Will the Hilltoppers sit atop the Sun Belt heap?
By Kyle Whelliston
After the 2006 NCAA brackets were revealed this past March, pundits and Packers took up the timeless tradition of sorting out the snubs from the suspicious selections. Given the available data, how on earth could the committee admit Air Force and Bradley and yet deny Maryland or Cincinnati? And hey, what about Hofstra?
But as ESPN.com reported at the time, the next school in line wasn't the Terps, Bearcats or even the Pride. The NCAA's theoretical team No. 66, the last school off the at-large board, was Western Kentucky.
That's right, the boys from Bowling Green with the big red blob for a mascot. The news surprised some, befuddled others and shocked most, considering that WKU was offered a lowly No. 6 seed by the NIT's legends committee. The Hilltoppers certainly hadn't left a very good final impression, getting smoked by South Alabama by 25 points in the Sun Belt title game. But they'd won 23 games (including 15 of their last 17), had an RPI in the mid 50s, and had notched two RPI top-100 victories over UAB and Virginia (to say nothing of their close calls against Tournament-bound Bradley and Arizona).
It might all have been a moot point if half of their explosive guard duo wasn't dogged by a serious injury in early March. Courtney Lee (17.4 ppg) played through a broken hand during the SBC tournament and could only manage 10 points on 4-for-13 shooting in that conference final. The other half of the backcourt pair, Sun Belt Player Of The Year Anthony "A-Dub" Winchester (18.6 ppg), wilted some under the heat of extra defensive attention, but still provided Team 66 with the only kicks it would get in the postseason. As the deflated Toppers (sans Lee) slogged to a sad NIT road loss at eventual champion South Carolina, Winchester went off for 20 and 16 in his final collegiate game.
Now A-Dub is gone, but C-Lee (and his fully healed hand) returns as a junior, ready to take over the reins of the team as the conference's best all-around player. Even though he's just achieved upperclassman status, Lee's already earned honorary degrees in lockdown defense, dribble-drive penetration and sweet shooting. He can also clean a little glass too, as evidenced by his team-leading 6.3 rpg last season.
"I think he's got to show that he can handle being the total focus point," said Horn. "With Anthony gone, he's going to be the opponents' main focus, and that's going to be an adjustment. But I'll say this about Courtney, from freshman year on he's risen to every challenge so far. He's had only three or four games in two years where you'd say, 'Wow, he didn't give us all that much.' He's a very consistent player, and he responds very well."
The 2006-07 Hilltoppers will be without Winchester and solid 6-8 contributor Elgrace Wilborn (8.6 ppg, 5.8 rpg as a senior), but Horn has picked up a couple of drop-in JuCo replacements. Tyrone Brazelton, a 5-11 pure point, is a national all-JuCo first team All-American (18.3 ppg, 4.8 apg for Missouri State-West Plains last season) who'll have two years of eligibility left. Raed Mostafa is a 6-8 specimen from the North Dakota State College of Science who comes in as a junior. But despite the team's formidable roster and array of returning talent, the coach is urging caution against irrational exuberance.
"Have you seen our schedule yet?" asked Horn.
Like last year, WKU hasn't skimped on the slate. Even if the Toppers didn't quite make it into the 2006 Tournament, they'll be able to simulate the experience this fall. Their early-season menu contains national champ Florida as well as NCAA teams Montana, Southern Illinois and Tennessee. And, due to conference realignment, they'll have two regular-season shots at new division-mates South Alabama, the same school that kept them from dancing big a season ago.
"The challenge will be that we don't have any easy games to work things out," said Horn. "So at this point, it's premature to say we'll win so-and-so many games. Our goal will be to continue to get better as the season continues, so that come March, we'll be as good as we can possibly be."
