News Scrapbook 1984
,._ , CA (San Diego Co.) Dally calllornlan (0 . 100,271)
Lemon Grove, CA (San Diego Co.) . Lemon Grove Review (Cir. W. 7,004)
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Toreros Eye Hoop CroWn Tonight lJSil and St. llrth
e big time: Toreros are hot and loving t he limelight Toreros' champagne, the fans from raising the roof and having some fun, and the music from playing on. By Mike Mathison ol Tile Dally Ce/llornlan
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USO sits alone in first-place with an 8-3 record. St. Mary's is second at 7-4. If the Toreros win they will take their first trip in the school's history to the NCAA's 64-team merry-go-round. AGael victory and the two clubs will meet Saturday night at Loyola-Marymount University in a playoff game. WIMer take all. "We really haven't talked too much about playing Saturday," said Torero forward Anthony Reuss. "We feel it will be over Thursday. We're not looking toward Saturday." Tonight's bash is a first-come, first-serve affair. It's come as you are and the more the merrier. No formal invitations have ~n sent, or are needed. But there is a limit on the space available. The Sports Center seats approximately 2,500 and crashers are not allowed. Get there early to reserve a seat. Don't plan on showing up at 7:20 and expect to get in.
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''Well my friends, the time has come. Raise the roof and have some fun. Blow away the work to be done. Let the music play on, play on, play on ... Once you get started, you can't sit down. Come join the fun, it's a merry-go-round ... Come join our party, see how we play . . Oh, yes, we're gonna have a party. All night - Lionel Richie The University of San Diego men's basketball team is going tolfirowa party tonight. Place: The USO Sports Center. Time: 7:30. Reason: A chance to win the West Coast Athletic Conference championship outright and a trip to the CAA Division I Basketball Tournament. It won't be all fun, though. The Toreros probably won't blow away the work to be done tonight. They mu t dance past St. Mary's in order to receive their invitation to the post-season party. The Gaels will do their best to keep the cork in the "I think getting the ball inside will be a key to this game. If Scott (6-11 freshman center Scott Thompson), Mike or I get the ball in there, odds are something good 1s going to happen." The East County Connection has been one constant headache to opposing coaches. Whitmarsh 1s netting 18.7 points, grabbing 7.4 boards and handing out 6.1 assists in all games. Reuss is scoring at a 12.1 clip. hauling in 6.5 rebounds and shooting 62 percent from the floor. "The key for us will be handling their press," Whitmarsh said. "I'm pretty sure they'll press the whole game. We have to limit our turnovers. Turnovers hurt us last time. We made a couple of adjustments I don't think we'll have any trouble. "They are a good board team. They're not really tall- they go 6-7, 6-6, 6-6. But they all go 220,230 and they all get up. We'll definitely have to block out on the boards. The last two games we beat Portland and Gonzaga on the boards, and they are probably the two best boards teams in the conference. "The secret is blocking out. You have to keep your man out of there (the key). It's all position. If you have good position, you'll get the rebounds." "I think we're set," Reuss said. "Practice has been the same this week as it has been the last five or six weeks. We don't go over our opponent's stuff much. We're more worried about us than our opponents. We have to make sure they don't run away with it early." long." . .
"It's been exciting all week ... I've never had nothing compare to what's goi g on here. I didn't know I had
1 o:Hl trips of t)w s<'ason. Al l hP tim(', tllC' (;aC'l~ W('!"(' fi2 whil1> the Ton•ros wcre 5-3 aml on,• g:ime bac-C'k. The St'hC'
crazy around here. People are going bananas. There are signs all over. It's all you hear people talking about." -A11thony • euu
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USO's annual alu · g nt will be played before THE gam at 5 pm Watching the last half of that conte t, or th entire game wouldn't be a bad idea It' B.V OLM. - Bring Your Own Loud Mouth " I don't know what bm it's going to sell out," said Tor •ro forward Mike Whitmarsh, "but you know it's goin to. I think they'll throw some extra seats in th r . rm ure they'll be some people hanging from the rafters. It' gomg to be exc1tmg. I might even get n rvou., And if I get nervou (which Whitmarsh usually doesn't do l, I wonder how my freshmen fn nd ar going to be feeling. "It's been exciting all week You can feel it m the air. I've never had nothing compare to what's going on here I didn't know I had so many friends" "With the alumni g me at five, I think a lot of people are planning on seeing both games,'' said Reuss Whitmarsh's running mate at forward "If you're not there by 6 30, there I a good hot you won't get In "It' been iust crazy around here People are going banana . There are signs all over. It' all you hear people talking bout. We have I? keep our heads on._ We can't get overanxious . That II be a big thmg. This I something pretty new - just ba ketball m general at USO. We can't lo e our heads about all the press and all the talk we're getting, even though we are grateful for It. "I'm sure the emotions will be quite high during the annoucements. The place should be roanng" ' Whitmarsh and Reuss, both 6-foot-7, are The East County CoMection Whitmarsh is a 1980 graduate of Monte Vista High and played two seasons at Gro mont College. Ruess was graduated from Christian High in 1981 and went to Alcala Park out of high school. The pair is averaging 31.2 points and 14 rebounds per WCAC game between them. They are the backbone of a 17-9 