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By Bill Kintner
wkintner@cinci.rr.com
Live
From The Atlantic 10 Basketball Championship
 Bill Kintner is in
Cincinnati filing daily updates from the A10 tournament in
Cincinnati. While GW is dancing to the tune of a high seed,
everyone else will be fighting like mad to somehow lock up an
automatic bid to the Big Dance.
Recap
- Sunday, March 12th - 12:09 PM
-Xavier
is only one of 10 teams in NCAA history to win four
games in four days in their conference tournaments.
-Jeff
Archiable who has a talk show on 1450 AM the local ESPN
affiliate is my kind of sneak. He is here to cover the
championship game. In college, he used to make up
companies (media outlets), design letterhead and send in
a request for credentials. He went to a bunch of Indy
Pacer games and had the time of his life, for free!
-The
Saint Joseph’s cheerleaders threw t-shirts up into the
crowd. The 98 percent of the fans that were from Xavier
cheered wildly has blue-clad fans started tossing them
back onto the court. An announcement threatening
ejection ended the reverse t-shirt toss and was met with
a chorus of boos.
-9373
fans that attended the championship game were loud,
especially when you consider the arena hold 16,200.
-This
win makes Xavier a perfect four for four in Championship
game appearances (also 1998, 2002 and 2004).
-With
just 1.3 seconds left in the game Xavier’s Justin
Doellman blocked a shot by Dwayne Lee and the ball went
out of bounds. Several fans thought the game waa over
and ran on the court and they are fortunate that the
officials did not call a technical.
The best
of the A-10 Tournament
Best
band—Dayton…they had great uniforms and played with some
life.
Best
cheerleaders—Fordham……because they didn’t have any dudes
cheering! They were all cute, but in the World of
looks, five unattractive women are better than one man.
The Xavier girls all had nice stems, no chicken legs in
that group.
Best
fans besides Xavier—Dayton…they had 4000 fans come down
for their first round loss and that was not a good
turnout for their fans.
Best
3-point shooter—Chet Stachitas, Saint Joseph’s .556
Best
rebounder—Curtis Withers, Charlotte 12.0 rpg
Best
defensive player:
Dwayne
Lee SJU
Justin
Cage XU
Best
game—the Championship game Xavier 62, St. Joe’s 61…it
had drama to the end.
Worst
game performance—George Washington’s 68-53 loss to
Temple.
Worst
uniform—hands down it was Xavier’s Josh Duncan’s
knee-high blue tube socks.
Most
famous person to attend the tournament—Oscar Robertson.
Honorable mention:
Byron
Larkin, former Xavier great
Jason
Williams, former Duke great
Joe
Lunardi, ESPN analyst
All-tournament team:
1.Justin
Cage, Xavier
2.Mardy
Collins, Temple
3.Bryant
Dunston, Fordham
4. Chet
Stachitas, Saint Joseph’s
5. Josh
Duncan, Xavier
MVP—Justin Cage
Sights & Sounds - Saturday, March 11th - 12:14 AM
-In a
brush with greatness, The Big O (Oscar Robertson) was in
attendance for tonight’s games. During the first game
the Big O was on the air with Sportscaster Andy Furman
on 700 WLW. Furman was broadcasting live from courtside
during the Saint Joseph’s/Temple game. I didn’t get a
chance to talk with him, but I did tinkle in the same
toilet he had previously used.
-Temple
and Saint Joseph’s split the two games played during the
regular season with each school winning at home.
Although Saint Joseph’s played their home game at the
Palestra, which is off campus.
-Temple
Coach John Chaney is a candidate for “should wear a t-
shirt but doesn’t award” because he the sweats like
crazy during games and his sweat stains look
disgusting.
-Saint
Joseph’s win over Temple was the first in eight A-10
Tournament games against the Owls.
-In a
“fish grows bigger” tale, Fordham Coach Dereck
Whittenburg loves to talk about his pass to Lorenzo
Charles to win the 1983 NCAA Championship for North
Carolina State. In reality, he shot an air-ball that
Charles grabbed out of the air and put in the basket. I
can’t wait to hear about the no-hitter he pitched to win
the World Series for the Yankees.
