IT WAS supposed to be another one of those rites of early NCAA passage.
You know the drill: Big-name heavy weight with a glamour-conference pedigreeyawns, stretches and barely breaks a sweat while demolishing a likable but hopelessly outmanned first- round foe nobody heard of from a conference nobody heard of.
The winning coach graciously praises Cinderella for being scrappy and having nothing to be ashamed of, Cinderella goes home with a fat TV-revenue pay check and a folder full of press clippings arid every body?s happy.
Unless, of course, you?re Southern University vs. ACC champion Georgia Tech in the 1993 West Regional.
Even Southern faithful expected a quick trip to the University of Arizona?s McHale Center and an equally quick trip back home. By most accounts, Southern wasn?t even the best team in its own conference ? Southern ambushed the Southwestern Athletic Conference regular-season champ, Jackson State, in the SWAC Tournament finals.
SOUTHERN EXPOSURE
By ROSCOE NANCE
Almost everyone thought it was a match made in hell for the 13th-seeded Jaguars, whose offensive philosophy was shoot until you get tired, then shoot some more.
Meanwhile, No. 4 seed Georgia Tech was coming off an impressive, in-your-face upset of eventual national champion North Carolina in the ACC Tournament final and was a 13-point favorite in a game that was supposed to be nothing more than a tune-up for headier competition later in the NCAAs.
When Southern fell behind by 14 points in the first half, those in the crowd of 13,532 who thought the Jaguars didn?t have a snowball?s chance before the game began ? which was about all 13,532 of them ? were filling in the next brackets on their tournament seeding charts and making dinner plans.
Then Southern ate Georgia Tech?s lunch.
The Jaguars found their composure and only trailed 44-39 at the half. They scored the first six points of the second half to go up 45-44, and began winning over the crowd with the help of their pep band, which left Arizona a whole lot funkier than it found it.
With the game tied at 59 with 12:56 left, Leonard White rammed home a dunk for a 61-59 lead and Southern did not trail again.
From that point on, said one observer, the game may as well have been in Baton Rouge, La.
Southern mounted a 15-2 run, drowning the Yellow Jackets in a rainstorm of 3-pointers en route to a 93-78 victory that sportscasters like to call a ?shocker? and a ?stunner? and Georgia Tech faithful found just plain embar-rassing.
?They caught us at a great time,? says Georgia Tech coach Bobby Cremins. ?We were tired coming off the ACC Tournament. They went ahead. The momentum shifted and we just couldn?t catch up. They started hitting those threes.
?They did a fantastic job. I know (Southern coach) Ben (Jobe?s) style, so I wasn?t surprised the way they play. It happens all the time.?
Maybe not all the time. But it did happen again a few hours later, when Jackson State, the team Southern beat out in the SWAC, did a number on Big East member Connecticut in the National Invitation Tournament, 90- 88 in overtime ? on the Huskies? home court, no less.
What?s more, Tennessee State and Coppin State also qualified for the NCAA Tournament, capping a water shed year for black Division I schools and raising the ages-old question: Can black schools compete in the NCAAs?
Last year the answer was a resounding yes. Black schools
not only could hold their own, they could kick some Division I butt in the process. But could the good thing possibly last or was this an aberration? A historical quirk?
Will it be business as usual in 1993-94, with black schools getting their collective feelings hurt in postseason play?
?That?s the question I?ve been asked countless times,? says Jackson State coach Andy Stoglin. ?After what happened last year, this is the most important year for black colleges. You can beat anyone on a given night. You can have a good season. But to have a good program you have to do it in succession.?
That?s something no black school has been able to do since Alcorn State ruled the SWAC from the late ?70s to the mld-?80s.
But for all of Alcorn?s successes, beating Mississippi State (80-78) and playing Indiana close (73-69) in the 1979 NIT, plus winning first-round games in the NCAATournament in 1980, 1983 and 1984, the Braves never beat a Top 20 team.
?Somebody needs to beat two or three Top 20 pro- grams for people to take us seriously,? says Stoglin. ?It doesn?t have to be Southern or Jackson State. All we need is two or three (black schools) to beat some people who are paying us for games that they?re supposed to win.?
Jackson State nearly met Stoglin?s quota last season. The Tigers defeated Tulane, ranked No. 20 at the time, 92- 84 and suffered close losses to Kansas (93-85), Memphis State (81-78) and Illinois (85-81).
