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Far From the Limelight and Far From Successful
By JOHN BRANCH
BIRMINGHAM, Ala., March 9 ? There are 30 N.C.A.A. Division I men's basketball conferences better than the Southwestern Athletic Conference. There are none worse.
That is according to the Ratings Percentage Index, a heartless computation of victories, defeats and strength of schedule. The ranking was silently seconded Thursday by the more than 15,000 empty seats at Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex Arena that greeted the start of the conference tournament.
Granted, the quarterfinal game between fourth-seeded Alabama State and fifth-seeded Jackson State began at 10 a.m. But the official attendance of 424 provided a second gauge for where this proud conference of historically black colleges finds itself ? at the bottom of the rankings, if not the underside of March Madness.
On Saturday night, a team will secure the automatic bid to the N.C.A.A. tournament that goes to the SWAC's tournament winner. But even that does not ensure bona fide entry; there is a good chance the SWAC champion will be forced to participate in the tournament's play-in game Tuesday as one of the two lowest-rated teams in the 65-team field, fighting for the right to play the top-ranked team in the country when the full tournament begins Thursday.
The SWAC has participated in the play-in game three of the past four years. It has not won one. The last time a SWAC team won a game in the N.C.A.A. tournament was in 1993, when Southern upset Georgia Tech.
No one is quite sure why the SWAC cannot compete with most of college basketball. They only know the differences.
"Money and tradition," Arkansas-Pine Bluff Coach Van Holt said.
The SWAC is better known for its football heritage ? the conference has produced more than 10 players in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, including Walter Payton and Deacon Jones ? and its show-stopping marching bands than for basketball. The sport has long struggled to attract attention beyond its small gyms and ardent fan bases, and as the popularity of college basketball and the N.C.A.A. tournament continue to grow, the SWAC is scrambling to follow.
"Where other teams select, we have to recruit," Holt said. "The rich get richer and, a lot of times, the poor get poorer."
Teams in the SWAC, like those at other historically black colleges, no longer attract the best black athletes. Some suggest that the talent gap between the SWAC and big-time conferences is stretching wider.
"This ain't SWAC basketball anymore," said Harold Blevins, sitting alone about 15 rows up in the stands watching Grambling State edge Mississippi Valley State. "Until some of the athletes come back to the H.B.C.'s, it's just going to get worse." He was referring to historically black colleges.
Blevins was the Arkansas-Pine Bluff coach from 1996 to 2002, and he was a star player there in the 1960's, playing against the likes of Grambling's Willis Reed. The two men were chosen a year apart by the Knicks in the second round of the N.B.A. draft.
Many of the best athletes in the South used to go to SWAC schools, Blevins said. But those glory days are tinged with bittersweet memories. It was in an era of segregation.
"They didn't have a choice," Blevins said.
Now the best basketball players have plenty of choices. Increasingly, they are choosing to play elsewhere ? generally, places with bigger arenas and more exposure.
"Back in the days when I was growing up, the SWAC had as good of talent as any schools in the state," said the Mississippi Valley State coach, James Green, a Mississippi native.
The league is now filled with quick, high-scoring guards and swingmen, giving it an up-tempo, fan-friendly style. But its big men are not so big. Size and skill, generally, are inversely proportional.
"It's getting tougher now, because the big schools are even recruiting the mediocre big guys," Alabama State Coach Lewis Jackson said. "Because the guys they have are leaving for the pros after one or two years."
But there is still a sense that SWAC basketball is not fairly portrayed by its computer rankings or weak N.C.A.A. tournament history. Although the league's R.P.I. has been last or second-to-last every year since 1999, coaches and administrators suggest that it is because dollars are more enticing than victories.
"In preconference, we have to go out and ? for lack of a better word ? prostitute ourselves to help our budgets," Alcorn State Coach Samuel West said.
Much of the scheduling is profit-driven; most teams play at least five guarantee games, where they are paid from $35,000 to $100,000 to help fill a bigger university's home schedule. Since SWAC colleges do not play Division I football, thus missing out on that financial windfall, they rely heavily on basketball to boost their bottom lines.