The Sun Belt hasn't received an at-large bid in 12 years, since Ralph Willard steered a 20-win Topper team into the Tournament in 1994 despite an ill-timed conference tourney exit. Can this year's version gel quickly and bolster its résumé with a few big wins against out-of-conference powers? If WKU can manage that, then roll the league again (a 14-2 regular season record in 2005-06), this team can go ahead and skip Route 66 in favor of the more scenic Road To the Final Four.
Good signs: Middle Tennessee State definitely is a program on the upswing. The Blue Raiders' RPI has jumped from 127 to 116 to 114 in the past three seasons.
The only numbers that mattered at the end of last season, though, were 58-57 -- the score of MTSU's heartbreaking loss in the league tournament quarterfinals. After a second-place finish in the East division behind WKU, Kermit Davis Jr.'s squad accepted then quickly dropped the mantle of tournament hosts. Denver's Yemi Nicholson stuck a put-back with 0.8 seconds remaining in regulation, eliminating Middle in front of a suddenly sullen home crowd, much of which didn't bother to show up for the remainder of the tourney.
The loss erased what would have been a looming local showdown with Western (an hour-and-a-half's drive north on I-65), and it still haunts their coach as he navigates the labyrinth of backroads that surrounds MTSU's Murfreesboro campus.
"I still slap the dashboard about it when I'm driving," said Davis. "I don't think that one'll go away for a while. We came in thinking we were playing as good or better than anyone else in the league, then we got hit with one of those NC State plays [from the 1983 national championship game]. We stopped a 25-footer up one, and everyone thought the game was over, but it came down to [Nicholson's] hands and he laid it in at the buzzer."
Eight Blue Raiders will be freshmen and sophomores, which will lead some roster-scanners to write off MTSU's 2006-07 hopes, but the team's upper class is loaded with solid role players who'll try to erase the bad memories of 2005-06 and key another run at Western Kentucky in the East. Shooting guard Adam Vogelsberg was the team's leading scorer a season ago (12.4 ppg), 6-9 junior Tim Blue chipped in nine and four, and 6-10 Kyle Young shot 65 percent from the floor on the way to 8.7 ppg.
"Last year, from a winning standpoint, we did go down a little," said Davis of the state of his program. "We definitely think we have a shot at being a postseason team. Are we really that far away? We don't think so."
Safe bet: If you're someone who's fighting those extra pounds and inches, a bigger belt is definitely not a good sign. But if you're the SBC, the addition of two schools -- former Atlantic Sun member Florida Atlantic and ex-Southlanders Louisiana-Monroe -- means that it's time for a little bit of Belt loosening.
And it's a safe assumption that the bigger conference will result in somewhat of an unbalanced diet, with the East division clearly being the dominant side. Conference champion South Alabama moved from the West to the East, where it will join upswinging MTSU and defending division champs Western Kentucky. League sophomores Troy, a dangerous 3-point shooting team, also makes the left-to-right leap. Florida International (8-20 last season) and newbie Florida Atlantic will bring the sunshine, and more than a few wins, to the division's upper tier.
Despite recent visits to the NCAA Tournament by West division teams, the East has been the collectively stronger side for several years running, and this season the difference in skill should be pronounced. The two traditionally-strong Arkansas schools (State and Little Rock) will move to the West, but both are in rebuilding mode. Other Western squads offering more questions than answers are 2005 finalists Denver and Louisiana-Lafayette. North Texas, New Orleans and Monroe round out the table.
At 13 teams, this is now the third largest conference in D-I (behind the bloated Big East and Atlantic "14"). The SBC will employ a new three-bye system in the playoffs, with the two division winners and one second-place "wild card" skipping the opening round. Is a Central Division next, like in the NFL and MLB? Not likely, but the conference should be so imbalanced this year (quite like the tilt toward the American Football Conference and American League) that the East should simply be labeled the Sun Belt's "American Division."
Red flag: Once upon a time, in a Sun Belt regular-season contest three years ago, a brave little mighty mite tried to penetrate and soar through the lane, until Western Kentucky's 6-11, 350-pound behemoth Nigel Dixon cavalierly swatted away both he and the ball with his giant hands. A WKU fan screamed out, "This ain't no guards league!"