They also beat Southwestern Louisiana 87-85 and Fordham 67-43.
The biggest shocker: A 90-88 overtime victory at Connecticut in the first round of the NIT.
The common thread in those games was that they were all either on the other teams? home court or at a neutral site.
Having to play on the road against high-profile opponents has played almost as important a role in blunting black schools? success as anything.
Most coaches agree that until they can play the powerhouse schools on a home-and-home basis, they?ll continue to lag behind.
?They just won?t do it (play home-and-home),? says Stoglin. ?That?s why it?s hard for us to have a 25-win season. It?s hard to beat a nationally ranked team on their floor with their officials. If we can?t play people on our floor, what chance do we have??
The most common explanation for not playing home- and-home is that black schools lack adequate facilities to make such arrangements economically feasible. Stoglin says that?s a cop-out.
?They know when we have good teams, they can?t afford to play us,? he says. ?If they lose, they?ll get fired. When you?re a mid-major and black, you have less money and you?re not supposed to beat them.?
Jackson State and Southern both seem to be victims of their own success. Stoglin says Tulane cancelled its contract after last season?s loss.
Southern coach Ben Jobs points out that, with 13 basketball-playing Division I schools in Louisiana, the Jaguars shouldn?t have to leave the state to play their non-conference schedule. But that?s not the case. Other than cross-town rival Louisiana State ? which will only play on its home court ? only Southeastern Louisiana will schedule Southern, and that?s because Jobe and Southeastern Louisiana coach Don Wilson are friends.
Southern also will play the University of New Orleans in a Sugar Bowl Tournament game that will be televised by ESPN. Otherwise, don?t call us
?We?ve been to the NCAAs four of the last five years and the NIT once,? says Jobe. ?Each time you win, it gets more difficult to schedule games. You can always schedule the Dukes and UCLAs. But to schedule people on our own level, which the NCAA advocates, they won?t do it.
?There?s no reason for us not to be playing those (other Louisiana) schools. They can?t afford to lose to us. They say the alumni are in an uproar. It used to frustrate me.
But now I understand the system.?
Says Northeast Louisiana coach Mike Vining: ?We?re like everybody else. We try to play a couple of big-money games. If you?re going to risk losing, you want it to be against a big name. We?re trying to make a name, too.?
That rationale only adds to Jobe?s pessimism.
?People would like to believe this is the start of some thing new,? Jobe says. ?But you have to realize the power structure, and the power brokers (the bigger schools) in athletics have the ability to change the rules. If this is a trend, the rules will change. We?re living in a capitalistic society. The rich get rich, and the poor get poorer.?
That?s a universal refrain.
?Like anything else, black or whatever, the commitment has to be there in terms of budget,? says Georgia Tech?s Cremins. ?They?ve got to have the budget, if not of the highest Division I schools, of the middle Division I schools. It?s no question they can compete.?
Cremins says his heart goes out to men like Jobe and former North Carolina A&T coach Gene Littles, both of whom coached with Cremins, and both of whom are capable of developing highly competitive programs but lack the necessary resources and support.
?I was upset at A&T for not making a total commitment to Littles,? Cremins says. ?I felt he could have taken A&T to the Top 20. They had the facilities and they?re in a good location. Ben and Gene told me they don?t have recruiting money or assistants that the other schools do.
?They?d know about great players but couldn?t recruit them. When you have quality, you have to make a commit-ment. Money dictates a lot of things. One of these schools could break through, but there are money problems.?
In recent years, Cremins says, he has seen more coaches from black schools on the recruiting trail.
?That?s good,? he says. ?It seems they?re trying to make a commitment.?
Cremins says it would frustrate him to hear Jobe and Littles talk about the problems they encountered. There has been some improvement over the years, but the problems persist.
?Until administrators want to do it the right way, there are going to be problems,? says Howard coach Butch Beard, a former NBA player. ?When I first came in, I didn?t know we had some very good players (in black schools). They?re better coached than I thought. The perception (in the NBA) had been that the coaches just let the kids run up and down the court. That?s not true. The coaching has gotten to be good.?
Problem is, nobody knows about it because black schools get so little exposure.
