A March to Madness With Different Twist

Kent State is a March darling and guard Trevor Huffman is finding celebrity has its price.

“I went to get some chicken wings and I couldn’t even eat them,” he said. “People thought they knew me. They started eating my chicken wings. I was like, ‘I don’t know you. Stop eating my chicken wings!’”

A year after upsetting Indiana in the first round, the Golden Flashes are back and they are better.

They have beaten Oklahoma State and Alabama, teams that were in the top 10 at one point, and they play Pittsburgh today in an NCAA South Regional semifinal game the Golden Flashes might be capable of winning.

If they do, they’ll join such so-called mid-majors as Rhode Island in 1998, Gonzaga in 1999 and Tulsa in 2000 by making the Elite Eight.

What is remarkable is Kent State has reached this point despite a bumpy coaching transition, a 4-4 start and a shooting slump that Huffman shook off by, um ... well, by watching Oprah Winfrey’s show.

“Yeah, Oprah helped me out,” said Huffman, a 6-foot-1 senior who is on a 12-game tear, averaging 19 points and shooting 53% from three-point range during that stretch.

“I just wanted to regroup and I was watching Oprah. My roommate said, ‘What are you doing, man?’ But Marsha the Life Coach was helping moms de-stress their lives. I used some of the same techniques.

“I cleaned up my room. Not sparkling. But I took all my clothes I don’t wear to Goodwill. I decluttered my life.”

He laughs as he tells the story.

“To all the guys out there, I haven’t seen the show since,” he said.

He hasn’t seen a loss since then, either, breaking out of his slump during Kent State’s 20-game winning streak.

“I was just feeling the expectations, the pressure of trying to lead my team to the same place as last year,” Huffman said. “It’s a difficult thing to stay on top season after season.”

The degree of difficulty is even higher when a team loses its coach.

Gary Waters left for Rutgers after the second-round loss to Cincinnati last year.

Enter Stan Heath, who had been an assistant to Tom Izzo at Michigan State.

Before the players were used to calling him “Coach,” Kent State had lost to Hofstra.

By the time the Golden Flashes lost to Youngstown State on the way to that 4-4 start, they knew they had problems.

“We were just so loyal to Coach Waters and that staff,” Huffman said. “It was a difficult transition. After we went 4-4, we knew we had to get together. The seniors made a stand.”

They had to buy into a new offensive system and a new style.

“We couldn’t press any more and we were all used to going up and down,” Huffman said. “It took some getting used to.”

When Waters, their former coach, phoned some of the players, they finally came around.

“The call was on Christmas,” guard Andrew Mitchell said. “To hear Coach Waters’ voice on Christmas morning was probably the greatest thing in the world. You know, it’s a familiar voice. He just took us all back to the basics and asked us why we were playing this game, because we love it, or what.

“At that point we realized, somebody we’d been with really cares about us and is still watching. We just did what we needed to get the team going in the right direction.”

They quit resisting the changes Heath had installed and started playing his way.

“We knew Coach Heath had been on a staff that had achieved a lot of things our team wanted to do,” Mitchell said. “He’d coached in the Final Four. He’d coached in the championship game.”

Now he’s back in the Sweet 16, but no longer as an assistant.

Heath, 37, has the look of a rising star.

He spent five years as an assistant at Michigan State, reaching the Final Four three times and winning the 2000 title.

But he had roots in the Mid-American Conference as a former assistant at Bowling Green who had played at Eastern Michigan.

“It is very underrated,” Heath said of the MAC, which has only one team in the tournament despite a proven record against major teams.

“How a league can get multiple teams in the NCAA is beyond me. We did some things as a conference that are very deserving. With Ball State beating Kansas, one of the No.1 teams in the country, and beating UCLA.

“With Bowling Green beating Ole Miss, with so many impressive nonconference wins, hopefully that woke up some eyes and let people know there are some quality teams.

“There’s no question, if Bowling Green and Ball State were in this tournament they would have done extremely well. I’m just a firm believer that we need to open up some doors to teams like Kent State, to Bowling Green, to Ball State.

“You know, who’s to say, if we lost to Marshall [in the MAC tournament quarterfinals], we might not be sitting here right now, and I think that would be a travesty.”

Coaching Moves

Bob Bender was forced out at Washington this week, a move that clearly was difficult for Athletic Director Barbara Hedges because she hired Bender and was close to his family.

But Bender--who came this close to reaching the Elite Eight in 1998 before Richard Hamilton gave Connecticut a one-point victory on a tip-in in the final moments--never made much progress.

This was Washington’s third consecutive losing season and the Huskies never recovered after Todd MacCulloch completed his eligibility. Dan Dickau’s transfer to Gonzaga was another blow, and Senque Carey transferred to New Mexico.

Plus, Oregon’s Luke Ridnour is a Washington native, as is Dickau.

Names that will be bandied about include St. Louis Coach Lorenzo Romar, who played at Washington, as well as Gonzaga’s Mark Few, Missouri’s Quin Snyder, who is from Mercer Island, Wash., and Pittsburgh’s Ben Howland.

Howland, a national coach-of-the-year candidate, said he intends to stay at Pittsburgh, where his daughter, Meredith, will be a freshman next year and a new arena will open next season.

“I’m in the process right now of signing a new long-term commitment with the University of Pittsburgh and that will probably be consummated and done when I get back early next week,” Howland said.

Richardson Mess

The saga of Nolan Richardson’s departure as Arkansas coach got messier this week with the release of Chancellor John White’s notes on his meeting with Richardson and Frank Broyles.

Little Rock television station KATV posted the transcript on its Web site, with White’s notes revealing Richardson believed Broyles had been seeking to fire him and that he had plans for a book that would be critical of Broyles.

“When I finish telling everything about you [Frank], your legacy will never be the same,” White quoted Richardson as saying.

Richardson also threatened a court battle that would raise racial issues, White wrote, quoting Richardson:

“You’re going to find out what trouble is. You haven’t seen anything yet. Just wait. We will take this state back to 1957. There will be picketing all around here.... You’ll have to have tanks in the parking lots.”

Richardson also elaborated on his belief he was treated differently than white coaches at the school, including football Coach Houston Nutt.

“[Richardson] said that if Houston had a player that got in trouble, he might make him miss a game, but if Nolan’s players did something they had to be suspended for a semester. He said that the media treated Houston differently, too.

“He said if one of Houston’s players did something wrong, then Houston was given credit for working with them. But, if one of Nolan’s black players did anything wrong, they were labeled by the media as ... thugs.”

University President B. Alan Sugg is reviewing Richardson’s termination, but issued a statement saying no announcement would be made Wednesday.

The Pod System

The NCAA was generally pleased with its new attempt to keep some teams closer to home for the first two rounds, but the situation that allowed sixth-seeded Texas to play in Dallas against third-seeded Mississippi State is widely being cited as a flaw.

“People should not have an opportunity that others don’t have unless it’s an earned opportunity,” Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski said.

There were fewer objections to top-seeded Maryland playing in Washington, D.C., for example.

Krzyzewski also questioned situations that allow a team to have one more day of rest than its Sweet 16 opponent if it played a Saturday second-round game and its next opponent played a Sunday game.

The National Assn. of Basketball Coaches will address the system at its Final Four meetings, and meet with the NCAA about the issue in May.

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