Why Davids Win, Goliaths Lose

Call it November Numbness.

Ball State beat Kansas and UCLA before losing to No. 1 Duke in the Maui Classic. Now the Cardinals are No. 16 in the Associated Press poll.

Western Kentucky is 17th after beating Kentucky in Rupp Arena.

Hampton and Davidson beat North Carolina in the Smith Center.

Eastern Washington beat a top-25 St. Joseph’s team. Weber State won the Big Island Invitational. Marquette and Gonzaga met in the Great Alaska Shootout final. And No. 2 Illinois couldn’t put away Southern Illinois until the final minute of the Las Vegas Invitational.

Is there really that little difference between the Big Boys and the so-called mid-majors anymore?

“I think it seems like this every November. Then again in March,” said Gonzaga Coach Mark Few, whose program is one of only three to make the NCAA Sweet 16 the past three years, along with Duke and Michigan State.

“The reason is, the ‘football schools’ are playing on neutral courts instead of parking themselves at home.”

Weber State Coach Joe Cravens loves the neutral-site tournaments.

“It would be very hard for us to go to Louisiana State or Colorado State and win, playing in front of their conference officials, 15,000 of their fans,” he said. “This gives programs like us and Ball State an opportunity to play on a level playing ground.”

But the upsets weren’t all in the 49th and 50th states or Las Vegas.

North Carolina and Kentucky were beaten at home--the Tar Heels twice.

The gap is clearly much narrower than it was.

“It’s probably been going on most of the last decade,” Cravens said. “The thing that helped the most was when they cut back from 15 to 13 scholarships [in the early 1990s]. There’s been a trickle-down effect.”

Ball State’s Tim Buckley agreed.

“Back when there were 15, maybe a higher-level program would take a guy who wasn’t developed and redshirt him. We’ve been able to get those guys, and they help right away.”

There is an NBA factor too.

“I think now there are fewer really good big men you have to go against,” Buckley said.

And a big man has always been the prize hardest for a less prominent program to land.

Western Kentucky recruited probable NBA lottery pick Chris Marcus when he had barely begun playing basketball, but has benefited as he bloomed.

“Guards are easier to recruit to lower Division I schools than big men,” said Cravens, a former Utah assistant. “Anybody who’s 6-9 or 6-10 is going to be highly recruited. But a lot of times you can pick up a good 6-foot, 6-1 guard.”

Ball State’s best player has been Patrick Jackson, a home-grown guard from Muncie, Ind., who was recruited mostly by Butler, George Washington and Clemson.

“His game has really developed over the last four years, and he’s really developed as a leader,” Buckley said.

“Our goal is projecting a guy who can develop over four years.”

So even if the top teams simply reload when players depart early for the NBA, some teams from less-regarded conferences seem to be keeping up.

“I think chemistry is so very important,” Buckley said. “Four years together, everybody gets the opportunity to know everybody.”

Gonzaga thrived on continuity with such leaders as Casey Calvary in seasons past, and now Dan Dickau, a fifth-year senior who transferred from Washington.

“One of the factors is being able to keep kids three, four years,” Few said. “I don’t care how talented the freshman coming into your program is. If he goes against a good player who’s a fourth-year senior, the senior has an advantage.”

What does it all mean?

Most people only want to know if such teams as Ball State and Western Kentucky will be around in March.

Buckley, an assistant on the 1993-94 Wisconsin team that made the NCAA tournament despite a losing conference record, believes Ball State would be wise to win the Mid-American Conference regular-season title. That would strengthen the Cardinals’ case if they’re beaten in the conference tournament. (Ball State can continue to build its case with a game at Indiana Dec. 8.)

Western Kentucky made the NCAA tournament last season. A big man of Marcus’s caliber should give the Hilltoppers an advantage despite a double-overtime loss to Creighton on Tuesday.

Other teams might be flashes in the pan.

Few have as much to overcome as Weber State, which will not play a home game in February because its arena is a media venue for the nearby Olympic curling competition. The Wildcats have a two-week gap with no games.

“It makes the hardest month of the season that much harder,” Cravens said. “We can’t let that be the highlight of our season, looking back and saying we won the Big Island Invitational.”

Carolina Blues

North Carolina’s troubles aren’t over.

Already 0-2 for the first time since Coach Matt Doherty was a player--that 1983 team went on to finish 28-8 --the Tar Heels play Indiana today, Georgia Tech on Sunday and at Kentucky Dec. 8.

The Tar Heels easily could be 0-5 before playing Binghamton Dec. 16.

Prescription for What Ails

An exhaustive plan for improving amateur basketball after a summit sponsored by the National Assn. of Basketball Coaches and a division of the L.A.-based Josephson Institute of Ethics proposes a long list of changes.

A few ideas especially worth implementing:

* Requiring credentialing and background checks for youth coaches.

* Discouraging financial incentives for winning games or championships unless there also are incentives for academics.

* Developing new methods for measuring graduation rates that don’t penalize schools for players who transfer or leave for the NBA.

And one that will never catch on:

* In a nod to the term “student-athlete,” it is recommended coaches be called “teacher-coach.”