-Saint
Joseph’s will make its second straight trip to the A-10
Championship game and its fourth overall. The Hawks
lost to George Washington last season, 76-67. Saint
Joseph’s won the A-10 title in its other two
championship-game appearances, defeating Rhode Island,
61-56, in 1997 and knocking off West Virginia, 70-57 in
1986.
-In
Saint Joseph’s three tournament wins, the Hawks have
held their opponents to a combined 31.8 percent shooting
from the field (50-for-157) and just 23.3 percent
(10-for-43) from behind the 3-point arc.
-Xavier
is making its forth appearance in the A-10 Tournament
Championship. The Musketeers have won all three of the
previous appearances (1998, 2002 and 2004).
-Tonight’s victory gives Xavier 20 wins for its ninth
20-win season in a row.
Semifinals
Recaps
- Saturday, March 11th
Battle
of the birds………….Hawks win!
Two old
friends from the neighborhood, travel 500 miles to
Cincinnati and play a do or die game. In Hollywood, the
script would have them play down to the last procession
and one team would win at the buzzer. In reality, Saint
Joseph’s took control of the game after about three
minutes and held a double digit lead until the end to
win 73-59.
Trailing
5-3 at the 17:05 mark, Saint Joseph’s (18-12) went on a
9-0 run to take a 12-5 lead at 13:10. Chet Stachitas
hit a pair of 3-pointers to fuel the run.
At the
8:23 mark and leading 17-13, Saint Joseph’s went on an
11-0 run to stretch their lead to 28-13. From that
point on Temple (17-14) couldn’t closed the gap to
within double digits.
Saint
Joseph’s got 19 assists on 20 baskets. The Hawks shot
48.8 (20-of-41) for the game. Temple shot just 32.2
percent (19-of-59). One big difference was from 3-point
land. The Hawks shot 46.4 percent (13-of-28) while the
Owls only shot (2-of-18).
“I’m
blown away by 19 assists on 20 baskets,” gushed Saint
Joseph’s Coach Phil Martelli. “The defensive
performance again—Rob Ferguson will go unnoticed.
Antywane Robinson, that was the key. We wanted to make
him dibble the ball. For him to have no threes, that’s
the key to this game.”
The
Hawks had their usual four players score in double
figures. Abdulai Jalloh and Stachitas both scored 18
points. Dwayne lee put in 14 points, along with seven
assists. Rob Ferguson added 12 points.
Temple
Coach John Chaney said it was the Hawks’ shooting that
was key for their win.
“They
made their shots. It’s that simple. We couldn’t stop
them. They were moving the ball even though we
stretched our defense out,” explained Chaney
Mardy
Collins of Temple led all scorers with 26 points and
Wayne Marshall scored 12 for the Owls.
Xavier
advances to the finals
It took
Josh Duncan just 28 minutes of playing time take apart
Fordham by scoring 20 points in a 6-of-7 shooting
performance and pulling down seven rebounds as Xavier
beat that Rams 70-59.
Duncan
explained the win by saying, “We first had the mindset
of coming out, playing aggressive, playing together and
playing hard.”
This is
the third win in three days for Xavier (20-10), making
the 10 seeded Musketeers the lowest ranked team to ever
make the A-10 Championship game.
With the
score tied at 4-all with 17:31 left in the first half,
Xavier went on a 11-3 run to take a 15-6 lead at 12:53.
But
Fordham (16-16) wasn’t rolling over, they still had some
fight left as the Rams trailing 20-13 at the 8:27 mark
went on an 11-3 run to take a 24-23 lead with 4:40 left
in the half. Bryant Dunston scored six points during
that stretch.
At the
half Xavier led 37-33.
Leading
50-47 at 7:38, Xavier went on a 10-2 run to take a 60-49
lead with 4:29 left in the game. Fordham would get no
closer than eight points the rest of the game.
“I am
very excited at how we defended. I think we wore on
them a lot, which sometimes happens when guards are
taking deep shots,” said Xavier Coach Sean Miller.
For
Xavier, in addition to Duncan Justin cage score 13
points and Justin Doellman scored 12 points.
Xavier
shot 48 percent (24-of-50) and Fordham shot just 35.1
percent (20-of-57).
