News Scrapbook 1989

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Sunday, January 15, 1989

CO LEGE BASKETBALL: THE WEST

Step by step, former USD coach Jim Brovelli is bringing back the program at the University of San Francisco. The fans, victories and support ... 'They're coming back' By Ch~is JenkinJ16° ~------------, prove a major boost to the Siarr \\rater USF'S COMEBACK program. The game was televised S FRA CISCO - As you v,. w L Pct. wcAc live by Chicago's superstation, walk into Memorial Gym at 85 _86 7 21 . 250 Bth 12 _ 12 > WGN, giving USF national the Umvers1ty of San 8 6- 87 16 12 571 Sth 16 _8 > exposure. Brovelli's longtime Francisco, the most intimidating :;;;;.;;.;..._;_;~..;,;;_----"--"--- assistant, John Cosentino, had sight i not its array of banners 87 • 88 13 15 464 5th 1~ remmded his Midwest recruits to overhead, symbolic of two NCAA, 88 - 89 8 7 533 0 • 2 tune in. No doubt, eyes across the one NIT and 15 conference titles. country grew wide when reading Nor 1s 1t the d1Splay of retired Quintin Dailey, the program was of USF's upset. numbers of USF legends: Bill shut down by the school president, "We needed somethmg to Russell (6), K.C. Jones (4) and 8111 the Rev. John LoSchiavo. convince people," LoSchiavo said. Cartwright (24). Nor, really, 1 1t Taken off the shelf i 1985, USF "A defeat of Notre Dame tells any of U F's current players. basketball now has been been back those people who felt we weren't Rather, what you tend to worry longer than it was gone. Four serious that we want to win, that about is a ·ign on a wall near one years after leavmg a successful, USF does care about of th exits· comfortable position at the championships. We do want to wm "Maximum capacity 1955 University of San Diego, Brovelli ... but within the rules." persons_ 'The sign is ou dated, yet has restored some lost dignity to Brovelli smiled at the mention 1t remams an especially d1sturbmg his alma mater And he has of LoSch1avo. read on nights when Memorial rekindled the fire of interest in ''Father Lo just loves Gym IS overflowing v.ith 5,370 basketball on Golden Gate Avenue. basketball," Brovelli said. "It people, a wa the ca e last "Electrifying," he said of that broke his heart to drop this Saturday mght. Particularly night with Notre Dame. "It was program. Ours was the first annoyed by the sardine-like crowd absolutely electrifying." national program to drop cond1t1ons was Digger Phelps, head In the week since, however, USF basketball like that, so ours was coach. Notre Dame. has been severely jolted in its first the first to bring it back. He Phelps was understandably two West Coast Athletic believes if you've got a scoreboard

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Associated Press Jim Brovelli: 'I knew it'd be a tough job, but its been a lot tougher than I thought, for a lot of different reasons,'

perturbed at havrng just lost to the n,, 79-75 Angry at the choice of official Phelps also was irate that the game ·as played m a campus

Conference games by Loyola Marymount (113-95) and Pepperdine (71-53). The Dons (8-7) return to Memorial Gym for Frida '&.conference home o ner By now, the senumental value of Brovelli coaching against USD has diminished considerably. All the Toreros' current players were recruited by Brovelli's successor, Brovelli is working on his second contract at USF, this one good for the next five years. His big rivalries are with Northern California schools - Santa Clara and St. Mar ' · co e ence, Cal locally - and Notre Dame. Therein, Brovelli has met four of his first five goals for USF Initially, Brovelli just just wanted the Dons to be competitive, not easily embarrassed, and that was accomplished with a 16-12 record Two, he wanted rivalries with all the Bay-area schools. and USF's victory over Cal last month has that one stoked up agam. Three, he wanted USF to again host its traditional Christmas tournament, and the Dons won that as well this season. Four was to reinstitute USF's major intersectional rivalries, specifically with Notre 'When we scheduled this game two years ago, I think he figured we were just an upstart program," Brovelli said. "Digger thought he could just come in and get a in." Beating Notre Dame, despite the subsequent losses by USF, should ag~f USD. Hank Egan. in his second season. Dame. Yo, Digger.

up there, you've got to be competitive. Why bring a program back if you're not going to

first practice jlt 6 a.m., then another one at 2:30 p.m., then sticks around for extra shooting. The kind of kids you don't have to wo about staying eligible, because they're just as motivated m the classroom. Kids like he had at USD. Brovelli's top player, however, couldn't be described as an overachiever Mark McCathrion, a 6-foot-8, 235-pound senior forward, was a highly sought All-American at Bishop O'Dowd High in Oakland_ Iowa and Virginia were after him, big-time All-WCAC as a sophomore, McCathrion let his numbers slip last year, but this season he's already been named most valuable player of the Fresno State and USF tournaments. It was McCathrion who held Cal's Leonard Taylor to nine points and outscored Notre Dame's celebrated freshman, LaPhonso Ellis, 26-20. "A lot of unfair things got put on this kid's back," Brovelli said of McCathrion. "He was the 'savior' when he came here. He didn't need that. He was on a team of walk- ons. He's played otit of position for four years. "But he's from the East Bay, so he grew up with us. Mark remembered the good teams here, plus he wanted to stay local. And it's important to us to keep the local kids at USF." What else does Brovelli want? Well, that brings us to goal No. 5. That's to become a contender in the conference, which he said is

