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      Women’s Basketball Makes Room for New Stars, and New Contenders

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }N.C.A.A. Basketball TournamentsMen’s PreviewWomen’s PreviewAn Unusual BracketLatest Virus CasesDuke Ends SeasonAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWomen’s Basketball Makes Room for New Stars, and New ContendersThe usual elites are still great, but the rest of the college field has a real shot to win the championship this year. Star power isn’t concentrated at the top anymore.The UConn Huskies celebrating after winning the women’s Big East tournament.Credit…David Butler Ii/USA Today Sports, via ReutersMarch 14, 2021, 12:01 a.m. ETThere are few more compelling diversions than N.C.A.A. tournament basketball, and after the postseason was canceled last March because of the coronavirus pandemic, plenty of the best players in women’s basketball are hungry for the bright lights of the big stage. Their passion for the game will, at least for the next few weeks, become our own as we become immersed in the bracket’s glories and heartbreaks.Before the tournament begins in San Antonio on March 21, here are a few keys to understanding the past season in women’s college basketball.The full scope of the coronavirus pandemic’s impact is unknown — but huge.A worker sanitized the George Mason gym before a game in January.Credit…Patrick Smith/Getty ImagesIt’s impossible to overstate how much the women’s college basketball season has been defined by the pandemic. At least nine games have been canceled this month because of coronavirus health and safety protocols. Nearly every top program has missed games because of either contact tracing or positive virus tests, meaning most teams have not played a full slate of games.In December, The New York Times reported that there had been at least 6,629 cases of the coronavirus within college sports; it’s hard to know how many more athletes and staff members have tested positive since, because the N.C.A.A. doesn’t track testing results. But at least one women’s basketball player, Vanderbilt’s Demi Washington, learned that she had acute myocarditis, which doctors believed was a side effect of the coronavirus.Blue-chip programs still rule, but more of the others at last have a real shot at the title.Stanford players celebrated in confetti last week after they won the Pac-12 Conference tournament championship game. Credit…Kirby Lee/USA Today Sports, via ReutersSix of the top 10 teams in The Associated Press poll have won at least one title; only two have never been to a Final Four. But the high rankings of perennial contenders like Stanford, Baylor, Louisville and, yes, UConn obscure the fact that there’s a much more level playing field at the top of the game than there has been in years, as evidenced by the split votes for the No. 1 spot. (UConn has the top ranking with 22 first-place votes, Stanford is in second place with five, and North Carolina State in third with two.)UConn is the only team in the top 25 with just one loss, but the Huskies played a relatively easy schedule. Among their peers at the top, there is no clear front-runner, which sets the stage for tight Elite Eight matchups.The SEC tournament showed us what madness might be in store.Kentucky and Georgia faced off in the SEC Tournament, with Georgia emerging victorious.Credit…Dawson Powers/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe pandemic has changed the way conference tournaments and the N.C.A.A. tournament are seeded. Because the teams in each conference haven’t played the same number of games, most tournaments have been ranked using win percentage. At the SEC tournament, for example, Tennessee was the No. 3 seed and Kentucky was No. 5, even though Kentucky won as many conference games as the Lady Vols and had more wins over all. The result of this seeding system was enticing matchups for two strong upset candidates — No. 11 Ole Miss, which came tantalizingly close to beating Tennessee in the quarterfinals, and No. 4 Georgia, which battled to a 5-point loss against South Carolina in the championship game.Similar unpredictability may be on the way at the N.C.A.A. tournament, which will be using a true S-curve to seed teams for the first time: Because the games are all taking place in San Antonio, geographic considerations won’t be taken into account as the selection committee creates the bracket, removing one variable and potentially creating stronger competition.The 3-point revolution is steering many potential underdogs.Aisha Sheppard, Virginia Tech’s 3-point specialist, in a game against George Washington this season.Credit…Pool photo by Matt GentryDuring the 2020-21 season, more teams than ever averaged at least eight 3-point baskets made per game, according to data from Her Hoop Stats. The 3-point revolution has clearly made it to the women’s game, and has created a path for mid-major programs either to have their first shot at making the tournament, like the High Point Panthers (10.2 per game), or to fuel genuine upset potential, as is the case with Florida Gulf Coast (11.8 per game) and Stephen F. Austin (8.6 per game). Power 5 schools are no stranger to splash, either — Virginia Tech is averaging 9.8 per game, thanks in large part to the sharpshooting senior guard Aisha Sheppard (3.7 per game), and Arkansas is averaging 9.6. Any one of these teams could easily live (or die) by the 3.There are stars all over the place.Natasha Mack, a top W.N.B.A. prospect, in a game against Baylor earlier this season.Credit…Sue Ogrocki/Associated PressBeyond the top teams, women’s college basketball used to have a talent vacuum, with the best high school recruits drawn to extending the reigns of dynasties instead of aiming to lead deep postseason runs with programs accustomed to watching the Final Four from home. No longer, though: Charli Collier of Texas and Oklahoma State’s Natasha Mack, who are top W.N.B.A. prospects, represent the Big 12. The best shooter in the country is Monika Czinano, a junior center at Iowa. It’s hard to turn on a women’s college basketball game without seeing at least one truly compelling player capable of willing a team to victory — and bringing some madness to March.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      When the Coronavirus Shut Down Sports

