost its four games this season by a combined 13 points.
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Not you again! Ohio State (20-10) already got to play Big Ten foe Wisconsin twice this season, winning once and losing once against the defensive-minded Badgers.
So who did the No. 5 Buckeyes draw in the first round of the NCAA Tournament but a defensive-minded team that reminds them of Wisconsin — Utah State.
“I liken them to Wisconsin in the way they guard you. We need to be very efficient on the offensive end in order to score enough points to win the game,”Ohio State head coach Jim O’Brien said. “Offensively, they are pretty deliberate and very complicated with the number of sets that they run.”
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making you look bad: The 27-5 Aggies, a No. 12 seed, are making their second straight NCAA appearance and third in the last four years.
The squad is currently stuck on a nine-game tourney losing streak, but is hoping some tough defense can turn the trick this time around. In the Big West Conference Tournament, Utah State held all three opponents under 50 points. Cal State Fullerton, Boise State and Pacific averaged 43 points per game on 33.5 shooting from the field and an impressive — from a defensive standpoint, anyway — 15.8 percentage from the 3-point line.
“We take great pride defensively, but Ohio State presents a whole different scenario,”coach Stew Morrill said. “Our staple is man-to-man, but we’ll mix in some match-up zone.”
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gesundheit! Morrill is a 1974 graduate of Gonzaga, which is making yet another appearance in the NCAA Tournament. A couple of magical March runs have turned the Zags into a household name.
“Years ago when I mentioned Gonzaga, people thought it was some kind of disease,”Morrill joked. “Now all of a sudden, everybody knows who they are.”
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Sportswriter Steve Hanf is covering the East Region for the Post.
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