APRIL 15,1996 — THE DECREE — PAGE 7
Bishops’ youth leads
to mixed outcomes
>
Sports
Southeastern Conference
clearly best in tournament
By GRANT LONG
Why doesn’t the Decree write
anything on the NCAA tourna
ment? This question has recently
been brought to my attention.
First of all, I would like to say
that the Decree is a bi-weekly pa
per and we could not give the
tournament the proper coverage
it deserves while it was still be
played. But this, however, does
not stop us from doing a tourna
ment wrap-up and looking at the
year in review in college basket
ball.
It was an interesting year in
college basketball, from Midnight
Madness until Kentucky became
national champs. Kentucky was
picked preseason number one and
to no one’s surprise won the tour
nament as expected.
It was clear that Kentucky was
the cream of the crop from the
start to the finish, but what can be
said about the rest of the nation?
Well, let’s look at the team Ken
tucky played in the final — Syra
cuse. This was a team with one
star player who was average at
best, but played with heart.
Just think, Syracuse’s star
player, John Wallace, left school
early last year to play in the NBA.
Wallace, then realizing he was
not ready for the NBA, made a
strange move and actually went
back to college and played out
his senior year. That is a rare feat
in this day in time. The extra year
in school helped him refine his
game and also helped him to carry
his team to the finals where they
almost had a shot at beating Ken
tucky. I also have to tip my hand
to Syracuse coach Jim Boehiem
for doing a great job with the team
he had.
Next, let’s look at the confer
ences and how they did in tour
nament play. The Southeastern
Conference was by far the best in
both the men’s and women’s tour
nament, as well as in regular sea
son play. In the men’s tourna
ment, all of its teams reached the
Sweet 16 and two reached the
Final Four with Kentucky win
ning it all. In women’s play, two
SEC teams made the final four
Opinion
and eventually winded up play
ing in the final game, but this was
the year of the Lady Volunteers
of Tennessee.
The next best conference after
that would be the Big East. The
Big East re-emerged as the pre
mier conference in the land, a title
which used to be owned by the
ACC. The Big East has had three
teams ranked in the top 15 all
year long, and at one point had
five teams in the top 20. Just think,
for one conference to have 25 per
cent of the 20 best teams in the
land is a compliment to the level
of play in that league.
This is also the same Big East
that the RPI had ranked as the
sixth best conference in the land.
That just goes to show what their
quasi-experts know about basket
ball. It is also kind of ironic that
Syracuse, the fourth best team in
the Big East, made the final when
most of the country expected the
Big East heavyweights, Villa-
nova, Georgetown, and UConn,
to be one of the teams who had a
shot of making the final. The
UConn women also got to the
Final Four, but lost a nail-biter to
Tennessee in overtime. If the SEC
was the best conference in the
land, the Big East was a very close
second.
With every success story, there
are also one or two failures. This
year’s dunce of college basket
ball was the Atlantic Coast Con
ference. The conference got the
most bids to the tournament, with
six. No disrespect to ACC accom
plishments in previous years, but
the ACC had two teams too many
going to the tournament.
Clemson and Maryland had
rebuilding years at best and they
were both allowed to go to the
tournament. How is this fair?
There are probably two other
teams that worked their butts off,
practiced very hard, probably had
their greatest season, and played
in a weaker conference but still
deserved to be in the tournament
before Clemson and Maryland. As
far as I am concerned, they only
took up space in the field.
As for the rest of the ACC,
only three got out of the first
round and two made it to the
Sweet 16. Wake Forest then
barely beat Louisville to make it
to the Elite Eight and then lost to
Kentucky in the regional final. It
can be said at best the ACC’s
performance was disappointing.
But there was also some other
memorable moments in this
year’s tournament. In his last
NCAA tournament, the legend
ary Pete Carrill of Princeton took
his team to Indianapolis to play
the defending champion UCLA
and what happened was one of
the biggest upsets in toumament
history as Princeton beat UCLA.
Who could forget the fabulous
dunk by Darvin Ham of Texas
Tech when he brought down the
backboard against UNC? The
great play of Syracuse and Mis
sissippi State? And finally who
can forget the fabulous game that
Tony Delk played in the final with
eight three-pointers?
This year’s toumament is prob
ably one of the best ever.
The Battling Bishops showed
their youth earlier this month as
they dropped three games.
The Bishops lost on the road
to Methodist College, 8-2 and 5-
4, and at home to Scranton, 5-3.
The games against Methodist
featured the Bishop’s, number
nine in the nation, against the
Monarch’s, the nation’s number
one team.
“This just wasn’t our day,” said
Head Coach Mike Fox. “At times
I thought we outplayed them, but
poor base running hurt us. I was
proud of Todd Middlekauf and
Chat Eaton for their efforts.”
Middlekauf went 2-4 with two
RBI’s and Eaton retired all 10
batters in relief.
The Battling Bishops got off
to a bad start against Scranton
and were unable to recover.
Scranton scored four runs in the
first inning and the Bishops left
15 men on base.
“We just didn’t get the big hit
when we needed it,” Fox said.
After playing six games in
seven days, the Battling Bishops
had three days off in late March
before taking on The Pride from
Greensboro College in the
month’s final weekend.
Tie Bishops swept the Pride
by 10-7 and 20-2 scores.
Senior Eddie Mintz picked up
his fifth win of the season in game
one, but the big story was Stan
Mohn. Mohn tied two Wesleyan
records as he made his 79th ca
reer appearance and recorded his
20th career save.
The Bishops struggled defen
sively in the middle innings but
clutch hitting from Jeremy
Stewart (two-run single with two
outs) and Matt Hollem (three-run
double with two outs) provided
the team with a six-run sixth in
ning.
The Bishops cruised through
game two as they pounded 19 hits
from 13 different players. Fresh
man Mike Abbruzzese pitched
seven innings, only allowing three
hits. He retired 13 straight batters
from the third to seventh innings
and was named Dixie Confer
ence Freshman of the Week for
the second straight week.
At the start of April, the Bish
ops were 18-7 overall and third
in the conference at 6-2.
Lady Bishops win
two from Methodist
The Battling Bishops swept
Methodist College 6-5 and 13-4
to remain undefeated in the Dixie
Conference with a 4-0 mark at
the end of March.
The Bishops also played in six
other games at the end of the
month against tough regionally
and nationally ranked competi
tion. The Bishops split with
Bethany, 4-7 and 3-1, and
dropped both games to Salisbury
State, 7-11 and 4-5, and Chowan,
2-4 and 2-12
Junior Sara Svejda had the hot
bat against Methodist as she went
3-4 with two RBI’s and a triple in
game one and 3-3 with an RBI
and two doubles in game two.
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