?Television has a lot to do with what goes on in people?s minds,? says Beard. ?You have to put money into the program and get it on TV. Until black schools make that commitment, things won?t change.?
In the meantime, it?s an uphill struggle, especially in recruiting.
?When you?re recruiting, you sell yourself as an individual, then (you sell) the school,? says Beard. ?It?s easier to sell myself to parents. But kids don?t see me on TV. They see John Thompson and Coach K (Duke?s Mike Krzyzewski). You have to sell them on the idea that you can help make them better, that this is a special situation and they have to be special because we?re trying to build tradition.?
Says Jackson State?s Stoglin: ?Kids are gullible. If the Fab Five had gone to Jackson State or Alcorn (instead of Michigan), they?d still be the Fab Five and their team would have been in the Top 20.?
And it wouldn?t be such a big deal for a black school to win a postseason game ? or a national championship, for that matter.
?Every school has enough athletes but you get to hear about the big schools? players more,? says Jervaughn Scales, Southern?s 6-9 senior forward who is the top returning rebounder in the nation after finishing No. 2 last season with a 12.7 average.
?When someone talks about you, your confidence is up. You feel nobody is better. When you?re No. 1 or No. 2, you?re supposed to play that way. It gives you an edge.?
Scales scored 27 points, grabbed 18 rebounds and was named the Chevrolet Player of the Game for his performance against Georgia Tech.
He says he didn?t go to that game to lose. But now he admits that his confidence ebbed before tipoff.
?I was intimidated, the way they talked about Georgia Tech, and seeing them on TV,? Scales says. ?Usually, when we play teams like that, they do what they want to against us. It didn?t happen this time.?
When Scales returned home to Dayton, Ohio, he got to experience briefly the adulation that athletes from better- publicized programs routinely receive. And, frankly, he says, it felt pretty good.
Wherever he went, people congratulated him and said how proud they were of him.
?I felt like a little celebrity,? he says. ?They (athletes at other schools) feel like that all the time. We feel that way every once in while. Don?t get me wrong. There are a lot of good players at those schools and they deserve the attention they get. But some are average and no better than the players at black schools.?
Southern and Jackson State made that perfectly clear last season.
?We opened a lot of doors for others,? says Scales. ?A lot of us have a lot of confidence now. Black colleges may not have all of the best talent. But the coaches and the players do a good job.?
Adds Jackson State guard John Taylor, a three-year starter: ?In the past we were looking just to play each other (within the conference). Now we feel like playing the big schools is just as important. Before, we had been beating each other. Playing the big schools the way we did gave us good confidence. We went into games to win. Before, we were playing not to lose.?
?We wanted to prove that we can be a Top 50-, Top 25- caliber team,? says Jackson State forward David Simmons. ?We wanted to show we?re a team that has to be taken into account ? that we?re not just a run-and-gun team. I think in the end people really respected us and that?s what we really wanted.
However, respecting a Jackson State or a Southern means very little in the overall picture. Until the MEAC and SWAC are respected as conferences, nothing much will change when NCAA Tournament selection time comes.
Had the SWAC not been so lightly regarded by the selection committee, both Southern and Jackson State might have made the 64-team field.
In fact, Stoglin says, four SWAC teams were as good as Jackson State in ?93.
Judging from some of last season?s results, he may be right. Even though Mississippi Valley State finished under .500, the Delta Devils took the Tigers to the wire twice, losing 91-89 in overtime in Itta Bena and 94-92 in Jackson.
On the other hand, Kansas blew Out Mississippi Valley 94-46.
?Some schools don?t have the big-school mentality,? says Jackson State?s Simmons. ?They feel that the big schools have this and the big schools have that, and they can?t compete with them. We have to make the best of what we have.?
Side Notes: (The notes accompanied pictures of the players).
Jervaughn Scales scores two of his game-high 27 points against Georgia Tech in Southern?s stunning 93-78 victory in the NCAA Tournament.
SWAG upstarts Southern and Jackson State kick butt and take names against NGAA blue bloods.
Hooping it up:
Southern all-America strong safety Sean Wallace and starting free safety Jabber Juluke cheer on their basketball counter- parts.
Godfrey Thompson scored 15 points in the Tigers? 90-88 victory.
_________________________________________________________________
This article was taken from the 1993 Fall Edition of Sports View Magazine.