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      This article is by Alan Blinder and Joe Drape. Additional reporting by Gillian R. Brassil, Karen Crouse, Kevin Draper, Andrew Keh, Jeré Longman, Juliet Macur, Carol Schram, Ben Shpigel, Marc Stein and David Waldstein. Illustrations by Madison Ketcham. Produced by Michael Beswetherick and Jonathan Ellis.

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      Alan Blinder

      Joe Drape

      Gillian R. Brassil

      Karen Crouse

      Kevin Draper

      Andrew Keh

      Jeré Longman

      Juliet Macur

      Carol Schram

      Ben Shpigel

      Marc Stein

      David Waldstein

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      A New League’s Shot at the N.C.A.A.: $100,000 Salaries for High School Players

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyA New League’s Shot at the N.C.A.A.: $100,000 Salaries for High School PlayersThe Overtime Elite league proposes that providing a salary and a focus toward a pro career might be more appealing than college basketball’s biggest programs.Aaron Ryan, Zack Weiner, Dan Porter and Brandon Williams, executives of the sports media company Overtime and its new basketball league, aim to change the career pathway for young stars.Credit…OvertimeMarch 4, 2021Updated 9:49 a.m. ETA new basketball league backed by a sports media company is entering the intensifying debate over whether student athletes should be paid, by starting a new venture offering high school basketball players $100,000 salaries to skip college.The league, Overtime Elite, formed under the auspices of the sports media company Overtime, would compete directly with the N.C.A.A. for the nation’s top high school boys by employing about 30 of them, who would circumvent the behemoth of college sports.Overtime will offer each athlete, some as young as 16, a minimum of $100,000 annually, as well as a signing bonus and a small number of shares in Overtime’s larger business. The company will also provide health and disability insurance, and set aside $100,000 in college scholarship money for each player — in case any decide not to pursue basketball professionally.The trade-off is major: The players who accept the deal will forfeit their ability to play high school or college basketball.“People have been saying things need to change, and we are the ones changing it,” said Dan Porter, the chief executive of Overtime.Overtime is diving into an argument that has roiled American sports for generations — whether it’s appropriate for pro sports leagues to lure young athletes out of high school and college with big checks, or for colleges to exploit the talents of athletes for big money without compensating them beyond attendance costs.Since the 2006 draft, players have not been able to go directly to the N.B.A. after high school — they do not become eligible to be drafted until the year they turn 19 or at least one N.B.A. season after their high school graduation year.For decades, the N.C.A.A.’s rules on amateurism, now under challenge in courts and in state legislatures, have held back a swell of money from flooding toward young elite athletes. The system has always had fissures, and they have grown in recent years as federal and state lawmakers and the N.C.A.A. have considered some changes to let athletes earn some more money.You may not have ever heard of Overtime — especially if you are, say, over 30 — but if you are a sports fan you have almost certainly seen its videos.If a crazy highlight or moment from a high school game floated across one of your social media feeds, it was probably filmed by Overtime. If you saw any dunks from Zion Williamson before he played for Duke, they were probably filmed by Overtime. The company says its videos are viewed almost two billion times each month.Overtime, which was founded in 2016 and got an early investment from David Stern, the former N.B.A. commissioner, has made connections with young prospects by building its presence in high school gyms across the country, where filming rights are essentially free and the competition not nearly the same as the ever-shifting battle among media behemoths to televise college and professional sports.Overtime’s videographers are recognized by the players. Laurence Marsach, more commonly known as Overtime Larry and the host of many Overtime videos, is highly popular among fans of youth basketball. The Overtime “O” logo is a stamp of approval online, with teens and tweens even throwing it up in the background of their videos.The new league, Overtime Elite, most resembles soccer academies in Europe and elsewhere. The players, and possibly their families, will move to one city — Overtime says it is selecting between two choices — to live and train together. Overtime will hire education staffers to teach the athletes and help them get high school diplomas. A basketball operations division will include coaches and trainers and will be led by Brandon Williams, the former N.B.A. player who was also previously a front office executive for the Philadelphia 76ers and Sacramento Kings. The commissioner is Aaron Ryan, a former longtime N.B.A. league office executive.No players have been signed yet — so as not to ruin their eligibility during the current high school basketball season. But Porter and Zack Weiner, Overtime’s president, are confident that many of the top players ages 16-18 will join.