March 15, 2010
South Dakota looks to overcome the odds
by John Stansberry
Most folks wouldn't expect to find a school in the
third season of a transition from Division II to
Division I playing postseason basketball.
But winning basketball is a tradition at South
Dakota, so the school's fans aren't surprised at all
to find their team competing in the
CollegeInsider.com tournament (CIT) on Tuesday
against Creighton.
Since arriving in Vermillion in 1988, Dave Boots has
posted 465 victories and led the Coyotes to fifteen
straight 20-win seasons.
That includes the current campaign that has South
Dakota sitting at 22-9 after winning the Great West
tournament this past weekend.
The winner of the tournament was slated to receive
an automatic bid to the CIT. After dominating the
league all season, South Dakota was most certainly a
deserving recipient.
But the Coyotes can't rest on their laurels for long
as they get set to play at Creighton. Traditionally,
trips to Omaha have almost always ended in failure
for South Dakota teams.
Creighton is a mindboggling 31-1 all-time at home
against USD, with 21 of those games being
double-digit victories. Only a school like Clemson,
mired in a 54-game losing streak at North Carolina,
can sympathize with USD's plight.
But unlike Clemson's torture, none of South Dakota's
pain is recent in nature. USD and Creighton last
played way back in 1968, so this Coyote team
actually has a great shot at starting a new chapter
in the series.
Senior forward Tyler Cain will be looking to extend
his USD career by at least one more game. He
surpassed the 1,000 point and 1,000 rebound marks
this season and was named Great West Player of the
Year by both CollegeInsider.com and the Sporting
News.
Center Steve Smith also passed the 1,000 point mark
himself this season. For him, the visit to Creighton
brings his college career full circle.
He began his playing days with Creighton back in
2004 but leg and back injuries kept him sidelined
for most of his first two years in Omaha. Seeing the
writing on the wall there, he transferred to USD.
The injuries limited him in his first two seasons in
Vermillion, and he played last season with a torn
labrum and a torn rotator cuff that required
offseason surgery.
The fact that Smith even stuck around long enough to
make this trip back to his old haunts really is a
testament to perseverance.
And perseverance is what it'll take to beat a
Creighton team that, at least on paper, has a deeper
bench and a stout home court advantage.
A South Dakota win will most certainly be tabbed as
an upset, but would it really be? A team that's
forced itself into postseason play this quickly is
pretty damn good.
Feb. 22, 2010
The Long and Winding Road
by John Stansberry
This feature also appeared on
FoxSports.com
The Great West Conference might have a very specific
geographic reference in its title, but it's truly a
league with a national scope.
By stretching from New Jersey to the Dakotas and
down to Utah and Houston, the Great West has made
sure that none of its members have the cushy road
trips that are a hallmark of other less expansive
leagues.
In the ACC, North Carolina and Duke are separated by
about 15 miles, and for either school it's a short
drive over to NC State. Mississippi State is roughly
75 miles away from both its primary SEC rivals,
Alabama and Ole Miss. And while the Big East has
some monster trips, Seton Hall only has to drive 14
miles to play St. John's in Madison Square Garden
and just a couple miles more to play Rutgers.
The shortest road trip you'll find in the Great West
is the 348 mile round trip from South Dakota to
North Dakota. Houston Baptist benefits from the
league's second shortest distance between Great West
rivals, it's a 582 mile round trip to play Texas-Pan
American.
After that, the miles start piling up in a hurry.
When you throw in non-conference road games against
the likes of Boise State, Michigan and Middle
Tennessee, here's how things stack up this season
for Houston Baptist:
From Houston, TX to Ann Arbor, MI - 2,160 miles
(round trip)
From Houston, TX to Natchitoches, LA - 386 miles
(round trip)
From Houston, TX to New Orleans, LA - 634 miles
(round trip)
From Houston, TX to Boise, ID - 1,491 miles
From Boise, ID to Omaha, NE - 1,359 miles
From Omaha, NE to Houston, TX - 792 miles
From Houston, TX to Memphis, TN - 972 miles (round
trip)
From Houston, TX to Dallas, TX - 225 miles
From Dallas, TX to Arlington, TX - 18 miles
From Arlington, TX to Houston, TX - 227 miles
From Houston, TX to Chicago, IL - 1,880 miles (round
trip)
From Houston, TX to Orem, UT - 2,344 miles (round
trip)
From Houston, TX to Edinburg, TX - 582 miles (round
trip)
From Houston, TX to Murfreesboro, TN - 1,336 miles
(round trip)
From Houston, TX to Newark, NJ - 2,822 miles (round
trip)
From Houston, TX to Grand Forks, ND 1,258 miles
From Grand Forks, ND To Vermillion, SD - 348 miles
From Vermillion, SD to Houston, TX - 911 miles
That's 19,745 miles worth of travel...and that
doesn't include another trip to Orem for the Great
West Tournament in March.
Feb. 10, 2010
Tradition-Challenged in the Windy City
by John Stansberry
This feature also appeared on
FoxSports.com
As college basketball programs go, Chicago State is
somewhat, well, "tradition challenged," for lack of
a better term.