ballclub, which has won five in a row. Both have been fighting the flu, along with opponents, the last two games. "I'm just about over it," Whitmarsh said. "But now I'm getting headaches. I went to the ho pital today (Wednesday) because I was having migraines and they were bad. I was having them over my right eye. I thought I was in big trouble today. They gave me some medicine and I hope it will work. "Even if the headaches are still there, I'm still going to play the game all out. I'm not going to let a little headache stop me." "I'm fine now," Reuss said. "I wasn't feeling too well in Portland (a 63-56 win last Thursday). At Gonzaga (a 71-69 double overtime victory Saturday) I felt a lot better. I didn't do much the first hall that game, but the second half I started coming along a little bit. · Everythmg you always wanted to know about the NCAA basketball tournament but couldn't figure out because you still don't understand what " hooting from the paint" means ..• • WHO: The top S3 teams in the country as lected by the NCAA tournament committee. There will be 29 conference champions getting in automatically, and 24 at-large teams. e WHERE: Starting next Tuesday, the 10 conference qualifiers from the leagues figured to be the weakest by the committee, will play in a preliminary round - a double-header in the Palestra m Philadelphia and a triple-header at e University of Dayton. The five sumvors make it into the 48-team fll'St•round field at eight sites around the coun- try. The four-team regionals, the following eek, will be at Lexington, Ky., Atlanta, Los Angeles and l Louis (March 22-25). All this I ads to the national championship game April 2 m the Kmgdome in Seattle. e WHICH WAY WILL THEY GO: Although the teams are seeded No. l through No. 53, the top 16 are th critical. Last year 13 of the top 16 made the round-of-16. This year you will proba- bly North Carolina in the East, Georgetown 1n the W t, and, probably DePaul and Houston omewhere 1n the middle of the country de- pending on what happens to Kentucky m the Southea tern Conference tournament. • WHO ELSE: It looks like. according to comm1ttecman and Notre Dame athletic direc- tor Gene Corrigan, that Illinois, Purdue and In- diana are "defimtes" out of the Big Ten. There will be four or more from the Atlantic Coast Conference, four more out of the SEC, three from the Big Ea t and at least Illinois State and Tulsa out of the M1ssoun Valley. e BRI 'G 'EM BACK: No, defending champ orth Carolina tate will not return, unless the 'Wolfpack com off the floor in the ACC tourna- ment. They are 19-12 overall and in ninth place in the I gue e URPRISE!: Simply, USD, assuming the Tor ros mak 1l But, seriously you can watch 1f they make 1t Virginia Commonwealth, Temple and Fr no State. ICE DOWN THE BEER - Just so you'll be
San Diego, CA (San Diego Co.) Evening Tribune (0. 127,454)
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's the good ol' days at USD
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Palo Alto, CA (Santa Clara Co.) Peninsula Times-Tribune (Cir. 7xW.)
Five years ago if someone told USO coach Jim Brovelli he'd be playing for a championship and NCAA spot this soon, even he may have laughed. Back then all be was pushing for was making the jump to Division I and en- trance into the WCAC. "I said then that it would take five years to build enough identity, credibility and respect to be sustained year in and year out," Brovelli said. "That was the five- year goal. I never bad a five-year goal for wins and losses or NCAA tournament bids. Doing this in Division I is just incredible." Bob Bartholomew, USD's second-leading career scorer, played two years in Division ll, two in Division I. As a freshman, be was on the USD team that won the Division II West Regional tournament at Nortbridge State, and made the Final Four at Orlando, Fla., where they lost the fll'St game. "You think today's team bas role players and chemistry?" Brovelli said, pointing to the picture of that championship season team. "That team had chemistry." "The place used to go nuts, like it's going now," Bartho- lomew recalled yesterday. But after closing out its Divi- sion II history with 19-7, 20-7 and 22-7 records, the Toreros folded to 6-19 their first year in Division I, 1979-80. "It was tough," Bartholomew said. "People stopped coming. They didn't want to hear about better competi- tion. They just wanted wins. "When we were Division II we'd play three or four Division I teams and play them well. It was easy then because we'd be shooting for them. But then playing every night against them wore us down. They had better talent and the big thing was their depth. Our first year we lost a couple of players and I ended up playing center at 6-foot-7. That's tough to do in Division I." Bartholomew graduated, and USO struggled to consec- utive 10-16 and 11-15 records. Steps were being taken. Maybe they were baby steps, but they were in the right direction. Last year they finished 12-14. All_of which brings the Toreros to tonight's game. Starting three players who are in their first year in the program - two junior college transfers at guard, a fresh- man at center - says something about the big reason USD bas made the jump from baby steps to the NCAA doorstep: Brovelli is fitting better talent into his system. "We used to have players that just couldn't do what we'd ask of them, so we were limited," said John Cosenti- n?. ''That's not the case any more." Gosentino knows. For six years he has been Brovelli's chief recruiter and assist- ant coach, and be figures to be first in line for the head coaching job if Brovelli decides to move on to the Univer- sity of San Francisco after this season. But he, like Brovelli, says, "I'm not even thinking of that possibility now." Now they are thinking about St. Mary's.