Just a few years later, it sure looks like one. In an informal ESPN.com poll of several sports information directors around the league, all respondents had difficulty placing forwards and centers on a preseason all-conference first team. One "ballot" even offered a four-guard lineup.
The roster of Belt bigs was seriously depleted over the summer, partly due to the exits of Denver's 6-10 Nicholson (19.9 ppg, 10.9 rpg) and 6-10 Michael Southall of Lafayette (15.8 ppg, 8.0 rpg). All told, five of the top six rebounders from last season are out of eligibility, as are 10 of the top 15. No one who averaged more than two blocks per game is back for 2006-07, and only one player who averaged more than seven boards a game will return.
That player is Rashad Jones-Jennings of Arkansas-Little Rock, a 6-8 senior who averaged 12.2 ppg and 11.3 rpg a year ago. The Chattanooga native simply hyphenated opponents in 2005-06, collecting 12 double-doubles. He also grabbed a nation's-best 30 boards in a Dec. 13 game against the SWAC's Arkansas-Pine Bluff. There's no question that Jennings-Jones is the best big man in the league right now.
Nonetheless, there are young and wet foals ready to grow into championship thoroughbreds. Some league observers believe that Middle Tennessee's Theryn Hudson, a 6-10 sophomore, is poised for a breakout season. After finding his footing during limited minutes for much of his freshman season, Hudson started the last 10 games and shot 50 percent or better in each of the Blue Raiders' final six contests.
"There's not a lot of true posts in our league, and he's one," said Davis of Hudson. "Even though Theryn came in a little weak, he's building great strength now. He's bench pressing 265, and his body fat's gone down from 13 to eight [percent]. Hopefully, he'll have the same kind of career path that Yemi Nicholson did at Denver. We're hoping he continues to make a lot of progress. He's had a great summer, and we're looking for big things from him."
Worth watching: "We will endure," promises the graphics splashed over the University of New Orleans' sports Web site. And no conversation about UNO basketball is complete without mention of its storm-ravaged recent past.
The school is located right on the lower lip of Lake Pontchartrain. After their arena was severely damaged a year ago, the Privateers moved back into their old home at the Human Performance Center, which from 1969-83 was lovingly referred to as "The Chamber of Horrors." The team, though, offered plenty of feel-good storm stories. For example, 6-3 junior guard and local resident James Parlow was named to a Community All-American team after his family was relocated to Texas (he was only able to visit once a month). Despite the distractions, Parlow found the maturity to receive good grades and average 10.6 ppg on the court.
And while renovations on Lakefront Arena continue, the program is also under construction with the hiring of close-cropped Brent "Buzz" Williams off Billy Gillespie's bench at Texas A&M. It's not known if Williams can operate a backhoe or run FEMA, but he's a proven rebuilder when it comes to basketball. As Gillespie's key recruiter for the past two years, he stocked the program with the players that keyed the Aggies' turnaround from a seven-win pushover in 2003-04 to a 22-win powerhouse (including an NCAA victory over Syracuse and a close call with LSU in the second round) this past season.
"It was the most rewarding professional experience of my life," said Williams of his two years in College Station. "Everyone told me what a bad job it was when I took it, that it was a football school, how they went 0-18 [in the Big XII] the year before. And you know how coaches are, they don't ever like to talk about anything touchy-feely, but Billy Gillespie is the absolute best. … I think he's a Hall of Fame coach. Coach isn't married and he doesn't have children, and he's the coach 24/7. Everything he does is always about the players … everything he did was about putting them in the best position they could be on and off the floor, and he helped prepare me for this in a lot of ways. He made me accountable for what the team did on the floor as well as off, and I'm going to remember that."
