This Season's Cinderella - College Basketball News

This Season's Cinderella
By Jim Johnson
Posted: 5:00 am PDT 2006-09-18

George Mason University became the patron saint of mid-major college basketball programs last season by beating the odds and reaching the Promised Land, otherwise known as the Final Four. Who will be this year's George Mason? What school will have its pumpkin turn into a beautiful horse-drawn coach and its Nikes transformed into glass slippers?

The short answer is that there probably won't be another story like the Patriots for another generation, much less a new season. However, here are the teams that I believe have the best chance to prove the conventional wisdom wrong and ones college basketball bettors can probably get nice futures odds on at WagerWeb.com. (note: no lines posted yet).

Hofstra: It is not totally far-fetched to say that the Pride could have been last year's George Mason if not for their controversial exclusion from the NCAA Tournament by the selection committee. After all, Hofstra knocked out the Patriots in the semifinals of the Colonial Athletic Association tournament. The Pride's bubble burst on Selection Sunday despite their 24-6 record, and they were relegated to the NIT.

This season, Coach Tom Pecora's veteran squad will no doubt have that snub as motivation to achieve great things, and I believe they have the talent to do so. Hofstra is led by the best backcourt in the CAA, one that is also among the best in the nation. Pecora uses a three-guard offense that features senior Loren Stokes (17.4 ppg in 2005-06), junior Antoine Agudio (17.2 ppg) and senior Carlos Rivera (11.7 ppg, 2-1 assist/turnover ratio) running the point. These three were the highest scoring three-guard combination in the country last season.

The Pride will need a couple of their sophomore wide-bodies to step up and embrace larger roles in Coach Pecora's rotation, but they have plenty of firepower to keep them on track until that happens.

Winthrop: What's a Winthrop, you ask? It is a university in Rock Hill, S.C. (about 20 minutes southeast of Charlotte) with an undergraduate enrollment of just over 5,000 students. Oh yeah, it has a pretty good basketball team too.

Coach Gregg Marshall has built a program that needs to be taken seriously. That might be happening; Athlon Sports preview magazine ranked it 30th in the nation, the first time a team from the Big South Conference has cracked the top 50 in anyone's previews. Under Marshall, the Eagles have won six conference championships in eight seasons. In the past two NCAA Tournaments, they scared the bejesus out of highly rated Gonzaga and Tennessee with their discipline and tenacious defense before succumbing in the first round.

Marshall ended his one day stint as the new coach at the College of Charleston and returned to Winthrop because, I want to be the one who takes the program to the next level. That should happen this season. He's got one of the more underrated big men in the country, senior Craig Bradshaw (6-10, 245 pounds), a dynamic playmaker in junior point guard Chris Gaynor, and a three-point threat in senior guard Torrell Martin (13.8 ppg, 5.6 reb.).

The pieces are in place for Winthrop to take a spot on the national stage and for everyone to know that Coach Marshall's first name has two g's.

Southern Illinois: Despite being a breeding ground for Big Ten coaches (Illinois' Bruce Weber and Purdue's Matt Painter succeeded current coach Chris Lowery at SIU), the Salukis have strung together five straight 20-win seasons, all of which led to NCAA Tournament bids. Since their surprising run to the Sweet 16 in 2002, however, Southern Illinois has not spent very long at the Big Dance. That could change this year.

Coach Lowery's team struggled to score last season, averaging only 60.4 points per game and making only 41.2 percent of its shots. The Salukis' success was predicated on the fourth stingiest defense in the nation, yielding only 56.5 points per contest. They feature athletic guards led by senior Jamaal Tatum, who turned down a summer internship with an NBA team to stay in Carbondale and work out with his teammates. His leadership and scoring (15.0 ppg last season) will be critical in taking the Salukis to the next level.

Other guards who make opponents miserable are senior Tony Young, their best three-point shooter, and sophomore Bryan Mullins, who ran the point with poise and maturity beyond his years last season. Inside, juniors Randall Falker and Matt Shaw aren't tall, but they are wide and strong in the paint on both ends of the court. Falker shut down Bradley's 7-foot NBA first-round pick, Patrick O'Bryant, in the second half of last year's Missouri Valley Conference Tournament championship game, a key in SIU's victory.

The Salukis have a veteran roster with better depth than in recent years. They should be more effective at the offensive end and still turn up even more defensive pressure on their opponents. The Salukis could be barking well into March this season.

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