"way, way tougher than the first four ob echvr Right now it seems a monstrous goal." Yet ht h, grown accustomed to takmg mons t-r tep When Brovelli took over at USD m 1973, the school was Division II. Brovelli wanted the Toreros to be competitive all right - in Division I. "They thought I was nuts, a dumb Italian coach g1vmg administrative suggest10ns," Brovelli said. "Tom Burke (USD's president then) said, 'Go back and win Division II before you start talking Division I.' And he was right, dead right.'' As 1t happened, the Toreros were in the NCAA Division II tournament when an opening appeared in the WCAC, the domain of USF. It was the perfect place for USD, composed as it was of similar-sized universities that drew heavily from Catholic high schools. Plus, they all had high academic standards. Put on even ground with everyone else, Brovelli knew he could compete. Before he left Alcala Park. Brovelli had coached in the NCAA Division I tournament. He arrived at USF, which had all those banners and no team. "At USD, I had players in hand," Brovelli said. "Here, I had nothmg. There was apathy, paranoia. We had so many problems here it was ridiculous. If I didn't have the kind of experience I gained at US , I couldn't have done it here. I've gotten kicked and seen how to grow from it."

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Cal and Notre Dame, of course, come higher demands. Bigger crowds bring greater expectations. acknowledgement. Yes, he said, you can feel the pressure building. "I knew it'd be a tough job, but it's been a lot tougher than I thought, for a lot of different reasons," he said. "'We came back the first year and people say, why not 20 wins? They're nuts. In the past, you just threw the ball out at USF and got 20. But look around. You don't see Bill Russell. You don't see Bill Cartwright Those are once-in-a-lifetime players." LoSchiavo looks out there and, in some respects, sees many of the same characteristics of the players who teamed with Russell and K.C. Jones in the glor, years. "These are more like the kids who were here in the '50s and '60s," said LoSchiavo. "Those kids went on to law school. They're judges And the USF players of the '70s and early '80s? The most celebrated of them wound up in "We got carried away," LoSchiavo said. "We went after the blue-chip players. We lost sight of For the first time this year, Brovelli said, USF is playing with his type of player. That is, the player who reports for the day's Brovelli nodded his now, principals." front of a judge. things."

spac1011!; arena .

Takrng recent USF history into account, Phelps couldn't have planned on playing in the midst of such bedlam, and his players certamly didn't look comfortable. After the fmal buzzer, Phelps refused to accept USF coach Jim Brovelh s handshake. "This series i over," Phelps yelled at Brovelli. "You screwed "Bleep." aid Brovelli, a man normally not given to such colorful phraseology. Later terming Phelps' tirade "sour grapes," Brovelli said, "Let him cancel the series. That just·m ans we don't have to go into moment Which is more remarkable? The thought that Notre Dame, which always is playmg m hoop -crazed arena as the much-aespised visitors, can't le a little crowd noise? Or the fact that such a feverish crowd ha I know," Brovelli said "They're coming back. They're all coming once support rl t~e disappeared with the entire program m 1982. After a string of embarrassments ranging from NCAA infract10ns to criminal charges against USF player ons but us." South Bend " · ow think about this for a was at l SF? back·• ''They," mea, mg all those who

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Blade Tribune (Cir. D. 29,089) (Cir. S. 30,498)

FEB

1 1989

P. C. 8

Est. 11&8

SAN DIEGO SPORTS SCENE

Toreros must now get ready for an onslaught t'ifo(HOLST Staff Writer SAN DIEGO - Hank Egan is about to lead hi~ young lamb of a University of San Diego basketball team mto the Lions' den. : . . Egan ceaches a Torero s uad that starts Just or_ie semor along with two freshmen an two sophomo~es. Their season of seasoning, as it were, startds at 6-12, 1-5 m th~ West Coast Athletic Conference. On Friday, USD ventures mto the land of Loyola Marymount, where the Lions roar_ - and score (nation-leading 109.8 points per game) - like no other. Loyola blasted USIU 181-150 Tues~ay nigh~. . "Loyola Marymount, with their style, 1s diverse from everybody," Egan said. · . . , LMU coach Paul Westhead cracks the whtp ?n the Lions highly publicized shoot-first, never-ask-questions offense. Though not the power it was last year, when Loyola ad- vanced to the final 16 of the NCAA Tournament, the Los Angeles school is 12-7 and 5-1 in th~ WCAC. LMU has starters averaging 33, 23 and 20 pomts per gam~. and scored 94 points by halftime against USIU. USD scores 66 points an outing and has no one averaging more t~an 13. Egan is anxious, to say the l~ast, over how his green team will react to Loyola's frenzied attack. "The real key is to get on top early, so you don't feel ~he panic," Egan said. "The emotional asp_ect of a game with them is almost as important as the physical. You have to be strong enough in your play, in your convictions to not go along with that system." . . . Egan said it is Loyola's abili~y to play with high emotion that impresses him more than inflated scores. "Everybody talks about the fastbreak and Paul Westhead's system bu& I give him a lot of credit because he gets them to pl~y so hard for him," Egan said. "~~ey press all over the court, they run... They sacrifice themselves for the team." After braving a confrontation with Loyola, the Toreros have to take on Pepperdine (13-8, 5-1) in a road game the ollo in

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