The school has only had a men's program since the
1966-67 season, and it wasn't until 1984-85 that it
made the jump to Division I. The Cougars' record
since then has been an underwhelming 202-502.
Last season Chicago State didn't get a postseason
bid despite posting a 19-13 record. In fact, the
school has NEVER made a postseason appearance.
The closest CSU ever came was its last season as a
member of the Mid-Continent back in 2005-06. The
Cougars advanced all the way to the Mid-Con Tourney
final as a sixth seed before falling to top seeded
Oral Roberts by an 85-72 count.
Since then, life as an independent wasn't taking the
program anywhere it wanted to go, so that's why
joining the Great West Conference this season was so
important. In hoops, there's definitely strength in
numbers.
While an NCAA Tournament bid isn't available to the
league just yet, there's still a postseason brass
ring. The of this year's Great West tourney will get
an automatic bid to the CollegeInsider.com
Tournament.
For a school like CSU, such a bid would mark a new
era for the program. However, year one in the Great
West hasn't been a smooth ride for head coach Benjy
Taylor's team.
Coming into this campaign, the Cougars returned only
one starter (forward Carl Montgomery) off of a team
that set school records for points scored (2,869)
and total rebounds (1,289).
That inexperience was a big factor in the nine-game
losing streak that the Cougars endured from late
December into January. The last four of those losses
were the team's first four Great West games, all of
which happened to be on the road.
But CSU appears to have righted the ship in the last
week by getting into the positive columin in league
play with wins over Utah Valley and Texas-Pan
American.
Although the Cougars are currently in the conference
cellar, Taylor's team appears to have weathered the
storm and created some positive momentum.
Leading the resurgence has been Montgomery, who
posted two double-doubles last week en route to
being named Great West Player of the Week. He's
arguably playing the best basketball in the league
right now.
Also heating up in recent weeks has been combo
threat Kabangu Tshinga Kasamba. The 6-5 tweener has
posted four consecutive double digit scoring efforts
after averaging 3.2 points in the six games before
that.
Due to the quirkiness of the inaugurial Great West
schedule, CSU has two upcoming games against first
place South Dakota. That'll tell us a lot about this
team's prospects headed into the conference tourney.
But regardless of how things shake out this season,
this program now seems poised to break into the
postseason in the very near future.
A big reason for that is Taylor's ability to recruit
the talent-rich area right around the school. There
are 10 players on the current roster who hail from
Chicagoland, eight of whom cut their teeth as preps
in the tough Chicago Public League.
It seems that after 25 years in Division I, Chicago
State is finally ready to start building some
tradition. And it'll have a distinctly local flavor.
Feb. 3, 2010
Can Houston Baptist and Texas-Pan American keep it
up in the Great West?
by John Stansberry
This feature also appeared on
FoxSports.com
Handicapping a league race in college hoops isn't
the simplest endeavor, but it's not exactly rocket
science, either. Any given league has a core group
of three or four solid contenders from which the
best of breed can usually be chosen.
But in the case of the Great West Conference, those
rules don't really apply this season. When it's year
one for a league, the contenders and pretenders are
a little harder to discern.
While South Dakota and Utah Valley have shown
flashes of great play entering the conference
season, neither of those teams sits atop the early
Great West standings.
Nope, the early leaders out of the gate are Houston
Baptist and Texas Pan-American, both of which are
sitting on 2-0 league marks.
While life in non-conference play this season has
been very unkind at times for the Huskies and Broncs
(HBU dropped a 93-52 decision to Memphis while UTPA
absorbed a 100-44 beating at the hands of Missouri),
they've still emerged as the last two Great West
squads with unblemished marks in league play.
In one of the quirkiest starts to a conference
schedule this season, HBU and UTPA have gotten a leg
up on their Great West competitors despite sporting
a combined overall record of 6-33.
Those numbers aren't pretty, but hey, that's all
water under the bridge now. Their perfect starts in
Great West play represent new leases on life. The
big question is this...can these teams sustain it?
For Houston Baptist, it might be a matter of whether
or not forward Mario Flaherty can keep up his
productivity against Great West foes. His numbers in
HBU's two league wins: 24.5 ppg, 11 rpg, 3 bpg and
60% shooting from the field.
In the case of UTPA, junior college transfer Matt
Mierzyckt needs to keep up the steady improvement
he's shown since making his debut back on December
7. He's come off the bench to average 14.5 in the
Broncs' two conference wins.
In terms of overall team play, both squads need to
get tougher on the defensive end to remain factors
in the Great West race. Out of 347 Division I teams,
stat guru Ken Pomeroy currently has HBU ranked 293rd
and UTPA 302nd in defensive efficiency.
Conference road games are never easy, and both teams
are back loaded with those. The Huskies and Broncs
both finish their regular season slates playing six
of their final eight Great West contests in opposing
gyms.
John Stansberry is in his thirteenth season as
a senior writer for collegeinsider.com. Check out
John's blog
LonelyTailgater.com.
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