By some measures, the SWAC teams play the most difficult nonconference schedules in the country. It undoubtedly has the worst nonconference record ? 8-75 against other Division I teams.
"You don't find too many teams that pick up a check and a win, too," Alabama A&M Coach Vann Pettaway said.
Green, whose first season at Mississippi Valley State ended with Thursday's tournament loss, coached his first nine games on the road. Alcorn State opened with 11 consecutive road games, including matchups at Florida State, Arizona State and Southern California.
While the strength-of-schedule component helps the SWAC's overall R.P.I., the winning percentage destroys it. When the conference schedule begins, and 0-9 teams are playing 2-10 teams, the R.P.I. slides steadily toward the bottom.
Nine of the SWAC's 10 teams ended the regular season with an R.P.I. of 243 or worse, in the bottom 100 of the 334 Division I programs. Southern, the regular-season champion and the only SWAC team with a winning record (16-12 over all, 15-3 in the conference), was the exception, at 144.
The conference is making an effort to encourage its members to think long-term, to build their schedules for on-court success, not merely a financial boost. It wants the colleges to find more midmajor opponents and more home games ? neither of which provide quick fixes for the budget, but could help slowly rebuild the SWAC's basketball reputation.
Once the conference season begins, the SWAC is as feisty and competitive as any; 8 of its 10 teams won between 6 and 11 conference games. And when the conference tournament rolls around, a renewed sense of possibility takes over.
The conference is playing one of the few all-or-nothing tournaments this weekend. One team will go to the N.C.A.A. tournament; the others will not.
On Thursday, the banners were perfectly aligned and the sound of pep bands filled the void of the near-empty arena. A slightly larger and more vocal crowd greeted the evening games as eight teams were whittled to four.
More fans will find their way here Friday and Saturday to see which team will secure the league's automatic bid.
It is not the Big East, but it is intriguing in its own way.
"Everybody at that level is thinking about the N.C.A.A. tournament," Holt said. "We're thinking about just trying to get there ? to get some recognition, and for the paycheck."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/10/sports/ncaabasketball/10swac.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
By JOHN BRANCH
BIRMINGHAM, Ala., March 9 ? There are 30 N.C.A.A. Division I men's basketball conferences better than the Southwestern Athletic Conference. There are none worse.
That is according to the Ratings Percentage Index, a heartless computation of victories, defeats and strength of schedule. The ranking was silently seconded Thursday by the more than 15,000 empty seats at Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex Arena that greeted the start of the conference tournament.
Granted, the quarterfinal game between fourth-seeded Alabama State and fifth-seeded Jackson State began at 10 a.m. But the official attendance of 424 provided a second gauge for where this proud conference of historically black colleges finds itself ? at the bottom of the rankings, if not the underside of March Madness.
On Saturday night, a team will secure the automatic bid to the N.C.A.A. tournament that goes to the SWAC's tournament winner. But even that does not ensure bona fide entry; there is a good chance the SWAC champion will be forced to participate in the tournament's play-in game Tuesday as one of the two lowest-rated teams in the 65-team field, fighting for the right to play the top-ranked team in the country when the full tournament begins Thursday.
The SWAC has participated in the play-in game three of the past four years. It has not won one. The last time a SWAC team won a game in the N.C.A.A. tournament was in 1993, when Southern upset Georgia Tech.
No one is quite sure why the SWAC cannot compete with most of college basketball. They only know the differences.
"Money and tradition," Arkansas-Pine Bluff Coach Van Holt said.
The SWAC is better known for its football heritage ? the conference has produced more than 10 players in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, including Walter Payton and Deacon Jones ? and its show-stopping marching bands than for basketball. The sport has long struggled to attract attention beyond its small gyms and ardent fan bases, and as the popularity of college basketball and the N.C.A.A. tournament continue to grow, the SWAC is scrambling to follow.
"Where other teams select, we have to recruit," Holt said. "The rich get richer and, a lot of times, the poor get poorer."
Teams in the SWAC, like those at other historically black colleges, no longer attract the best black athletes. Some suggest that the talent gap between the SWAC and big-time conferences is stretching wider.