Williams will inject Gillespie's values into a program that already has the best returning backcourt in the conference: the Little Mac Attack of Bo McCalebb (22.6 ppg in 2004-05; injury limited him to four games last season) and senior Jamie McNeilly (9.3 ppg). He's hoping that the two will help form the basis for a tight-knit basketball family like the one he left at A&M.
"The storm and the renovations, I don't get into all that," said Williams. "What I get into is people. No matter what arena we have, no matter what city we live in, those kids came to Texas A&M and stayed there because of their relationships with the coaches and each other. And that's what it's going to be about here."
Arkansas-Little Rock: The Trojans' 5-9 league season ended on an upbeat note, as they thrashed North Texas to go a round in at the SBC tournament. Head coach Steve Shields was rewarded with a contract extension to the 2010-11 season, and he'll get a quick chance to make good on it -- UALR returns four starters and are the most intact squad in the conference. Not only do Rashad Jones-Jennings and guard Zack Wright ( 12.3 ppg) return as seniors, 82 percent of their scoring output returns for a crack at the West division crown.
Arkansas State: After four straight seasons of RPI improvement, A-State crashed from 163 to 229 while compiling a 12-18 record (7-7 SBC). With seven players gone from last year's squad, it might get even worse. But if Dickey Nutt's Indians find ways to win, it'll likely be because of a potent senior inside-outside combo comprised of Isaac Wells (14.4 ppg, 6.8 rpg) and Jim Jones (12.4 ppg, 2.8 apg).
Denver: Yemi Nicholson was a true mountain of a man, and he notched 15 double-doubles in a senior campaign that landed him on quite a few postseason awards lists. His departure leaves a vacuum in the post, but there are three starters returning from a team that finished second in the SBC West. Keep an eye on 6-6 senior DaShawn Walker, a juco transfer who made an immediate impact last year with 13.3 ppg and eight 20-point games.
Florida Atlantic: The school picked its mascot a long time ago, but they didn't know how apt it would be for its basketball team -- Owls' heads can swivel, and there's a lot of head-spinning recently in Boca Raton. FAU is on its third head coach in three years (Matt Doherty took the SMU job, and former Kansas star Rex Walters was promoted from assistant), its second conference in two (having migrated from the A-Sun), and the squad will enter the 2006-07 campaign with seven new faces. Woot!
Florida International: The 2005-06 Golden Panthers sported one of the flimsier offenses in the country as they slumped to an 8-20 record. They were near the bottom nationally in points per possession (0.867, 324th), and finished last in the Belt in field goal percentage (41 percent), free throws (60 percent), points per shot (.98), assists (11.9 per game) and turnover rate (24.6 percent). But the real bad news is that their best player, 6-6 Dominican dandy Ivan Almonte (14.7 ppg, 11.2 rpg), is out of eligibility. Senior 3-point threat Johwen Villegas (10.4 ppg) will bear a weight on his shoulders this season that's not only Floridian in size, but perhaps also international.
Louisiana-Lafayette: The Ragin' Cajuns are playing host to the conference tourney this year, which has been bad luck recently -- the past three hosts have been ejected in the first round. What's more, Robert Lee's squad is in rebuilding mode after a seven-win falloff to 13-16 after four straight 20-win seasons, and 58 percent of last year's scoring is gone. A large portion of the fall semester will be spent sifting through 10 new signees.
Louisiana-Monroe: You probably won't recognize league newcomers ULM, even if you were keeping tabs on their 10-18 (6-10 Southland) season. Because of an NCAA ruling, they're no longer the Indians and have ditched their old insignia, which used a feather to make up the long stem of the "L." So what's a Warhawk, exactly? Either buteo lineatus (a red-shouldered hawk indigenous to the area), an advocate of the War of 1812 with Great Britain, or a way to catch up on merchandising money after years of being saddled with one of the ugliest logos in Division I.