“We think our system will be amazing for their basketball development,” Weiner said. “Will every single player make the N.B.A.? Maybe not every single one of them, but the large majority will become professionals.”But there are almost as many risks as there are benefits for the young athletes. Most start-up professional sports leagues, no matter how innovative, fail. Overtime Elite will require tens of millions of dollars to operate on the scale its founders envision, but if it does not succeed, its athletes could be left with nowhere to play.“We are genuine in really investing in hiring really serious and legitimate people to run every aspect of the company,” Porter said. “I don’t want to mess around with kids’ lives. I don’t want people to mess around with my kids’ lives. There is a moral obligation that goes with that.”Weiner said the company is “extremely well capitalized” to launch the league. Overtime, Porter added, raised a “meaningful” amount of cash in a previously undisclosed funding round last fall, and planned to use it to pay players, hire employees and lease housing, office, gym and education spaces.Some details on what the league will actually look like or how fans can watch are still unsettled. There will be no permanent teams, but instead dynamic rosters within the league, and Porter and Weiner envision some sort of barnstorming tour of Europe. Games will no doubt be viewable online, but Overtime promises the games themselves and content around them won’t look too similar to typical basketball telecasts.Overtime Elite isn’t the only basketball league that spies opportunity in the shifting rules around amateurism and a desire by players to get paid immediately. David West, a former N.B.A. player, has started the Professional Collegiate League, and the N.B.A.’s development league has recently begun courting top 18-year-olds who want to skip college altogether on their way to the N.B.A.But Overtime Elite is the first serious league aimed at paying high school players, LaVar Ball’s failed Junior Basketball Association notwithstanding.Porter and Weiner talk down the idea that they are challenging high school state athletic associations, the N.C.A.A., high school coaches and the many other entities invested in the current system.“We are not against the N.C.A.A.” Carmelo Anthony, an Overtime investor and member of its board of directors, said in an interview. “We are not against the N.B.A. We are not trying to hurt those guys or come at them. We want the support of the N.B.A. and N.C.A.A. Eventually we are going to need those guys anyway.”Carmelo Anthony during his championship run at Syracuse in the 2002-3 season.Credit…Kevin Rivoli/Associated PressAnthony has an interesting perspective on Overtime Elite in part because, for all of the trade-offs of college sports, he is one its most visible success stories. He played college basketball for one season with Syracuse, won the N.C.A.A. tournament for the university’s first championship, improved his draft stock and got a huge boost in name recognition.“Going to college and playing college basketball is what it is,” he said. “It never will change. The concept of Overtime Elite is not to disrupt that, but to give these kids opportunities because they are taking control of their own brands and what they do, and social media becoming so powerful. Why not embrace that?”Perhaps the biggest challenge for Overtime, besides convincing enough elite players to join its league and enough consumers to watch high school basketball, is the floodgates opening to alternative ways for players to make money while also playing for high school and college teams.Under rising pressure from Washington and the nation’s statehouses, some of which have already approved legislation to require defiance of existing N.C.A.A. rules, the association spent months crafting new policies only to postpone votes that were planned for January.The turmoil within the N.C.A.A. is unfolding as the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments this month about whether the association may limit education-related benefits for top football and basketball players. And on Capitol Hill, lawmakers have been circulating a range of proposals that could set a national standard for name, image and likeness rules, including some particularly aggressive ideas to give athletes a bigger slice of the industry’s profits (Congress is not expected to act imminently and no proposal has advanced beyond a committee).The political forces were already complicating the long-term strategy of the N.C.A.A., which makes most of its money from its signature men’s basketball tournament. Overtime Elite, if it can succeed, would make the N.C.A.A.’s chase for players even more difficult.Alan Blinder More

