JCMJ College Basketball Q&A: David Jones of the Harrisburg Patriot-News, Changing the Way You Look at Coach K Forever.

In an attempt to gain as much college hoops knowledge before March, JCMJ will be interviewing college basketball journalists from across the country, all of whom know much, much more about about college basketball than I do. Today we have David Jones of Harrisburg Patriot-News, who is blessing for anyone in Central Pennsylvania for wants to read about college basketball this time of the year and not about Penn State's football schedule in 2011.


JCMJ: What exactly happened to Penn State's basketball team this season? Many people (myself included) thought the Nittany Lions had a great shot of making the NCAA Tournament this season. Where exactly did it all go wrong?

DJ: I never thought of it as a "great shot". I thought they had a 25-percent chance or so -- only because the Big Ten shaped up so weak -- if everything fell just right. And everything has fallen wrong.

Ed sent a really ill-conceived message, I thought, when he scheduled that push-over non-con season that just was not healthy from any standpoint -- fan interest, team concentration, team preparation or RPI juice. It was a disaster. I hated it when I saw it in August and really questioned it publicly from an RPI perspective. But it was much worse even than I thought. The players didn't take some of the opponents seriously and didn't play hard. Stony Brook and SE Louisiana beat them and Hartford very nearly did, all at the Jordan Center. And yet, they showed they could be competitive with decent-to-good non-con teams when they played them, coming close at Georgia Tech and Seton Hall and beating Saint Joe's and Bucknell. Then, they get into the league season and simply can't deal with adversity the first couple times it presents itself -- at Purdue and vs. Indiana at the BJC. So, what's that tell you? The schedule not only bored the players but didn't prepare them.
Then, there's the whole matter of Claxton hurting his hand and missing a month. But I think that could have been a plus because the team could have learned to win without him. Instead, it was used as an excuse.

More than anything, though, I just never believed the backcourt talent Ed was fielding this year could be anything more than adequate and it's, in fact, been much less than that. Ben Luber is a Patriot League point guard and, frankly, isn't even as good as three point guards in that league I've seen -- Torey Thomas of Holy Cross, Abe Badmus of Bucknell and the Lithuanian kid at American whose name escapes me. He cannot create on his own and he can't man-up on anyone on defense. Mike Walker is a playground guard whose lack of discipline gets him in trouble. He needed better teaching and didn't get it, then fell out of favor and didn't get enough PT to develop. I always thought he was a gutsier player than Luber if of the same limitations athletically. At least his handle is a little better. Danny Morrissey is a spot-up shooter and that's he'll ever be. David Jackson never got confident enough as a pure point because he wasn't one as a juke and never was given the keys to this team. I guess, in sum, I never saw Luber as the guy who should be running this offense. I thought he might have turned a corner near the end of last season but that didn't pan out. His ability just wasn't up to the task. You need a point guard. They didn't have one.

JCMJ: Who is the best team in the Big Ten this season?

DJ: Wisconsin. Without question. A star in Tucker who can hit the big shot and hang in the air in traffic to do it. Then, they have a bunch of other kids who are so well coached and fill roles so beautifully. Taylor can hit threes for you. Butch is really tough in the paint and has McDonald's All-America tools. Krabbenhoft doesn't look like much but he played Greg Oden off his feet in Madison. Mostly, I think Bo Ryan is just a better coach with lesser talent than Thad Matta is with great talent. Ryan has proven his system works and his players have completely bought into it. Ohio State simply isn't playing that well. They have the big eraser in back but I think their players are neither as disciplined nor as tenacious as Wisconsin's. That said, they have the athletes to really lock you up defensively when motivated in a big game. That should not be discounted in the showdown on the 25th. I think OSU could end up winning the battle (the Big Ten regular season title) and losing the war (an earlier exit in the NCAAs). Also, I'm mystified as to why Jamar Butler and Ron Lewis aren't bigger parts of that team. They've proven themselves and are veteran winners. They should be THE focal points of that team, not any of the kids.

JCMJ: What team from the Big Ten could surprise people come March?

DJ: Michigan State. If they make the NCAAs. Right now, they're going through the dog days, they lost a couple of toughies against Ohio State, both home and road, and at Illinois. They are a dangerous team with Neitzel and all those kids. Neitzel is a firecracker; he reminds you of Joe Crispin that way -- you remember what he did his senior year in the Big Ten tournament and NCAAs. Even when he played not great, he brought you that sense that at any time he could light it up and anything was possible. That's what Neitzel gives you; he's nitroglycerine. I think they'll right themselves and squeak into the NCAAs, then hurt somebody unsuspecting. Neitzel, remember, has some great tournament experience. Remember the Kentucky game in '05. They also are still smarting from Mason last year. Izzo I think is getting a charge out of coaching these kids with low expectations from fans and media. We'll see.
I am not a big Kelvin Sampson believer. That's a whole 'nother book.

JCMJ: You wrote an excellent article about Bucknell's Donald Brown stepping up as the team's leader. Brown has since been injured and may not play again this season. Without Brown, how surprising was Bucknell's win over Holy Cross?