_________________________________________________________________
You know the drill: Big-name heavy weight with a glamour-conference pedigreeyawns, stretches and barely breaks a sweat while demolishing a likable but hopelessly outmanned first- round foe nobody heard of from a conference nobody heard of.
The winning coach graciously praises Cinderella for being scrappy and having nothing to be ashamed of, Cinderella goes home with a fat TV-revenue pay check and a folder full of press clippings arid every body?s happy.
Unless, of course, you?re Southern University vs. ACC champion Georgia Tech in the 1993 West Regional.
Even Southern faithful expected a quick trip to the University of Arizona?s McHale Center and an equally quick trip back home. By most accounts, Southern wasn?t even the best team in its own conference ? Southern ambushed the Southwestern Athletic Conference regular-season champ, Jackson State, in the SWAC Tournament finals.
SOUTHERN EXPOSURE
By ROSCOE NANCE
Almost everyone thought it was a match made in hell for the 13th-seeded Jaguars, whose offensive philosophy was shoot until you get tired, then shoot some more.
Meanwhile, No. 4 seed Georgia Tech was coming off an impressive, in-your-face upset of eventual national champion North Carolina in the ACC Tournament final and was a 13-point favorite in a game that was supposed to be nothing more than a tune-up for headier competition later in the NCAAs.
When Southern fell behind by 14 points in the first half, those in the crowd of 13,532 who thought the Jaguars didn?t have a snowball?s chance before the game began ? which was about all 13,532 of them ? were filling in the next brackets on their tournament seeding charts and making dinner plans.
Then Southern ate Georgia Tech?s lunch.
The Jaguars found their composure and only trailed 44-39 at the half. They scored the first six points of the second half to go up 45-44, and began winning over the crowd with the help of their pep band, which left Arizona a whole lot funkier than it found it.
With the game tied at 59 with 12:56 left, Leonard White rammed home a dunk for a 61-59 lead and Southern did not trail again.
From that point on, said one observer, the game may as well have been in Baton Rouge, La.
Southern mounted a 15-2 run, drowning the Yellow Jackets in a rainstorm of 3-pointers en route to a 93-78 victory that sportscasters like to call a ?shocker? and a ?stunner? and Georgia Tech faithful found just plain embar-rassing.
?They caught us at a great time,? says Georgia Tech coach Bobby Cremins. ?We were tired coming off the ACC Tournament. They went ahead. The momentum shifted and we just couldn?t catch up. They started hitting those threes.
?They did a fantastic job. I know (Southern coach) Ben (Jobe?s) style, so I wasn?t surprised the way they play. It happens all the time.?
Maybe not all the time. But it did happen again a few hours later, when Jackson State, the team Southern beat out in the SWAC, did a number on Big East member Connecticut in the National Invitation Tournament, 90- 88 in overtime ? on the Huskies? home court, no less.
What?s more, Tennessee State and Coppin State also qualified for the NCAA Tournament, capping a water shed year for black Division I schools and raising the ages-old question: Can black schools compete in the NCAAs?
Last year the answer was a resounding yes. Black schools
not only could hold their own, they could kick some Division I butt in the process. But could the good thing possibly last or was this an aberration? A historical quirk?
Will it be business as usual in 1993-94, with black schools getting their collective feelings hurt in postseason play?
?That?s the question I?ve been asked countless times,? says Jackson State coach Andy Stoglin. ?After what happened last year, this is the most important year for black colleges. You can beat anyone on a given night. You can have a good season. But to have a good program you have to do it in succession.?
That?s something no black school has been able to do since Alcorn State ruled the SWAC from the late ?70s to the mld-?80s.
But for all of Alcorn?s successes, beating Mississippi State (80-78) and playing Indiana close (73-69) in the 1979 NIT, plus winning first-round games in the NCAATournament in 1980, 1983 and 1984, the Braves never beat a Top 20 team.
?Somebody needs to beat two or three Top 20 pro- grams for people to take us seriously,? says Stoglin. ?It doesn?t have to be Southern or Jackson State. All we need is two or three (black schools) to beat some people who are paying us for games that they?re supposed to win.?
Jackson State nearly met Stoglin?s quota last season. The Tigers defeated Tulane, ranked No. 20 at the time, 92- 84 and suffered close losses to Kansas (93-85), Memphis State (81-78) and Illinois (85-81).
