Place an Ad Calendars Classified Forums Sports Weather

sptimes.com Text-only News sections Arts & Entertainment AP The Wire Business Citrus County Columnists Floridian Hernando County Hillsborough Letters Movies Neighborhood Times News Update North Pinellas North of Tampa Obituaries Opinion Pasco County South Pinellas Sports State Tampa Bay TV Times World & Nation  Find your local news section Weekly sections Brandon Times City Times Homes Outdoors Perspective Personal Tech Taste Travel Weekend Xpress Special Sections Arena football Buccaneers College football Devil Rays Lightning Police reports Schools Seniority Subscriber Services Subscribe Renew Help Advertise Place an ad In print Online Market Info Join Us Internships Scholarships Times Jobs Contact us

Pressure building on Crum

By BRIAN LANDMAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 24, 2001

At every level of coaching, there's a theory that states: When you're hired, you're also fired; it's just a matter of when.

If Louisville's Denny Crum didn't fully understand that before, he does now.

Despite a brilliant resume that includes 23 NCAA Tournament appearances in 29-plus seasons, six Final Fours, two national titles, 673 wins and election to the Basketball Hall of Fame, Crum is fighting for his job.

Reports are swirling that school officials are looking to either negotiate a buyout of the remaining two years of his contract or dismiss him at season's end. He confessed he doesn't know what's going to happen.

"You can't say that you don't know it can happen," Crum said. "It can happen to anybody any time. The justification for it is another issue."

A critical issue seems to be the Cardinals' record: 10-17 entering today's game at Marquette. Although this will be Crum's third losing season, it is his second in the past four.

Crum counterpunches that if his contract is extended to four years, he could land a stellar recruiting class that could trumpet an immediate return to the national elite.

"They can go anywhere they want and why would they go somewhere where they don't know who the next coach is going to be and whether or not I'm going to be there?" said Crum, who turns 64 Friday. "That's the issue. It's an easy issue. Either they support me and give me an extension or they don't. If they don't, then whatever happens in the recruiting, it's their responsibility."

That's a not-so-veiled shot at athletic director Tom Jurich, who took himself out of consideration for the same job at Indiana on Thursday to deal with the "problems" facing Louisville.

While Duke's Mike Krzyzewski isn't privy to details about the Louisville situation, he said that a solid program requires that the coach, athletic director and school president work in concert. In good times and bad. That's been a key to his success at Army and Duke.

"When one of those three entities is not part of the team, then you're going to have problems," he said.

It's just a matter of when.

TIP-INS: The NCAA is trying to correct a misnomer that the game between the No. 64 and 65 teams in Dayton on March 13 is a "play-in" to the NCAA Tournament. The field officially is 65 teams, so the game is an opening rounder. The winner should then face the top No. 1 seed, but may not. Men's basketball selection committee chairman Mike Tranghese said that "fairness" mandates the winner play in a subregion that begins Friday, not Thursday, and, in a perfect world, the winner could remain in Dayton. Don't count on a perfect world in the wackiness that is NCAA basketball. ... If Florida can win at Vanderbilt on Wednesday, it would be the team's school-record sixth SEC road win since the league went to a 16-game format in 1992. ... With 155 assists, St. Joseph's freshman point guard Jameer Nelson needs 21 to break the school's single-season record set in 1965-66 by Matt Guokas. Nelson will play in at least four more games and, if he maintains his 6.2 average, will surpass the former Magic and 76ers coach. ... As part of February's Black History month, the Eugene (Ore.) public library has been featuring Ducks coach Ernie Kent as one of the city's prominent African-Americans.

- Brian Landman covers men's college basketball. He can be reached at (813) 226-3347 or by e-mail at landman@sptimes.com.

By the numbers

0 -- Teams with an unblemished conference record.

5 -- Conference USA regular-season titles Cincinnati has won -- out of five tries.

14 -- Victories in a row for Hofstra, the nation's longest win streak.

35.7 -- Arizona's average margin of victory in three games it has had to tip off at 11 a.m., including a 105-61 win against USC last Saturday.

43 -- Michigan State's home-court winning streak, the nation's longest.

Chemistry 101

With the addition of a highly acclaimed recruiting class, headlined by forward Eddie Griffin, Seton Hall was supposed to be a beast in the Big East. The Pirates started 4-0, reaching No. 7 in the AP poll, and they remained a top 15 team until mid-January. But since a locker room fight involving Griffin, junior guard Ty Shine, senior forward Kevin Wilkins and freshman guard Marcus Toney-El, the Pirates have lacked cohesiveness and have gone 3-8 over their past 11 games. Said coach Tommy Amaker: "I do think our team has turned the corner with some of the issues in terms of chemistry and playing together. We're just hoping we can put it together a few more times to streak it out as we go down the stretch."

You're playing who? now?

No. 20-ranked Maryland's showdown today against visiting No. 16 Oklahoma is the kind of ballyhooed non-conference game you'd expect in December, never this late February. But Terrapins coach Gary Williams has a history of scheduling such games. Last year, for example, his team played at No. 19 Temple on Feb. 13. Said Williams: "I kind of like it because if you are good enough to get to the NCAA Tournament, it's kind of that atmosphere, and you're preparing for a team outside of your league that you don't know as well as you know your league teams."

Quotable

"(Our kids) are fortunate to now have something in their possession for a lifetime, in terms of a feeling when you do well, and hopefully that's something for them to build on, perhaps not in the short term but the long term." -- LARRY SHYATT, Clemson coach after his team's stunning win against then-No. 1 North Carolina last Sunday. The Tigers were routed at home by Wake Forest, 92-60, three days later.

Setting the record straight

In an unusual move, the NCAA men's basketball selection committee met in Indianapolis on Feb. 7-8 and went through the process of picking and seeding the teams and then bracketing them. Historically, the committee doesn't get together until a few days before Selection Sunday. What gives? Conspiracy theorists had a field day, but committee chairman Mike Tranghese, the Big East commissioner, said that all 31 conferences were discussed. Said Tranghese: "What was encouraging to me was the individuals on the committee had a handle on it already. But if you're sitting here today and not aware of a team that's going to be up on that board, then we're not doing our job." He added that even if the group wanted to make a few early decisions -- and it didn't -- on specific at-large teams, "the world has changed so much" in the last three weeks that those decisions likely would be moot. -- Compiled by Brian Landman

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright