Sunday, January 16, 2000
COLLEGE BASKETBALL INSIDER
Alford heads home, but is he welcome?
BY MIKE DeCOURCY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
There will be a big fuss this week in Indiana because Steve Alford is returning home and not everyone is making him feel welcome.
Alford, the former IU All-America guard, will coach Iowa against Indiana in a Big Ten Conference game Tuesday at Assembly Hall. It will be his first league game against his former coach, Bob Knight.
There will be TV cameras and newspaper reporters and plenty of pregame and postgame hype. The problem is, it's not likely the 7-7 Hawkeyes will be competitive against the 12-2 Hoosiers — Iowa can't make shots (.419 from the field) — and this scene is unlikely to match the surreal experience when Alford and Knight were seated at adjacent tables on Big Ten media day in November.
On the left, Knight refused to answer any questions on Alford's entry into the Big Ten. On the right, Alford said he did not understand why Knight would not communicate with him by note or by phone, but he accepted the situation and hoped it would change.
Going back and forth from one huddle to the other was like bouncing between eras, with Knight representing ESPN Classic and Alford representing The Deuce.
There are many theories about the genesis of the feud:
• Knight was upset when Alford got a standing ovation when he brought his Southwest Missouri State program to IU for a game two seasons ago.
• Knight felt Alford should have done more to distance himself from speculation he would become the successor to Knight's throne at IU.
• Knight was angered over Alford's interest in Hoosiers transfer Luke Recker. This is the most curious suggestion, since part of the evidence a feud exists is that Knight never called or wrote Alford to congratulate him on getting the Hawkeyes job, and that happened well before Recker decided to bolt from Bloomington.
In any case, the postgame handshake — if there is one — should be more intriguing than the game that precedes it.
FOOT FAULTS: Of all the teams bothered by injuries this season, perhaps none has been so obviously damaged as DePaul, with the broken foot suffered by power forward Lance Williams.
The Blue Demons were able to get by without him because freshman center Steven Hunter became more of an offensive threat than expected. But to compete at the top level of Conference USA, DePaul needs Williams' strength and dependability in the low post.
Since his return, Williams hasn't even been a shadow of what he was as a freshman. He was a combined 0-for-3 from the field at home against UNC Charlotte and Marquette — with the first game going into overtime and the second ending as an upset loss for the Demons. Williams is shooting .409 from the floor and averaging 4.0 points.
Coach Pat Kennedy wants to get Williams and Hunter on the floor more often. That could cause congestion on the interior of the DePaul offense, but Kennedy said he's got some double-post sets that will accommodate the two players.
“The thing that concerns me is not so much on the offensive end; the biggest thing has been what we can go to defensively,” Kennedy said. He doesn't want to align the Demons too frequently in zone defense because of the number of good shooters in C-USA.
BAD BET: Citing an abundance of on-campus gambling scandals, two U.S. senators are introducing a bill that would ban legalized gambling on intercollegiate sporting events.
College basketball has been hit with three point-shaving probes in the past five years, with convictions coming at Northwestern and Arizona State.
If it seems like a noble idea to get rid of gambling in college sports in the betting Mecca of Nevada, the problem with this suggestion is that legal sports books were largely responsible for bringing to light previous problems. The gaming industry has a tremendous stake in assuring that games on which it accepts action are being contested cleanly. If there's a fix, the industry loses the house edge, and that edge is worth millions.
If the government gets rid of legal gambling, what back-room bookmaker is going to make a public stir when he sees a betting trend that suggests a game is not on the up-and-up?
GIANT FOR ANDRE: The NCAA reversed perhaps the most heinous eligibility ruling in its history when the Student-Athlete Reinstatement Committee determined that Oklahoma State freshman forward Andre Williams may rejoin the Cowboys.
Williams, a 6-foot-8 power forward who was averaging 5.4 points, 6.3 rebounds and 1.7 blocks, was suspended for a year by the NCAA and ordered to repay $20,000 because he had his prep school tuition paid by the sponsor of his club basketball team, businessman Tom Grant of Kansas City.
Williams sat out five games while his case was being appealed, and that will stand as his suspension. He'll have to pay back only $5,000 over the next four years.
In amending its ruling, the NCAA said one factor was “that Williams was unaware of any wrongdoing.” No wonder he was unaware. Club coaches have been paying private school tuition for players in their programs for nearly two decades without a word being said by the NCAA.
With a push on to remove the summer club programs from the recruiting process, Williams was being served up to future players as an example. It's nice that someone in the NCAA remembered he's a person.
AU-BURNED: There was a fairly substantial controversy in the Southeastern Conference last week when Georgia coach Jim Harrick suggested Auburn does not have the requisite guard play to compete for a national championship.
Harrick owns an NCAA title and took both UCLA and Rhode Island to the Elite Eight in the 1990s, so he is qualified to offer his opinions.
Auburn gets a combined 19.6 points from guards Doc Robinson and Scott Pohlman. Together, they are shooting 34-of-110 from 3-point range.
Harrick is not alone in his assessment of Auburn's team. Southern Mississippi held the Tigers to 56 points and .390 shooting in a six-point loss late last month, and Golden Eagles coach James Green made similar comments this week.
“Auburn has good players,” Green said, “but they're a bit more one-dimensional. They're sometimes easier to guard that way.”
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