Dunston
led the Rams in scoring with 16. Marcus stout scored 12
and Jermaine Anderson tossed in 11 points.
Interview
w/ Phil Martelli - Friday, March 10th
Saint Joseph's Coach Phil Martelli stopped to chat with
Bill after the Hawks crushed Saint Louis in the
quarterfinals of the Atlantic 10 Tournament. Read the
Phil
Martelli interview in full here.
Sights &
Sounds - Friday, March 10th
Here is
a quick score board of the days results:
Game
one: Temple 68 GWU 53
Game
two: Saint Joseph’s 56 Saint Louis 37
Game
three: Xavier 59 Charlotte 55
Game
four: Fordham 64 LaSalle 62
-Saint
Joseph’s held the Billikens to just 37 points, its
fewest of the season, eclipsing the previous low of 39
scored against the Hawks on January 25th the
Savvis Center.
-Under
the heading of “Temple Loves Cincinnati,” the owls win
over sixth ranked George Washington was the highest
ranked opponent Temple has beaten since it knocked off
then number one Cincinnati, 77-69, in the Queen City on
February 20, 2000. Maybe John Chaney won’t mind coming
out to the sticks where the Republicans live so much in
the future?
-No sign
of any birds flying around buzzing players or fans. It
appears that some cats were brought in this morning and
they took care of the problem.
-The 14
points Saint Louis scored was only the fifth-worse
scoring half in A-10 Tournament history. Hmmm…………that
is really low, maybe they are including woman’s games in
there. It was so bad; the Billikens went from the 14:58
mark to 5:45 without scoring a field goal and managed
just three free throws during that stretch.
-Xavier’s 10,000 fans were loud. It seemed like the
building was a lot more than two-thirds full. It seemed
like a Xavier home game.
-Going
into the semifinals the one, two, three and four seeds
are eliminated. It is the first time in A-10 history
that that has happened.
-EPSN
Analyst Joe Lunardi has been doing double duty here in
Cincinnati. He is one of the radio announcers for Saint
Joseph’s and after the Hawks play, he rushes to a local
TV studio to appear on ESPN.
Friday’s
games feature:
Temple(9) vs St. Joseph’s(5) 6:30 PM
Xavier(10) vs Fordham (6) 8:30 PM
Sights & Sounds
- Thursday, March 9th
CINCINNATI – It is March and it is the time of year that
the A-10 gathers for their annual festival called the
Atlantic 10 Tournament. This year it is on the banks of
the Ohio River at the US Bank Arena.
The US
Bank Arena formerly Riverfront Coliseum, formerly known
as The Crown, and finally formerly known as FirstStar
Center has a long and almost storied past.
It
opened in 1975 and was an arena in search of a purpose.
The next summer Elton John rolled into town and played
there with his monster “Louder Than the Concorde, But
Not Quite As Pretty” tour followed by Paul McCartney and
Wings “Wings Over America Tour,” and Riverfront Coliseum
was on the map.
Gale
Catlett’s University of Cincinnati Bearcats moved their
basketball games to the coliseum. Back then the
Bearcats were a member of the new Metro Seven
Conference. About that time the Cincinnati Stingers of
the WHA made the coliseum their home.
In
December of 1979 10 people were killed from a stampede
at the coliseum during a concert by the rock group The
Who. After that, Riverfront Coliseum was on the map
permanently.
Over the
years US Bank Arena has been home to several indoor
football teams, minor league basketball teams and minor
league hockey.
The
University of Kentucky just ended a 10-year run of
playing a home game a year, at the facility. They have
played area mid-major teams like Wright State, Ohio
University, Ball State and Dayton. The Flyers even beat
the Wildcats 68-66 in a stunning upset on November 29,
1999.
The last
several years, UC has played Miami at US Bank Arena, as
a neutral court game. Two years ago, C-USA rolled into
town to play their conference tournament at US Bank
Arena.
Through
the years in addition to the tragic deaths at the Who
concert the arena has had it share of little mishaps.
Including in 1996 when during the NCAA Frozen Four
hockey tournament the ice melted and the games had to be
delayed while they fixed the problem.