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      C. Vivian Stringer Is the Thread Between the W.N.B.A.’s Emerging Stars

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyC. Vivian Stringer Is the Thread Between the W.N.B.A.’s Emerging StarsThe Liberty’s Betnijah Laney and Erica Wheeler of the Los Angeles Sparks are coming into their own after winding paths with a key intersection: Stringer’s coaching at Rutgers.Rutgers Coach C. Vivian Stringer is known for her “55” defense, with all five players involved in full-court pressure.Credit…Gail Burton/Associated PressMarch 1, 2021, 12:01 a.m. ETErica Wheeler still remembers vividly what Rutgers Coach C. Vivian Stringer, standing in the Wheelers’ home, told Wheeler’s mother would happen if her daughter came to play for her.“She told my mom, ‘She won’t just be a basketball player,’” Wheeler recalled of the conversation between Stringer and Wheeler’s mother, Melissa Cooper, who died in 2012. “‘She’s going to know how to speak in front of the camera, she’s going to know etiquette, she’s going to know how to carry herself, and she’s going to be a young woman when she graduates college.’”Wheeler, who turns 30 in May, has worked to become the woman Stringer promised Cooper she would be. She has shown a toughness that has carried her on her professional journey to 14 teams overseas after she wasn’t selected in the W.N.B.A. draft, to regular playing time with the Indiana Fever and now a multiyear deal with the Los Angeles Sparks.A parallel story unfolded in the life of Betnijah Laney, 27, in her case a second-generation Stringer player. Laney’s mother, Yolanda Laney, took Stringer’s Cheyney State program to a pair of Final Fours, playing at a level Stringer said would have made her the top pick in the W.N.B.A. draft had the league existed when she graduated.Instead, Yolanda became a lawyer and poured her basketball knowledge into Betnijah, who came to know Stringer like a second mother and chose to play for her as well, at Rutgers. Betnijah Laney, like Wheeler, struggled to find a foothold in the W.N.B.A., getting cut twice before blossoming with the Atlanta Dream in 2020 and winning the league’s Most Improved Player Award. This off-season, she signed a multiyear deal with the Liberty, and she is expected to take on a key role for a revamped team featuring guard Sabrina Ionescu and the newly acquired center Natasha Howard.That’s not to say that Laney’s familiarity with Stringer — from basketball camps where Yolanda coached and visits during family vacations — protected Laney from what she described as “moments she’s testing you mentally.”Betnijah Laney blossomed with the Atlanta Dream in 2020 after struggling to gain a foothold in the W.N.B.A.Credit…Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated Press“You’re either going to come along,” Laney added, “or get left back.”That’s part of the bargain, too, one that both Laney and Wheeler credit for giving them the strength to persevere through some early setbacks in their professional lives. It’s a common Rutgers story: An overlooked Stringer player sticks around and proves herself in the league. Such was the case for Chelsea Newton, picked 22nd over all in the 2005 draft before making an all-rookie team and, two years later, an all-defensive team, and for Tammy Sutton-Brown, who was picked 18th in the 2001 draft and became a two-time All-Star.But Stringer isn’t certain whether a Rutgers player is born or made. She didn’t even set out to recruit Wheeler, before getting a close look at the 5-foot-7 sparkplug in the huddle at an A.A.U. tournament. Wheeler’s teammates had their heads down after the opposing team made a run, but Wheeler was in their faces, reminding them of what they could do.When Wheeler took her official recruitment visit to Rutgers, Stringer wanted to make sure that A.A.U. version of Wheeler would be a part of the package.