ESPN Men's Basketball

In the Official Basketball Coaches Book of Clichés -- one no one has ever seen, but it has got to be out there -- there's a section regarding opponents.

When talking to reporters or to his team, the coach is obligated to say something along the lines of: "You have to play hard every day because Team X is capable of beating us."

Those comments are usually followed by reporters rolling their eyes. But sometimes cliché becomes reality.

In March, it was truly difficult to believe that Oral Roberts wouldn't play in the NCAA Tournament. The Golden Eagles entered the Mid-Continent tournament finals with a 25-6 record and had the league's best inside-out duo in forward Caleb Green and guard Ken Tutt. Scott Sutton's team had won 12 of 14 games to close the regular season before rolling past Southern Utah and IUPUI in the conference tournament. Maybe most important, the Mid-Con tournament was being held in Tulsa, where Oral Roberts is located.

ORU's opponent in the finals was an Oakland team that finished 7-9 in conference play but was just 10-18 overall. Sure, the Golden Grizzlies played well enough to down Missouri-Kansas City and Chicago State to make the tournament finals, but was there any way Oral Roberts could possibly lose this game?

Yup.

When Oakland's Pierre Dukes made a late 3-pointer from the corner, the Oral Roberts players could only watch as the Golden Grizzlies celebrated what should, by all rights, have been the Golden Eagles' NCAA berth.

Much like Davidson in the Southern Conference, Oral Roberts was a victim of college basketball's current setup. The reality is that a league such as the Mid-Con has almost no chance of having a team earn an at-large berth into the NCAAs. Too many schools have to play too many guarantee games on the home courts of major conference opponents. That means too many losses. And that is a leading contributor to a poor standing in the Ratings Percentage Index (the Mid-Con was 24th out of 31 leagues in the RPI a year ago and four of nine members were at 250 or worse).

The reality is that an entire basketball season, five months of work, comes down to one single game. Win and move on or forget about the Dance. Even with 25 wins, Oral Roberts was an NIT team. According to the school's sports information office, ORU was the first Division I school in 15 years to be denied an at-large bid after winning 25 games, the regular-season league title and reaching the championship game of its league tournament.

More than five months have passed since that March night, but it doesn't mean that thoughts of the game have gone away. Sutton said he thinks about the loss "at least once a day." Green said his summer has been filled with people asking him about Dukes' shot.

Not surprisingly, the Oral Roberts players are trying to use the loss as motivation entering this season, meaning there has been little complacency. Sutton said individual workouts last spring went very well. Green said the Golden Eagles have worked hard at improving and pickup games have been more intense than lighthearted.

The reason is simple: Anything really can happen on any given night.

"When you go through it, you really get the full effect of how it is," Green said. "Some things you have to go through to really understand. A lot of coaches say [anything can happen], sometimes you have to go live it."

That experience, the Golden Eagles hope, will be the difference this season.

Led by Tutt and Green -- and their combined 36.5 points per game last season -- Oral Roberts has four starters returning from a year ago. Sixth man Larry Owens is back, as is gunner Chris Riouse. Wings Eric Fowlkes and Yemi Ogunoye are both healthy after missing last season because of injuries. And Oral Roberts recently learned that Andrew Meloy, who played well down the stretch last season, was granted a sixth year of eligibility by the NCAA.

"We have an opportunity, we have some very good players returning," Sutton said. "The tournament's here in Tulsa again. That's a tremendous home-court advantage. That makes it even more disappointing that we weren't able to get it done [last season]. The last night, it was standing room only. There were more than 6,000 people there."

That Oral Roberts will have Green and Tutt for two more seasons is one of the biggest reasons for the optimism surrounding the Golden Eagles. Tutt is quick enough to get to the basket, but he also has been a 42 percent shooter from behind the 3-point line for two seasons. Green, a homegrown Tulsa product who was the Mid-Con player of the year as a sophomore, is one of those forwards who play bigger than their height. He's listed at 6-foot-8, but seemingly grabs every possible rebound. For his career, Green has 31 double-doubles and has averaged 18.3 points and 9.6 rebounds per game.