Last
year at the A-10 Tournament, the score board went out on
the first day. On the second day a bird got caught in
the fan of the ventilation system high above the court
spewing feathers all over the court and eventually the
mortally wounded bird dropped to the court and the start
of the 6 PM game was delayed. Even this year during the
Dayton/St. Joes game a bird was flying low, buzzing the
players and landing on the court during timeouts. It is
only a matter of time until the bird craps on someone.
Notes
-Temple
turned the table on Rhode Island when the beat them in
the first round. Just a week ago Rhode Island knocked
off the Owls 69-63.
-When
Temple defeated Fordham on February 23rd they
joined some elite company. They joined Kentucky, North
Carolina, Kansas, Duke, St. John’s and Syracuse as the
seventh winningest program of all time with 1654
victories.
-The
Flyers fell in the Opening Round of the A-10 for the
first time since 1997, when UD lost to 81-75 to St.
Bonaventure.
-Two
years ago Xavier became the first team in Atlantic 10
history to win four games in four days at the 2004 A-10
Championship at the University of Dayton Arena.
-UMass
defeated Xavier 65-56 just four days ago in Amherst.
-Richmond’s 37 point output was just three points off
the A-10 Tournament low for a game.
-The 82
combined points by Fordham and Richmond are the fewest
points scored in an A-10 Tournament game.
-John
Chaney who in the past criticized the A-10 for putting
the conference tournament in Ohio saying it was the
sticks and that he didn’t want to go to a state that
voted for Bush, continued kicking Cincinnati by saying
that the US Bank Arena facilities were lacking because
the locker rooms didn’t have tables suitable for his
players to get worked on by the training staff. No
word yet if he was happy with the amenities at the
Westin Hotel where Temple is staying in downtown
Cincinnati.
-The
movers and shakers who run the A-10 are probably wishing
Dayton had stuck around a little longer. Not that they
have anything against St. Joe’s, but it would have been
nice to have the 4000 or so fans that come down from
Dayton attending future sessions. They will sleep
sound tonight knowing that host team Xavier is alive to
play another day.
-Besides
Dayton the school on day one with the most traveling
fans was St. Joe’s. There were probably 100 or so fans
that made the trip to Cincinnati.
-Under
the heading of……….the three traveling Musketeers and
they have nothing to do with Xavier. While here at the
A-10 Tournament I met up with Phil Kasieck who is my
editor at Hoopville.com/CSTV/star writer and Kyle
Whelliston from ESPN.com. We are probably the only
three basketball writers who usually catch a hundred
Division I basketball games each year. To have all
three of us at one location is a first. We ate dinner
together between Session I and II. So it was pretty
amazing to hear us trading stories about the games we
have seen, the arenas we have visited and the various
goings-on in Mid-major basketball. The amount of
basketball knowledge at the table was amazing and most
of it was not coming from me. I did eat more than the
other two guys combined. I have always tried to be the
best at something. Make sure you catch Kyle on
www.ESPN.com and
www.midmajority.com. Phil can be found on
www.Hoopville.com. Tomorrow it becomes the two
Musketeers as Kyle heads up to Cleveland to cover the
MAC Tournament.
First
Round Recap - Wednesday, March 8th
CINCINNATI – Four games down on day one of the Atlantic
10 Tournament and four teams advance to play tomorrow on
day two in four more games.
Game
One: Temple over
Rhode Island
The
Temple Owls pounded Rhode Island on the offensive end
and pressured them on the defensive end in a lopsided 29
point 74-45 win.
Temple
(16-13) forced 10 turnovers in the first half to lead
33-26 at the half.
“They
did a good job of matching up. They know our personnel.
We had 10 turnovers in the first half,” said Rhode
Island Coach Jim Baron.
In the
second half Temple really clamped down on Rhode Island
(14-14), holding the Rams to just 22.7 percent shooting
(5-of-22) and going on a 22-0 run. The Owls outscored
Rhode Island 41-19.
Antywane
Robinson led the Owls in scoring with 23 points. Mark
Tyndale added 19 points and Wayne Marshall put in 15
points.
For the
game, Temple committed only nine rebounds while shooting
48.2 percent (27-of-56). The Rams shot only 37 percent
(17-of-56) for the game.
For
Rhode Island, Jimmy Baron and Will Daniels each scored
12 points. They were the only players in double figures
for the Rams.
