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In the Big Dance, who leads? Nowadays, it's rarely seniors
The Cincinnati Enquirer
These are the players who drive some of the the best teams in the nation, provide the wisdom of experienced leadership, recognize where the ball needs to be in crucial circumstances and work to keep their teammates' emotion at a proper pitch. Each is a unifying force among his teammates. Each is at least a year from graduation. The "senior leader" is as antiquated as the manual typewriter, the black-and-white television and the rotary telephone. There still are some around, but they are growing harder to find and more difficult to explain. "I'd rather have talented seniors," says UAB coach Murry Bartow, whose team finished the regular season a disappointing 19-10 despite six seniors. "Just having seniors for seniors' sake is not what you'd want.
The idea it's better not to recruit elite talent out of high school and junior college because keeping a team together several years is more important may work for those who want to be good, but those in search of greatness understand it's necessary to cope with players who make up in talent what they lack in experience. In the past three NCAA championship games, nine of 30 starters were seniors -- just 1.5 per team. It's no different if you extrapolate those statistics to measure the Final Four teams in that period. No longer is the experienced senior an important ingredient to a successful college team, which is a good thing, because such players are increasingly rare. The only seniors among the No. 1 Duke Blue Devils are shooting guard Trajan Langdon, an All-American, and center Taymon Domzalski, who rarely plays. Connecticut has just one senior, defensive specialist Ricky Moore, in its lineup. Auburn has none. Of the five players named first-team All-American by The Associated Press, only two -- Utah's Andre Miller and Arizona's Jason Terry -- are seniors. Many of the underclassmen who could wind up this year in the Final Four - Duke's Elton Brand, UConn's Richard Hamilton, Ron Artest of St. John's -- may be in the NBA draft in June.
It may appear as though the trend toward underclassmen began with Michigan's Fab Five class of freshmen -- Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King and Ray Jackson -- who made an unprecedented run to the Final Four in 1992. They were too far out of the ordinary to be trend-setters, however, like Dennis Rodman and his taste in fashion. There have been no more situations in which teams whose only veterans are short-stint role players and whose starters are all playing their first year of college basketball reached the championship game. And there likely will not be. A more accurate model of the modern NCAA champion would be Arizona's 1997 team, which did not employ a senior in its two games at the Final Four in Indianapolis. Those Wildcats had a great freshman point guard in Mike Bibby, gifted sophomores Jason Terry and A.J. Bramlett, veteran juniors Miles Simon and Michael Dickerson and a first-year junior college transfer, Bennett Davison. Arizona took great advantage that year of the NBA-related departures of Erick Dampier and Dontae Jones of Mississippi State, Jerry Stackhouse and Rasheed Wallace of North Carolina, Marcus Camby of Massachusetts and especially Antoine Walker of Kentucky. UK reached the championship despite Walker's decision to turn professional following his sophomore season, but could have used his playmaking skills to complement forward Ron Mercer's shooting. Rick Pitino's final team lost in overtime to Arizona, 84-79, and then he, too, was off to the NBA. "I think that's something that at our level, the major college programs, that's one of the real commonalities that all the coaches share," UCLA coach Steve Lavin says. "You have to work on convincing your players, getting your players to buy into the fact that the more success teams have collectively, the more success the players will have." It was puzzling to watch Kentucky unravel in the last third of this regular season, or to see Xavier labor to develop some degree of consistency, or to consider UC's struggle to find a consistent leader at point guard. But that's only because we've been conditioned to believe the "senior" designation is the answer to any college basketball team's concerns. In fact, having seniors on the roster can cause nearly as many problem as it solves. As the Wildcats lost four of their final 10 games before the SEC tournament, seniors Scott Padgett, Wayne Turner and Heshimu Evans had their leadership and commitment challenged by coach Tubby Smith, as well as fans, in spite of the national title they won together less than 12 months earlier. Evans scored better than 15 points only twice in his final 16 games, Padgett just once in his last eight games. They combined for 11 15-point games in the season's first half. Turner, in his final six games, averaged 3.7 assists and 2.8 turnovers. UAB entered the year with six seniors and was considered one of Conference USA's strongest teams, but those seniors began questioning how coach Bartow used them and undermined the team's discipline. Forward Fred Williams missed a plane to Puerto Rico for a holiday tournament and was to be suspended for a game, but was allowed to play the second half of the tourney opener. Forward Willie Mitchell complained he was not being allowed to show off his three-point shooting touch. He hit 8-of-26 on the year. "Every kid who's pretty good thinks he can play in 'The League,' " says South Florida coach Seth Greenberg, whose brother Brad is a former NBA general manager. "That can kill a team, because they think The League is looking for stats. And the truth is, they're looking for guys who win, know how to play and are low maintenance." "It probably happens for everybody from time to time," says Minnesota coach Clem Haskins. "They start thinking about the cellular phones, the cars, the material things instead of playing for the university."
The factor that led to the dramatic change in the way college basketball is played is the NBA's rookie salary cap, instituted in 1995, which took away the incentive to remain in college long enough to be high first-round picks. The difference between being No. 1 in the draft and the final pick in the first round used to be as much as $65 million and a guaranteed position on the roster. The drive to earn that sort of contract kept such players as Penny Hardaway of Memphis, Shaquille O'Neal of LSU, Christian Laettner and Grant Hill of Duke and Glenn Robinson of Purdue in college basketball until they were assured they would be selected among the top five picks. This not only benefitted college basketball, but the NBA as well. Guard Larry Hughes, who left Saint Louis after one season in which he was exceptional but still shot just 40 percent from the field, is a reserve with the Philadelphia 76ers who is attempting to learn many of the game's lessons at the highest level. Hardaway, to whom Hughes often was compared, walked directly into stardom with the Orlando Magic and led them to the NBA Finals in his second season. With Hughes in its lineup, Saint Louis likely would have been a Top 25 team and a serious threat to advance in the tournament. Without him, the Billikens ended with a sub-.500 record. North Carolina's fall without forwards Antawn Jamison and Vince Carter was not as steep. Had they remained in Chapel Hill, however, there would have been no "Can anybody beat Duke?" questions asked this week.
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