By Mike Wise
Monday, March 10, 2008
Good basketball people of Washington, mid-major peasants everywhere, a small request today:
Please, root for Garrison Carr and his teammates on Friday. It's not just good and right; it's the American thing to do.
For 81 years, often under the very best of coaches, the Eagles of American University have been deprived of playing in the NCAA tournament. As the tournament grew and grew -- from 24 to 32 and now 65 teams -- AU has remained one of just 33 Division I schools to have never participated in either the men's or women's event.
But today, the morning after top-seeded American put away Army and advanced to host Colgate on Friday in the Patriot League tournament championship game, they are 40 minutes away.
One win and AU is in.
"To even think about that is wild right now," said Carr, the diminutive junior guard who scored a game-high 23 points yesterday as Bender Arena buzzed with elation.
"In fact, Coach mentioned in the locker room afterward that it can be very seductive to watch TV this week and see all these other schools dancing and cutting down the nets when we still have a week left."
Seductive? The thought of the tournament on the horizon essentially becomes a temptress this week for coaches, fans and players of a good basketball school on the cusp for so long.
There are more reasons than the past to root for American. The Eagles have two blistering-quick guards in Carr and fellow junior Derrick Mercer, who at maybe 5 feet 11 and definitely not 5-9, respectively, already qualify for the Mighty Mite Hall of Fame, alongside Spud Webb, Muggsy Bogues and Earl Boykins.
Freshman Nick Hendra, the kid who dunked along the baseline and had a career-high 11 points yesterday against Army, is the proud son of a "This Is Spinal Tap" cast member. Honest.
Did we mention the pep band's theme song is only the greatest song in the history of music: Journey's "Don't Stop Believin' "? The staff actually plays Steve Perry over the Bender Arena loudspeakers at the entrance.
And, yes, AU's past counts. American last played in the Division II tournament in 1960, the senior year of Willie Jones -- one of only two American players whose jerseys hang from the rafters and who were named first team all-Americans. The other, Kermit Washington, was in the house yesterday to root on his alma mater.
"They only let 24 teams in the tournament when I played," said Washington, a tad rueful 35 years after AU's 1973 team gave Louisville a run in the National Invitation Tournament. Washington, plucked fourth in the NBA draft, was a day laborer in the pivot. He is still the last NCAA player to average 20 points and 20 rebounds per game -- notching 40 points and 26 rebounds his final game against John Thompson-coached Georgetown.
That's the thing about AU: Since its first year fielding a men's basketball team in 1926, someone else's coach or program was used to lend it credence. Over nearly a century, it got close to the tournament almost by association.
It's the school of coaching connections -- six degrees of sideline lifers. Gary Williams had no gray in his temples here. Tom Young coached at AU before he transformed Rutgers with the help of a big-time guard from Archbishop Carroll with a pick-combed 'fro: Eddie Jordan.
Jim Lynam. Tom Davis. Ed Tapscott, the accomplished NBA executive now on Jordan's Wizards' staff. If they had lost yesterday, the Eagles could always take solace in the fact that Army Coach Jim Crews was a member of Bob Knight's 1976 Indiana team -- the last Division I men's team to record a perfect season.
On it goes, each era coming close to college basketball nirvana.
Williams (1978-82) was right there, twice losing heartbreakers with 24- and 21-win teams in the East Coast Conference championship game.
The reason Jeff Jones wasn't gloating after AU stunned Maryland in December at Comcast Center was because he knew the drill: There is no Little Team That Could until the Big Team That Already Has deigns to schedule a small school.
"That was the eighth straight year he agreed to allow AU to compete with his program, so I have nothing but good things to say about Gary," Jones said. "He's been a friend."
If AU beats Colgate on Friday and kids storm the floor again for its first-ever bid, Jones will officially have been on both sides of the giant-killing business.
As a player, his Ralph Sampson-led Virginia teams were among the best in the nation. After Jones graduated, he served as a part-time Cavaliers assistant on the No. 1 Virginia team shocked by Chaminade in Hawaii -- though he didn't make that trip.
"I always tell Rick Carlisle [the former Virginia player and NBA coach], 'If I had been there, that wouldn't have happened,' " Jones said, snickering.
A few minutes earlier, a young team manager had walked by with a dozen pizza boxes, piled so high they nearly eclipsed her bangs. She placed them outside the locker room on a chair. One by one, each AU player carried their cheese pizzas out to share with their girlfriends and family, past the sign that said tickets were on sale now for Friday's 4:45 p.m. game.
"All $18," it read.
Reminders such as that are sure to tempt Jones's players right up until tip-off Friday. The moment they staved off Army and walked off the court, they were officially 40 minutes away.
"Making the tournament was one of my dreams when I first came here," Carr said. "I mean, if we could do it."
Eighteen dollars. For history 81 years in the making.
If AU can beat Colgate at home -- if the nation's greatest sporting event finally includes a university actually called American -- the booming noise coming from Bender Arena will seduce more than just the kids.
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