“I said, ‘Can you speak truth to power?’” Stringer said. “‘Because you’re going to be a freshman. Can you say the things you need to say, as a member of this team?’”Wheeler assured her that she could. Soon, Wheeler’s mother called Stringer while the coach was on vacation at Walt Disney World, and delivered the news for her daughter, asking Stringer to “make her tough, so that she can tackle the world.”It was different for Laney, who had all but decided to play for Sherri Coale at Oklahoma instead. But a phone call from Stringer, Laney said, reminded her: “I know this woman. I’m sure that she’ll take care of me, that she’s going to be everything that I need in a coach.”Laney and Wheeler played together under Stringer for two seasons. Laney knew what to expect because of her mother’s experience, but Wheeler had a rough adjustment period. Stringer asked Wheeler, a longtime shooting guard, to learn to play the point in her sophomore year. Playing time was scarce as she struggled with the new position. Wheeler said she considered transferring.Stringer is known for setting high standards for her players at Rutgers.Credit…Benjamin Solomon/Getty ImagesBut both Wheeler and Laney spoke highly of Stringer’s trademark intensity, and her approach to helping them overcome physical and mental barriers — “breaking them down to build them back up,” Stringer would say, meaning constantly questioning them to make them think and to act with purpose.Stringer recalled Wheeler vociferously objecting to a rare time that Stringer went easy during conditioning drills. Wheeler insisted that she and her teammates finish. And Laney offered to switch positions from the 3 to the 4, simply because, as she explained it to Stringer, “she was the one who could get those 10 rebounds a game we needed.” And she did, averaging 10.7 per game in her senior year.Wheeler and Laney have stayed in close contact since college, with the two texting each other encouragement throughout their free-agent processes, and connecting by FaceTime after each one signed a new contract. And they are there for current Rutgers players. Guard Arella Guirantes, who Stringer said should be the top pick in the 2021 draft, said she hears from Wheeler and Laney all the time.“We like to call it a secret society,” Guirantes said. “Because we understand: You come here, you hold yourself to a standard, really. And those who we have in the league now, we always have our sisters.”That standard led to the Sparks signing Wheeler this off-season to take over starting point guard duties, after she increased her assist percentage for three straight seasons. But Wheeler did not play in the 2020 season after learning she had Covid-19, with complications leading to fluid around her heart. She tested positive for the coronavirus in the spring but wasn’t cleared to resume playing basketball, she said, until October.Erica Wheeler was named the most valuable player in the 2019 W.N.B.A. All-Star Game.Credit…Ethan Miller/Getty ImagesIt was Stringer’s voice in her head reminding her that she could overcome this as she had so much else. Stringer’s voice, too, reverberates in Laney’s head every time she gets into a defensive stance, the fruit of years of drills and operating in Stringer’s famous “55” defense, where all five players are engaged in full-court pressure.The coach’s voice is clear in their minds off the court, too. Wheeler said she could hear Stringer when she achieved her goal last year of buying a house by the time she turned 30. And she channels Stringer whenever her foundation, the Wheeler Kid Foundation, holds another basketball clinic.Is she as demanding of the young players as Stringer is on Rutgers players?“No, I’m not that hard on them,” Wheeler began. But then she sounded an awful lot like her former coach. “I do demand a certain presence when you’re in my camp. When you’re not willing to work, or you want to joke around, you can get out of my gym.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Patrick Filien, Peripatetic Basketball Coach, Dies at 51

