Big South Conference Notebook
by Jerry Hinnen
Teal is the new black
It’s Winthrop and Birmingham-Southern pestering the country’s bracketologists with their tie atop of the Big South standings at 10-2, but the capital-H Hottest team in the Big South is Coastal Carolina, winners of six straight and eight of their last nine to move into sole possession of third place at 8-4 in league play. The Chanticleers now have two full games between themselves and fourth-place Radford after back-to-back road wins, 71-69 over improving Charleston Southern Thursday and an 88-70 pounding of UNC-Asheville Monday at UNCA’s Justice Center.
Third place seemed a long, long way off in the early part of Big South schedule, when the Chants started 0-3 in conference with double-digit losses to VMI, High Point, and Birmingham-Southern, all on the road. (Since that win over Coastal, VMI has gone 1-9 to fall to the league cellar.) But Tennessee refugee Buzz Peterson has since turned CCU into the team neither league leader – particularly conference favorite Winthrop, which the Chants swept in convincing fashion, 64-57 and 64-50 – will want to play come the Big South tournament.
How? A big part of it has been improved play from the CCU backcourt. Reigning Big South Player of the Year Pele Paelay and 2005 Big South Freshman of the Year Jack Leasure both struggled in the early going, the low point coming in the 77-64 loss to BSC when the two combined for 11 points on 5-of-18 shooting. But with senior point guard Colin Stevens inserted into the starting lineup to relieve some of the playmaking burden, the two have rounded into All-Conference form again. The pair combined for 44 points on 11-of-19 shooting from outside the arc (and 15-of-26 overall) in the romp over Asheville, while Stevens dished out seven assists.
But Leasure and Paelay have also benefited from the single biggest factor in CCU’s 180, namely the arrival in the starting lineup of Big South Freshman of the Year front-runner Joseph Harris. The 6-4 forward has been a dynamo on the boards in conference play, averaging an even 8 rebounds a game in the Chants’ nine-game streak, including 16 in a 78-60 win over High Point Feb. 6.
Harris has also done more than just clean the glass. He’s averaged 9.8 points a game in the streak, notching double-doubles against Charleston Southern and High Point, and his 64.6 field goal percentage in Big South play ranks third in the conference. And while Harris isn’t asked to do much playmaking, it was his clutch assist that gave teammate Moses Sonko a layup with 4.2 seconds to play to defeat Charleston Southern Thursday.
With Harris and the improving Sonko in the post, Stevens coolly running the point, and shooters like Paelay and Leasure outside, that 0-3 start is fast becoming little more than an unpleasant footnote.
Milestones
Two of the leaders for 2006 Big South accolades passed major milestones in weekend play. Radford senior Whit Holcomb-Faye scored his 1,741st career point Monday to move into third all-time in the Big South, trailing only Coastal Carolina’s Tony Dunkin and Radford’s Doug Day, with 2,151 and 2,027 points respectively. Two days earlier, Birmingham-Southern’s 73-69 victory over High Point gave head coach Duane Reboul his 400th career win, all of them at the helm for the Panthers.
Holcomb-Faye set his mark in a come-from-behind 81-76 home win over Charleston Southern Monday. The senior guard scored 37 points, tying his career high, on 12-of-22 shooting from the field and 8-of-9 nine free throws. The outburst was Holcomb-Faye’s fourth 30-point game this season and second in only a week after dropping 31 in a 75-64 win over Birmingham-Southern the previous Monday.
Before the BSC victory, the Highlanders had been mired in a three-game losing skid marked by listless play from Holcomb-Faye as he struggled with a thigh injury. But with his injury woes behind him and two more massive games under his belt, Holcomb-Faye – despite a 5-for-17 performance in the Highlanders’ ugly 71-44 loss to Winthrop Saturday – seems likely to emerge from a wide-open field to claim Big South Player of the Year honors.
Likewise, Reboul will receive heavy consideration (along with Buzz Peterson and Gregg Marshall) for Coach of the Year after molding a team with 10 new players (and only five returning lettermen) into co-league leaders with two weeks to play in the season.