"A lot of teams across the country would love to have the combination of Ken and Caleb," said Sutton, whose team will play in the Great Alaska Shootout and has nonconference games at Oklahoma and at Minnesota. "They're both outstanding players, but they're better people. They're terrific teammates. They've never gotten a big head and thought they were better than this program or this conference. To think we have two more years [with them] puts a big smile on my face."

The biggest question for Oral Roberts is how the Golden Eagles will replace guard Luke Spencer-Gardner. Statistically speaking, Spencer-Gardner doesn't look like a significant loss. The Australian averaged just less than 10 points per game and he battled injuries for much of his final two seasons at Oral Roberts.

But Sutton is concerned. Spencer-Gardner provided a lot of toughness. He almost always defended the opposing team's best perimeter scorer. In the NIT loss at Maryland, Spencer-Gardner held Terps forward Nik Caner-Medley -- a 16 points per game guy -- scoreless.

Right now, Sutton isn't sure who's going to join Tutt, Green, point guard Jonathan Bluitt and center Mickey Michalec in the starting lineup. Owens, Fowlkes, Ogunoye and Moses Ehambe all are candidates. While Sutton likes the idea of having a set lineup, he also sees the value in have four starters and letting the matchup determine the fifth. Plus hanging the carrot of starting in front of players can lead to more competitive practices.

But regardless of how much talent Oral Roberts has and regardless of what happens between now and March, Green knows the entire season will be judged on what happens in next season's Mid-Con tournament.

"Hopefully we all learned from that," Green said. "It's going to be expected again. Now we have to go win."

Good signs: It's a rare season when Valparaiso doesn't at least play for the Mid-Con's automatic berth. The Crusaders have been the benchmark in this conference.

While last season wasn't what Valpo wanted -- it finished with a losing record after a quarterfinal loss to Chicago State in the conference tournament -- the Crusaders' run is far from over. Valparaiso returns everybody from a year ago, including forward Dan Oppland (18.6 ppg, 6.8 rpg). In addition, Miguel Ali Berdiel is back from injury. Berdiel played just two games last season.

"They still have a confidence about them that they're going to be the team to beat," Sutton said.

Red flag: A year ago, Oakland was the biggest surprise in the NCAA Tournament. However, its top two players were both seniors.

Rawle Marshall and Cortney Scott combined to average 38 points and 15 rebounds per game. Oakland doesn't have a returnee who averaged in double figures a year ago and only two who averaged more than five points per game.

Worth watching: In recent seasons, Western Illinois has been close to an automatic victory for almost every school in the Mid-Con. That is starting to change under Derek Thomas.

Thomas, a former assistant coach at Saint Louis, Minnesota, Illinois and Nevada-Las Vegas, has quickly upgraded the Leathernecks' talent level. According to rankings put out by recruiting expert Clark Francis, Western has had the best recruiting class in the Mid-Con in each of the past two seasons.

Among the new faces for next season is junior college transfer Marlon Mahorn, the nephew of former Detroit Piston Rick Mahorn. Hoop Scoop ranked Mahorn as the No. 30 junior college player in the country a year ago.

With only two seniors on the roster a year ago, the Leathernecks finished 11-17 overall and 7-9 in Mid-Con play to tie for fifth. That might not seem that impressive, but the Leathernecks were a combined 35-107 overall and 15-61 in league play over the five previous seasons. In that span, Western Illinois had never finished higher than seventh in the Mid-Con.

Our resident Bracketologist, Joe Lunardi, agrees that Oral Roberts should redeem itself after last year's conference final flop and make it to the 2006 NCAA Tournament.

2006 Bracketology

2004-05 Standings
Team	League record	Overall record
Oral Roberts	13-3	25-8
UMKC	12-4	16-12
Valparaiso	10-6	15-16
IUPUI	9-7	16-13
W. Illinois	7-9	11-17
Chicago St.	7-9	9-19
Oakland	7-9	13-19
Southern Utah	6-10	13-15
Centenary	1-15	3-24

* -- NCAA Tournament

Leading returning scorers
Player (Team)	2004-05 PPG
Caleb Green (ORU)	19.4
Dan Oppland (Valpo)	18.6
Ken Tutt (ORU)	17.1
Brandon Cole (IUPUI)	14.2
Ron Howard (Valpo)	14.0

Jeff Shelman of the Minneapolis Star Tribune (www.startribune.com) is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.