Temple
plays George Washington on Thursday at 12 noon in game
one.
Game
Two: Saint Joseph's over Dayton
Dayton
made a good run at Saint Joseph’s, but the end result
was pretty much like the whole season—frustrating. The
Flyers came up a little short as they lost 67-55 in the
first run.
“It’s
been a tough year, more so because we’ve shown some
flashes and done some good things. It’s frustrating for
the players. It is frustrating for the coaches,” said
Dayton Coach Brian Gregory.
With
6:27 left in the game and the Hawks leading 50-46,
Abdullai Jalloh of St. Joe’s stole the ball from
Dayton’s Marques Bennett and drove it to the basket for
a layup. Just 19 seconds later, the Hawks’ Dwayne Lee
stole the ball, but was fouled going to the basket.
Even though he missed both free throws, St. Joe’s
(16-12) went on a 13-4 run to put the game out of reach.
Hawks
Coach Phil Martelli saw the two steals as the game’s
turning point as Lee and Jalloh got two breakaway
layups. “I think that happened with six or seven
minutes left and that really helped get our feet back
under us,” explained Martelli.
The
Hawks were led in scoring by Jalloh with 24 points and
eight rebounds. Rob Ferguson scored 16 points and Chet
Stachitas chipped in 12 points.
Monty
Scott led the Flyers with 13 points. Warren Williams
scored 12 points and Brian Roberts struggled to score 12
points on a 2-of-14 shooting night.
Saint
Joseph’s plays Saint Louis Thursday in the battle of the
Saints at 2 PM in game two.
Game
Three: Xavier beats UMass
Despite
a season high 20 turnovers, Xavier went to 4-0 in
Atlantic 10 first round games, defeating Massachusetts
75-66
With
7:32 left in the game and Xavier (18-10) leading 40-33,
the Musketeers went on an 8-1 run to put the game out of
reach.
“It was
a great win for us. I think Brandon Cole‘s play was
tremendous for us,” Said Xavier Coach Sean Miller. “I
really believe that between our shooting and Cole’s
play, those are the two significant factors that helped
us win.”
For the
game Xavier shot 51 percent (25-of-49) and 55.6 percent
from 3-point range. UMass (13-15) shot 41.4 percent
(24-of-58) and just 30.8 percent from 3-point land.
Massachusetts Coach Travis Ford thought that the
Musketeers were just too physical. “They were just more
physical than us, much more ready to play than us. When
they shoot 51 percent from the field and 56 percent from
three and we only out rebounded them by one, we did not
play to our strengths,” explained Miller,
Xavier
had an impressive five players in double figures. They
were led by Stanley Burrell with 22 points. Justin Cage
and Justin Doellman each scored 12 points. Josh Duncan
and Johnny Wolf each chipped in 10.
The
Minutemen were led in score in by James Life with 24
points and Stephane with 20 points.
Xavier
plays Charlotte Thursday at 6:30 PM.
Game
Four: Fordham slips by Richmond
In a
caffeine game, where the fans had to drink lots of
coffee to make it through the game, both teams combined
for an Atlantic 10 record low of 82 points Fordham
overpowered Richmond 45-37.
Leading
14-12 at the 6:46 mark in the first half, Fordham went
on a 9-2 run to take a 23-14 lead at 1:55. Richmond
(13-17) managed a basket to cut the Ram’s lead to seven
at the half.
In an
impressive offensive burst, Fordham (15-15) outscored
the Spiders 22-21 in the second half.
Richmond
Coach Chris Mooney figured that poor shooting led to his
team’s defeat. “For us to shoot 27 percent (15-of-56)
is not a positive, It’s hard to overcome,” explained
Mooney in the understatement of the A-10 Tournament.
Fordham
had two players in double figures. Bryant Dunston had
14 points and Jermaine Anderson had 13 points.
“They
make you play ugly and they did a good job of that. We
hung in there and our defense was excellent,” said
Fordham Coach Derrick Whittenberg.
Richmond
was fortunate to have two players in double figures.
Jermaine Bucknor scored 12 points and Drew Crank put in
10 points.
Fordham
plays LaSalle on Thursday at 8:30 PM.
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