The High Point win gave Reboul a career record of 400-121, an impressive 76.7 career winning percentage. The majority of Reboul’s victories came in BSC’s days as one of the nation’s strongest NAIA programs, including national championships in 1991 and 1995. But as the Big South has found out, Reboul is plenty capable of coaching at the NCAA Division I level as well.
“It’s just something that occurs if you’ve been in a program as long as we’ve been in it,” Reboul told the Birmingham News, “particularly if you’re in a good situation with good players and good assistant coaches like we have been. We were fortunate to have had some very good players. We’ve had 17 years – a long streak of good fortune.”
The waters de-muddied
After a couple of weeks spent with Winthrop and Birmingham-Southern well ahead of the pack, VMI and Liberty well behind, and every other team in the conference hovering in the middle, some separation has occurred in the race for the conference tourney’s third and fourth seeds and the first-round home game that come with them.
As mentioned above, Coastal Carolina’s recent hot streak now has them firmly entrenched in third position with an 8-4 record. 7-6 Radford’s big win over the Buccaneers Monday means they can now claim sole possession of fourth, with 6-7 UNC-Asheville lurking a game back. One plus for Radford: their schedule is much kinder, with games still to come against Liberty and VMI and their Winthrop dates behind them. One plus for Asheville: their sweep of the Highlanders means they own the tiebreaker should the two finish with identical records.
Charleston Southern has shown plenty of fire over the last several weeks, thanks in large part to Chris Moore, the sophomore guard whose 17.9 points a game in Big South play is fourth in the conference. But the Buccaneers have missed opportunities to win games against the league’s top half, losing three games to Coastal and Radford – two of them this week – by a combined eight points. They sit in seventh place at 5-8, a half-game back of 5-7 High Point.
High Point looked to be in good shape themselves after a 76-62 win over Radford Feb. 1 put them at 5-4 in conference and in a tie for third with Coastal. But the Panthers – the second-youngest team in all of Division I, with only two seniors and one junior on the entire roster – may have “hit the wall,” losing their last three to Charleston, Coastal, and BSC by a combined 42 points. The schedule eases up from here: three of their four remaining games are home dates with VMI, Asheville, and Liberty. But they will still need Radford to falter to have a shot at fourth.
Around the league
- Consider Winthrop’s mini-slump over. Since the Eagles’ second stumble against Coastal, the league favorite has come home to paste VMI and Radford by a combined 60 points. Winthrop showed again that they can win either with offense (98 points on 61.3 percent shooting vs. VMI) or defense (44 points and 28.6 percent shooting allowed vs. Radford). 6-11 forward Craig Bradshaw was named Player of the Week for his efforts.
- VMI and Liberty share the Big South cellar with 2-10 and 2-9 records respectively, and despite the Flames’ Monday night win over Longwood it’s hard to see either claiming another conference win. Neither team hosts a member of the conference’s bottom half. The best shot on paper is VMI’s trip to Charleston Southern, but the Keydets already lost to the Bucs by three at home Jan. 5. If the two teams tie for the basement, VMI would qualify for eighth place – and a spot in the conference tournament – by virtue of their win over Coastal Carolina.
- This weekend is the Big South’s first participation in the national BracketBusters event. Winthrop will host MAC team Northern Illinois, while High Point travels to take on Loyola-MD of the MAAC and UNC-Asheville visits Eastern Kentucky. A win over the current first-place team in the MAC’s West Division would be a nice feather in Winthrop’s cap and could help push for a 13-seed should the Eagles win the Big South’s automatic bid.
Game of the Week
Birmingham-Southern travels to Conway to take on Coastal Carolina Saturday on Fox Sports South at noon Eastern. As good as the Panthers have been, the Chanticleers can still pip them for the tournament’s second seed if they pick up the victory here and BSC fails to defeat Winthrop at home on Feb. 25 on the final day of the regular season. On the other hand, a Panther win likely means that BSC will be one game away from setting up a winner-take-all showdown with the Eagles for the league title. Although BSC did an excellent job containing Leasure and Paelay in the teams’ first meeting, the Panthers’ defensive performance against High Point Saturday – when they allowed the visiting Panthers to shoot 50 percent from three-point range – will not do against outside shooters of the Chanticleers’ caliber.