"This ain't SWAC basketball anymore," said Harold Blevins, sitting alone about 15 rows up in the stands watching Grambling State edge Mississippi Valley State. "Until some of the athletes come back to the H.B.C.'s, it's just going to get worse." He was referring to historically black colleges.
Blevins was the Arkansas-Pine Bluff coach from 1996 to 2002, and he was a star player there in the 1960's, playing against the likes of Grambling's Willis Reed. The two men were chosen a year apart by the Knicks in the second round of the N.B.A. draft.
Many of the best athletes in the South used to go to SWAC schools, Blevins said. But those glory days are tinged with bittersweet memories. It was in an era of segregation.
"They didn't have a choice," Blevins said.
Now the best basketball players have plenty of choices. Increasingly, they are choosing to play elsewhere ? generally, places with bigger arenas and more exposure.
"Back in the days when I was growing up, the SWAC had as good of talent as any schools in the state," said the Mississippi Valley State coach, James Green, a Mississippi native.
The league is now filled with quick, high-scoring guards and swingmen, giving it an up-tempo, fan-friendly style. But its big men are not so big. Size and skill, generally, are inversely proportional.
"It's getting tougher now, because the big schools are even recruiting the mediocre big guys," Alabama State Coach Lewis Jackson said. "Because the guys they have are leaving for the pros after one or two years."
But there is still a sense that SWAC basketball is not fairly portrayed by its computer rankings or weak N.C.A.A. tournament history. Although the league's R.P.I. has been last or second-to-last every year since 1999, coaches and administrators suggest that it is because dollars are more enticing than victories.
"In preconference, we have to go out and ? for lack of a better word ? prostitute ourselves to help our budgets," Alcorn State Coach Samuel West said.
Much of the scheduling is profit-driven; most teams play at least five guarantee games, where they are paid from $35,000 to $100,000 to help fill a bigger university's home schedule. Since SWAC colleges do not play Division I football, thus missing out on that financial windfall, they rely heavily on basketball to boost their bottom lines.
By some measures, the SWAC teams play the most difficult nonconference schedules in the country. It undoubtedly has the worst nonconference record ? 8-75 against other Division I teams.
"You don't find too many teams that pick up a check and a win, too," Alabama A&M Coach Vann Pettaway said.
Green, whose first season at Mississippi Valley State ended with Thursday's tournament loss, coached his first nine games on the road. Alcorn State opened with 11 consecutive road games, including matchups at Florida State, Arizona State and Southern California.
While the strength-of-schedule component helps the SWAC's overall R.P.I., the winning percentage destroys it. When the conference schedule begins, and 0-9 teams are playing 2-10 teams, the R.P.I. slides steadily toward the bottom.
Nine of the SWAC's 10 teams ended the regular season with an R.P.I. of 243 or worse, in the bottom 100 of the 334 Division I programs. Southern, the regular-season champion and the only SWAC team with a winning record (16-12 over all, 15-3 in the conference), was the exception, at 144.
The conference is making an effort to encourage its members to think long-term, to build their schedules for on-court success, not merely a financial boost. It wants the colleges to find more midmajor opponents and more home games ? neither of which provide quick fixes for the budget, but could help slowly rebuild the SWAC's basketball reputation.
Once the conference season begins, the SWAC is as feisty and competitive as any; 8 of its 10 teams won between 6 and 11 conference games. And when the conference tournament rolls around, a renewed sense of possibility takes over.
The conference is playing one of the few all-or-nothing tournaments this weekend. One team will go to the N.C.A.A. tournament; the others will not.
On Thursday, the banners were perfectly aligned and the sound of pep bands filled the void of the near-empty arena. A slightly larger and more vocal crowd greeted the evening games as eight teams were whittled to four.
More fans will find their way here Friday and Saturday to see which team will secure the league's automatic bid.
It is not the Big East, but it is intriguing in its own way.
"Everybody at that level is thinking about the N.C.A.A. tournament," Holt said. "We're thinking about just trying to get there ? to get some recognition, and for the paycheck."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/10/sports/ncaabasketball/10swac.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