DJ: Extremely. I guess I shouldn't be surprised at anything Pat cooks up anymore but that was one of his best coaching jobs out of a bunch of good ones over the last few years. His players are so incredibly well-coached. They do exactly what he tells them to and because they are so well-schooled and have the basics down, they can extrapolate on that and create variations off their set pieces as situations develop. That's what Bob Knight always wants to create in his teams -- the ability for players to not just be widgets who paint by numbers but use the basics on the floor to see things as they happen and free lance as a unit. Unfortunately for him, it doesn't always pan out that way at the major-conference level. But kids in the Patriot League are so bright they can handle more. It's a beautiful thing to watch when players know each other as well as this recent Bucknell group has. Now, to remove their best player, the best rebounder in the Patriot League and a kid who's really settled into his niche on offense, and then plug in a guy like Mastopaolo and a couple largely untested (in big games) kids and go bigger and slower and still get it done that way, well, it's amazing. Holy Cross had what should have been the two best players on the floor in Thomas and Keith Simmons. And BU just took Simmons out of the game in the second half, jumping any move he made with a second helper. And he had no answer. Had he posted up Badmus more and used his height advantage, might've been a different story. But he didn't and Thomas was beating himself up afterward for not making sure that happened. See, Pat always forces the other guy to adjust. And had Simmons tried to post, he would've had a plan for that, too -- probably somebody digging from the ball side and doubling him that way. They just weren't going to let Simmons beat them and the big kid Clifford wasn't getting it done. So, they didn't have much other option. Another minor miracle by Flannery. "The guy can flat-out coach, ba-beee!"

JCMJ: Can the Bison beat Holy Cross for a second time, this time in Worcester and for the Patriot League Championship?

DJ: Well, let's make sure HC doesn't blow the homecourt first. They still have to win out if BU does. And that loss in Sojka might've shaken them up a little. I'm still of the opinion that this will finally be The Cross' year. But, hell, at this point, I can't put anything past Bucknell. They're getting some kids some great experience. The Castleberry kid looks terrific, as does Bahan. They have a bunch of guys playing with confidence. I just don't think they can expect too much of Brown when he returns. A cracked metacarpel on the shooting hand is nothing to be sneezed at -- as Geary Claxton can attest. It takes time to recover fully. And Brown does not have time.

JCMJ: On a personal note, what was the best college basketball game that you have ever covered?

DJ: I sat right behind the Duke bench for Duke-Kentucky at the Spectrum in '92. So, because that's been endowed with the title as Greatest College Game Ever, I guess that would be it. I wrote a game story and two sidebars on that thing and filed within 90 minutes of Laettner's shot (my cheesy lavender striped tie and torso with my head cut out of the frame is in the video right behind Thomas Hill crying) and somehow forgot to mention that Laettner was 10-10 FGs and 10-10 FTs. I wanted to freakin shoot myself the next day. Before the online age; no fixing it. Also, with about 10 minutes left in regulation, Duke started feeling a little wonderful with about a 10-point lead. I remember Laettner going behind his back in the backcourt against the Ky press and losing the ball. I think Brian Davis did something else reckless. Anyway, the lead went poof in about 90 seconds. Krzyzewski called time and was seething. I was almost able to touch him I was so close to the huddle. And I remember I had this naive image of him as something of a choir. How that could be when he went to West Point, I'm not sure I had resolved in my mind. So, he grabs Lettner and Davis by the forearms and starts shaking them like hand puppets and screams above the band din, "I told you guys not to be FUCKING PUSSIES!!" Didn't get that in the game story ([bleep]ing pussies). That pissed me off more than forgetting Laettner's perfect stats.

But I think the best two other NCAA games I ever covered were probably both more fun. More memorable. The best was Coppin State-Texas in the second round of the 1997 tournament in Pittsburgh. Coppin had no media guide -- I mean no season media guide -- just this cheezoid mimeographedand stapled notes package. They didn't have a band; they had to bus in Morgan State's from Baltimore down I-70 after they upset South Carolina in the 2-15 game. They had silk-screened uniforms that looked like they were bought on sale at Value City with the ink peeling off. But they had one thing nobody else did -- two guards named Xavier Singletary and Antoine Brockington who believed they could play with anyone in that regional. Texas was big and springy with Reggie Freeman and Chris Clack and a bunch of other pogos. They should've blown Coppin off the floor. They had nobody bigger than 6-6; their center was this wide load named Terquin Mott who reminded you of that center from Mason last year. But Coppin kept hanging in and hanging in and the entire 17,000 in the Igloo adopted them. Texas had about 18 fans in the place by the end. In the middle of the second half, there was this crazy play where Brockington and Singletary lit out on a 2-on-1. One of them, I forget which, got caught up in the air about to pass when the defender darted into the passing lane. He had to just cast the ball toward the rim from about 24 feet -- and it went in to tie the game. The place just came apart. A few minutes later, the UT cheerleaders came out to do their hook-em-horns salute to the Eyes of Texas and 17,000 people booed at once. It was fantastic. I remember looking back overf my shoulder at Tom Penders' wife and daughter and they had these beseiged looks on their faces like they were about to be dragged out of their seats and strung up over a bonfire at center court. I still can't believe I did this, but I caught the daughter's eye and did the hook-em signal then inverted it like a dead steer -- like the A&M and Arkansas people used to do. She looked like someone had flashed her.

Anyway, Coppin had a chance to win at the end but never got off a shot on an in-bounds play under their own hoop.

The other NCAA game was Kansas-Bucknell. Just pure joy. BU was fighting a hostile crowd of about 7,000 Kansans from right over the Oklahoma border and did everything right. It's really something to see an upset pulled off like that one.

I suppose Indiana-Penn State in '93 fits in there somewhere, too.

JCMJ: Final question, you are in charge of Penn State basketball. What changes would be made to make the team a perennial winner?

DJ: Hire a witch doctor. A proven one with a recruiting pedigree.

Read more of David's work at:
Harrisburg Patriot-News (He has a great Q&A with John Amaechi, a PSU grad)