Middle Tennessee State: Western Kentucky might be scheduling for the postseason, but so are the Blue Raiders. Thanks to the abolition of NCAA rules that limit participation in preseason tournaments, their Paradise Jam opponents might include Villanova, Alabama, Iowa and/or Xavier. In addition to in-state dates with Memphis and A-Sun champs Belmont, MTSU also recently reached a long-term agreement to play the cross-state Tennessee Volunteers for the next five years.
New Orleans: One of coach Buzz Williams' first orders of business will be to improve the defense, which placed second-to-last in the Belt last season in terms of efficiency (1.028 points allowed per defensive possession). The Privateers finished last in rebounding (30.0 rpg) last year, but that might have to wait -- as of late August, there were only 10 players listed on UNO's roster. Seven are 6-3 and under, and two are 6-10 projects: sophomore Sami Badawi (0.8 rpg in eight games) and junior Ben Elias (coming off a redshirt).
North Texas: This season, UNT will go only as far as flashy senior guard and former Arkansas transfer Kendrick Davis (16.8 ppg) will take them, and their ceiling is likely the conference tourney's second round. But there's real hope for the future -- North Texas recently landed a top trickle-down transfer in small forward Roderick Flemings, who was a consensus top-25, four-star recruit on recruiting Web sites in 2005 before spending a year stuck on the Oklahoma State bench. He'll be eligible to join the Mean Green in 2007-08.
South Alabama: The NCAA measures year-over-year success with a formula called "differential" -- take the difference between the two seasons' wins, then the difference between the loss totals, add them together and divide by two. Got all that? If you squeeze Team USA through that equation, it scored a 12.5, leading all of Division I with a turnaround from 10-18 to 24-7. Staying on level will be difficult for John Pelphrey's league champs: They're in the tougher East division now, and only 53 percent of their scoring and 55 percent of their rebounding come back for 2006-07.
Troy: Consider the journey of Justin Jonus. The 6-5 3-point specialist left Alabama this past January after a playing-time dispute (but not before dropping 18 points on Memphis) and transferred to Birmingham-Southern of the Big South. Then BSC dropped to D-III, so Jonus moved on again. He'll be eligible to play in December at Troy, which might or might not have been named after the French word for "three" -- the Trojans once again led the world in 3-pointers (11.9 per game). Jonus and his 44 percent mark from behind the arc in 2005-06 will fit in trés bien.
Western Kentucky: The Toppers' secret weapon is 6-6 senior Benson Callier, a newcomer to the team last year who transferred in from Florida State. Callier, who sports an explosive vertical leap, scored 8.9 points per game but only needed 19.3 minutes per contest to get them. Consider instead that he scored 18.4 points per 40 minutes, a more accurate gauge of his contribution.
Our resident Bracketologist, Joe Lunardi, thinks Western Kentucky is ready to atone for last season's Sun Belt title game flameout and climb to the top again.
| 2005-06 Standings | ||
|---|---|---|
| Team | League record | Overall record |
| EAST | ||
| Western Kentucky | 12-2 | 23-8 |
| Middle Tennessee St. | 8-6 | 16-12 |
| Arkansas State | 7-7 | 12-18 |
| Arkansas-LR | 5-9 | 14-15 |
| Florida Int'l | 4-10 | 8-20 |
| WEST | ||
| South Alabama* | 12-3 | 24-7 |
| Denver | 7-8 | 16-15 |
| La.-Lafayette | 7-8 | 13-16 |
| North Texas | 6-9 | 14-14 |
| Troy | 6-9 | 14-15 |
| New Orleans | 6-9 | 10-19 |
| Expected leading returning scorers | |
|---|---|
| Player (Team) | 2004-05 PPG |
| Bo McCalebb (New Orleans) | 22.6* |
| Courtney Lee (WKU) | 17.4 |
| Kendrick Davis (North Texas) | 16.8 |
| Isaac Wells (Ark. State) | 14.4 |
| DaShawn Walker (Denver) | 13.4 |
Kyle Whelliston is the founder of midmajority.com and is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.
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