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesRisk Near YouVaccine RolloutNew Variants TrackerAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThose we’ve lostPatrick Filien, Peripatetic Basketball Coach, Dies at 51After assistant coaching jobs around the country, he found his dream job as the head coach at a small college in Albany, N.Y. He died of Covid-19.Pat Filien got his first head basketball coaching job in 2018, at Bryant & Stratton College in Albany, N.Y., and it came with the job of athletic director. “This was something I’ve had to create,” he said. “You name it, I’m doing it.”Credit…University of AlbanyFeb. 25, 2021, 3:45 p.m. ETThis obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.After nearly 25 years as an assistant coach of men’s and women’s basketball teams at seven colleges, Pat Filien achieved his professional dream in 2018: He became a head coach.But he faced an unusual challenge. He was named not only to coach the first men’s basketball team at Bryant & Stratton’s campus in Albany, N.Y., but also to take charge of the small college’s inaugural plunge into sports as its athletic director.“Everywhere else I had been, everything was already established,” he told The Times Union of Albany in 2019. “This was something I’ve had to create. You name it, I’m doing it. This time last year, we didn’t even have a recruit. I didn’t even have a basketball.”In addition to guiding the basketball team to an 18-10 record and the small-college United States Collegiate Athletic Association tournament in the 2018-19 season, Mr. Filien oversaw the start-up of the school’s baseball team in 2018 and the creation of the women’s basketball team and the men’s and women’s soccer teams in 2019.Mr. Filien died on Feb. 4 at his home in East Greenbush, near Albany. He was 51.The cause was Covid-19, his brother Robert said.Patrick John Filien (pronounced FILL-ee-en) was born on Sept. 28, 1969, in Brooklyn and raised in Ozone Park, Queens. His father, Jean-Claude, had started a cellphone company in Haiti; his mother, Yolande (Charlemagne) Filien, was a legal secretary.Pat played football — he was the quarterback of his Pop Warner football team — as well as baseball and basketball, together with his brother Robert and another brother, Lesly.After playing for the Fashion Institute of Technology’s basketball team, he transferred to the College of Saint Rose in Albany, where he helped the Golden Knights to their first appearance in the Division II N.C.A.A. men’s tournament, in 1992.A 6-foot-7 forward, he was known for his exuberance, his embrace of opponents after a game and his fierce rebounding.“He literally rebounded the ball like he hadn’t eaten in a month and the ball was meat,” Brian Beaury, the former Saint Rose coach, said in The Times Union’s obituary for Mr. Filien.After Mr. Filien’s graduation, he embarked on a series of coaching jobs around the country that included stints at the University of Vermont, from 2001 to 2005, and the State University of New York at Albany, from 2005 to 2011. His teams won five consecutive conference titles, three of them while he was at Vermont and two more at Albany.“That’s what he talked about most,” his brother Robert said by phone.In addition to his brothers, Mr. Filien is survived by his wife, Tiffani (Adams) Filien; his parents; his daughter, Lauren, who plays high school basketball in East Greenbush; his son, Marcus, a forward on the Cornell University basketball team; and his sister, Marie Hamilton.After moving around so much in his coaching career, Mr. Filien was glad for landing at Bryant & Stratton, which allowed him finally to settle down, in Albany. And he had ambitions to move his school up in the ranks.“He loved it,” Robert Filien said of his brother’s job. “He was hoping to make a name for Bryant & Stratton and make it a Division III school.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Tom Konchalski, Dogged Basketball Scout, Dies at 74