They also beat Southwestern Louisiana 87-85 and Fordham 67-43.
The biggest shocker: A 90-88 overtime victory at Connecticut in the first round of the NIT.
The common thread in those games was that they were all either on the other teams? home court or at a neutral site.
Having to play on the road against high-profile opponents has played almost as important a role in blunting black schools? success as anything.
Most coaches agree that until they can play the powerhouse schools on a home-and-home basis, they?ll continue to lag behind.
?They just won?t do it (play home-and-home),? says Stoglin. ?That?s why it?s hard for us to have a 25-win season. It?s hard to beat a nationally ranked team on their floor with their officials. If we can?t play people on our floor, what chance do we have??
The most common explanation for not playing home- and-home is that black schools lack adequate facilities to make such arrangements economically feasible. Stoglin says that?s a cop-out.
?They know when we have good teams, they can?t afford to play us,? he says. ?If they lose, they?ll get fired. When you?re a mid-major and black, you have less money and you?re not supposed to beat them.?
Jackson State and Southern both seem to be victims of their own success. Stoglin says Tulane cancelled its contract after last season?s loss.
Southern coach Ben Jobs points out that, with 13 basketball-playing Division I schools in Louisiana, the Jaguars shouldn?t have to leave the state to play their non-conference schedule. But that?s not the case. Other than cross-town rival Louisiana State ? which will only play on its home court ? only Southeastern Louisiana will schedule Southern, and that?s because Jobe and Southeastern Louisiana coach Don Wilson are friends.
Southern also will play the University of New Orleans in a Sugar Bowl Tournament game that will be televised by ESPN. Otherwise, don?t call us
?We?ve been to the NCAAs four of the last five years and the NIT once,? says Jobe. ?Each time you win, it gets more difficult to schedule games. You can always schedule the Dukes and UCLAs. But to schedule people on our own level, which the NCAA advocates, they won?t do it.
?There?s no reason for us not to be playing those (other Louisiana) schools. They can?t afford to lose to us. They say the alumni are in an uproar. It used to frustrate me.
But now I understand the system.?
Says Northeast Louisiana coach Mike Vining: ?We?re like everybody else. We try to play a couple of big-money games. If you?re going to risk losing, you want it to be against a big name. We?re trying to make a name, too.?
That rationale only adds to Jobe?s pessimism.
?People would like to believe this is the start of some thing new,? Jobe says. ?But you have to realize the power structure, and the power brokers (the bigger schools) in athletics have the ability to change the rules. If this is a trend, the rules will change. We?re living in a capitalistic society. The rich get rich, and the poor get poorer.?
That?s a universal refrain.
?Like anything else, black or whatever, the commitment has to be there in terms of budget,? says Georgia Tech?s Cremins. ?They?ve got to have the budget, if not of the highest Division I schools, of the middle Division I schools. It?s no question they can compete.?
Cremins says his heart goes out to men like Jobe and former North Carolina A&T coach Gene Littles, both of whom coached with Cremins, and both of whom are capable of developing highly competitive programs but lack the necessary resources and support.
?I was upset at A&T for not making a total commitment to Littles,? Cremins says. ?I felt he could have taken A&T to the Top 20. They had the facilities and they?re in a good location. Ben and Gene told me they don?t have recruiting money or assistants that the other schools do.
?They?d know about great players but couldn?t recruit them. When you have quality, you have to make a commit-ment. Money dictates a lot of things. One of these schools could break through, but there are money problems.?
In recent years, Cremins says, he has seen more coaches from black schools on the recruiting trail.
?That?s good,? he says. ?It seems they?re trying to make a commitment.?
Cremins says it would frustrate him to hear Jobe and Littles talk about the problems they encountered. There has been some improvement over the years, but the problems persist.
?Until administrators want to do it the right way, there are going to be problems,? says Howard coach Butch Beard, a former NBA player. ?When I first came in, I didn?t know we had some very good players (in black schools). They?re better coached than I thought. The perception (in the NBA) had been that the coaches just let the kids run up and down the court. That?s not true. The coaching has gotten to be good.?
Problem is, nobody knows about it because black schools get so little exposure.