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In the good old Division II basketball days at~ fans used to clap together blocks of wood as they watched the games in the Sports Center. These are not those good old days. These are the happy days in Division I. That means a win tonight against 12-15 St. Mary's will give the 17-9 Toreros the West Coast Athletic Conference title and an •invitation to the NCAA tournament. Times, and stakes, change. The blocks of wood have been replaced by rosary beads. "U you'd have said we'd be playing for the champion- ship and the NCAA this year, at the beginning of the season even I would have laughed at you," said forward Mike Whitmarsh, the team leader, who has been suffering
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Big night in Pac-10, WCAC - SJS faces Las Vegas .• Times Tribune news services Title races In the Pacific-10 Confer• ence and the West Coast Athletic Con- ference will be at least partially d~cid- ed tonight. Meanwhile, San Jose S~te opens tile Pacific Coast Athletic- Asso- ciation tournament while seeking what would be the upset of the college bas• ketball season. Tile eighth-seeded Spartans face top- seeded and nationally 10th-ranked Ne- vada-Las Vegas (25•4) tonight (7, KSTS- 48) In one of four flrst-roun u 2 0 s o.8 0 0.0 11 3 1.0 ,_ 7G.I 112 11.2 71111.1 - H.I ,... u.7 - 12.1 701 U.7 "4 ,0.2 11..11•2-m 111 -- 11$-217 197 l70-1sal 122-NI 411 --647 1'7·20I 179 I THE TRIBUNE MAR 8 1984 Gang of 53 ready for NCAA tournament any sense in getting upset about getting beat. You get upset when you lose playing badly. You don't get upset when you get beat by a team that played better. "And, by the way, why don't you tell Illinois, with all their Rose Bowl money, to get you guys a better room?" AZTEC UPDATE - While the SDSU men's basketball team may have had a lot of publicity swept away by USO this season, it might be on the verge of losing a little more even closer to home. The State women's team, 22-5 after losing to Long Beach State 611-63 last night and 8-5 in the Western Collegiate Athletic Association, are awaiting the announcement of it's first-round NCAA Playoff test. They play at Stanford (4-23) Saturday night. That one shouldn't be too diffi- cult. Tina Hutchinson leads the Aztecs with a 29.5 ppg. average.... State's women's gymnastics team will com- pete in the WCAA Championships this weekend at Cal State-Long Beach.... The women's ten- nis team is 13-2 overall.... The women's soft- ball team (3-5) entertains USD at 1:30 p.m. today in a double-header and it'll be without the services of No. 2 pitcher Lisa Michie. She bru- ised a kidney playing shortstop and will be out indefinitely.... NOTES - Just so you won't be confused if things don't change between now and Sept. 8 when Boston College visits Alabama for the Crimson Tide's home opener, the first name is Mike, not Don, Shula and he is the No. 1 quarter- back on the Tide depth chart.... SMU is proba- bly the best team in the country you've never beard of. The Mustangs finished 24-6 and received a bye into the second round of this week's Southwest Conference tournament. ... How do you get into the NCAAs? Like any other sport, win at the end of the season. Villanova won 14 of its final 17 games. Now we'll see what happens to the Wildcats even if they lose in the Big East tournament. (Bill Pinella's Colleges Notepad appears every Thursday in The Tribune). ready, Monday Night Football (collegiate style), will open August 27th with the second annual Kickoff Classic at The Meadowlands in East Rutherford, N.J. when defending national champion Miami plays Auburn. That's the good news for football fans. The bad news, for basketball fans, is that poor rat- ings, due mostly to overexposure, is causing a lot of conferences to re-evaluate their television packages. While the Pac-10 is making a cool million a year in its deal with Metrosports, Inc., Bill Pine/la COLLEGES NOTEPAD at least one unidentified conference has ratings kc low it isn't being paid. STOP AND SMELL THE ROSES - Bobby Knight, affable as ever, didn't leave anyone dis- appointed after his Indiana Hoosiers lost 70-53 to Illinois at Champaign, Ill., Sunday. Before the game, Knight was reading a book on Abraham Lincoln and General Grant when m walked Illinois coach Lou Henson and the Illini radio play-by-play man to do a pregame show. "Don't mind me," Knight said as he re- turned to bis book and made no move to leave. After the game .things got better. What did be tell his team after the defeat? "Take a shower and go home," Knight said. ·'What the bell do you want me to say to them? It's Sunday and March 4th? You got any sugges- tions?" Knight said to the packed house in the small interview room the Illini bad provided him. And why didn't be get down on the team? "How the bell can you get down when you get your - beat like this?" Knight said. "There isn't -
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