?Television has a lot to do with what goes on in people?s minds,? says Beard. ?You have to put money into the program and get it on TV. Until black schools make that commitment, things won?t change.?
In the meantime, it?s an uphill struggle, especially in recruiting.
?When you?re recruiting, you sell yourself as an individual, then (you sell) the school,? says Beard. ?It?s easier to sell myself to parents. But kids don?t see me on TV. They see John Thompson and Coach K (Duke?s Mike Krzyzewski). You have to sell them on the idea that you can help make them better, that this is a special situation and they have to be special because we?re trying to build tradition.?
Says Jackson State?s Stoglin: ?Kids are gullible. If the Fab Five had gone to Jackson State or Alcorn (instead of Michigan), they?d still be the Fab Five and their team would have been in the Top 20.?
And it wouldn?t be such a big deal for a black school to win a postseason game ? or a national championship, for that matter.
?Every school has enough athletes but you get to hear about the big schools? players more,? says Jervaughn Scales, Southern?s 6-9 senior forward who is the top returning rebounder in the nation after finishing No. 2 last season with a 12.7 average.
?When someone talks about you, your confidence is up. You feel nobody is better. When you?re No. 1 or No. 2, you?re supposed to play that way. It gives you an edge.?
Scales scored 27 points, grabbed 18 rebounds and was named the Chevrolet Player of the Game for his performance against Georgia Tech.
He says he didn?t go to that game to lose. But now he admits that his confidence ebbed before tipoff.
?I was intimidated, the way they talked about Georgia Tech, and seeing them on TV,? Scales says. ?Usually, when we play teams like that, they do what they want to against us. It didn?t happen this time.?
When Scales returned home to Dayton, Ohio, he got to experience briefly the adulation that athletes from better- publicized programs routinely receive. And, frankly, he says, it felt pretty good.
Wherever he went, people congratulated him and said how proud they were of him.
?I felt like a little celebrity,? he says. ?They (athletes at other schools) feel like that all the time. We feel that way every once in while. Don?t get me wrong. There are a lot of good players at those schools and they deserve the attention they get. But some are average and no better than the players at black schools.?
Southern and Jackson State made that perfectly clear last season.
?We opened a lot of doors for others,? says Scales. ?A lot of us have a lot of confidence now. Black colleges may not have all of the best talent. But the coaches and the players do a good job.?
Adds Jackson State guard John Taylor, a three-year starter: ?In the past we were looking just to play each other (within the conference). Now we feel like playing the big schools is just as important. Before, we had been beating each other. Playing the big schools the way we did gave us good confidence. We went into games to win. Before, we were playing not to lose.?
?We wanted to prove that we can be a Top 50-, Top 25- caliber team,? says Jackson State forward David Simmons. ?We wanted to show we?re a team that has to be taken into account ? that we?re not just a run-and-gun team. I think in the end people really respected us and that?s what we really wanted.
However, respecting a Jackson State or a Southern means very little in the overall picture. Until the MEAC and SWAC are respected as conferences, nothing much will change when NCAA Tournament selection time comes.
Had the SWAC not been so lightly regarded by the selection committee, both Southern and Jackson State might have made the 64-team field.
In fact, Stoglin says, four SWAC teams were as good as Jackson State in ?93.
Judging from some of last season?s results, he may be right. Even though Mississippi Valley State finished under .500, the Delta Devils took the Tigers to the wire twice, losing 91-89 in overtime in Itta Bena and 94-92 in Jackson.
On the other hand, Kansas blew Out Mississippi Valley 94-46.
?Some schools don?t have the big-school mentality,? says Jackson State?s Simmons. ?They feel that the big schools have this and the big schools have that, and they can?t compete with them. We have to make the best of what we have.?
Side Notes: (The notes accompanied pictures of the players).
Jervaughn Scales scores two of his game-high 27 points against Georgia Tech in Southern?s stunning 93-78 victory in the NCAA Tournament.
SWAG upstarts Southern and Jackson State kick butt and take names against NGAA blue bloods.
Hooping it up:
Southern all-America strong safety Sean Wallace and starting free safety Jabber Juluke cheer on their basketball counter- parts.
Godfrey Thompson scored 15 points in the Tigers? 90-88 victory.
_________________________________________________________________
This article was taken from the 1993 Fall Edition of Sports View Magazine.
_________________________________________________________________