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTom Konchalski, Dogged Basketball Scout, Dies at 74He traveled to schools, camps and schoolyards to evaluate high school players, and his reports were essential to college coaches in their recruiting.Tom Konchalski in 2013 at a high school basketball game in Brooklyn. Though he didn’t drive a car, he traveled throughout the East for more than 40 years, scouting high school basketball players.Credit…Julie Glassberg for The New York TimesFeb. 21, 2021Updated 5:32 p.m. ETFor more than 40 years, Tom Konchalski was a fixture in gyms, summer camps and tournaments from Maine to West Virginia, a soft-spoken high school basketball scout whose newsletter was required reading for college coaches craving insights about potential recruits.He showed prescience about future N.B.A. players like Kyrie Irving, Bernard King and Kenny Anderson, but his focus was primarily on creating opportunities for high school players at all levels of college basketball, whether at Division I, II or III schools, or in Canada. A devout Roman Catholic, he thought of players as his ministry.“You’d read his report, mark down names you wanted to investigate, and you took what he said as gospel,” said Dave Odom, a former coach at Wake Forest University and the University of South Carolina, where he recruited a guard, Tre Kelley, whom he learned about from Konchalski’s newsletter. “Tom saw the kid in a summer league, and I followed up with him.”Konchalski, who retired last year from publishing the newsletter High School Basketball Illustrated, died on Feb. 8 in hospice care in the Bronx. He was 74. The cause was prostate cancer, said his brother, Steve, who is retiring after 46 seasons as the men’s basketball coach at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. For his newsletter, Konchalski assessed players in 13 categories and offered colorful accompanying comments about them like “loaded with offensive chutzpah” and “scores like we breathe!”“He had a genuine interest in getting his evaluations right,” said Bob Hurley Sr., who was the basketball coach at St. Anthony High School in Jersey City, N.J., for 45 years until the school closed in 2017. “He would never rush. If someone had a bad game, he promised to come back.”Konchalski’s long career made him the subject of a short ESPN documentary in 2013 and earned him a nomination in December from the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in the contributor category. Honorees will be announced in April.Thomas Coman Konchalski was born on Jan. 8, 1947, in Manhattan and grew up in the Elmhurst neighborhood in Queens. His father, Stephen, was a general foreman with the New York City Department of Parks and a semipro baseball player. His mother, Marjorie (Coman) Konchalski, was a homemaker who later worked as a department store cashier.Tom was 8 when he and his brother, who is two years older, went with their father to an N.B.A. doubleheader at Madison Square Garden. The brothers eventually took the subway on their own to see games at the Garden and at schoolyards around the city.And he was 14 when he first saw Connie Hawkins play. Hawkins, the exhilarating star of Boys High School in Brooklyn, was demonstrating his prowess during a summer league game, and it was an epiphany for young Tom.“I would follow him from playground to playground,” Konchalski told The New York Times in 2013. “His game was electric. With one hand, he could palm a rebound out of the air.”At Archbishop Molloy High School in the Briarwood section of Queens, where his brother played guard on its basketball team, Konchalski covered the team for the school newspaper and learned the intricacies of basketball from Jack Curran, Molloy’s coach from 1958 to 2013.“Tom never really played,” Steve Konchalski said in a phone interview. “He’d go to the park and put up some shots, and he had a nice shooting touch. But it wasn’t his thing to compete. He got the height. I’m 6-2. He’s 6-6.”Konchalski, center, with Syd Neiman, left, and Konchalski’s uncle, John Coman, when they were officials for the U.S. Open tennis tournament in Forest Hills, Queens.After graduating from Fordham University in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, Konchalski taught math and social studies at a Roman Catholic school in Queens (and for a time pursued another sports interest, as a linesman at the U.S. Open tennis championships, and its predecessor, when they were played at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills).Konchalski’s path to scouting was accelerated by coaching Catholic Youth Organization basketball teams in New York City. His expanding knowledge of local players led him to part-time scouting in the 1970s for Howard Garfinkel, the influential founder of High School Basketball Illustrated and a co-founder of the Five-Star Basketball Camp, a celebrated youth instructional showcase for future superstars, among them Michael Jordan and LeBron James.Konchalski left teaching to work full-time for Garfinkel in 1979; five years later he bought H.S.B.I. In 1980, Konchalski famously helped get Jordan — then known as Mike Jordan — into the Five-Star camp at the request of Roy Williams, an assistant coach at the University of North Carolina, which was recruiting Jordan (and which he would attend) and wanted to see him play against high-octane competition.Not yet well-known, Jordan stunned the camp with his play.“In tryouts when people were guarding him, they were guarding his belly button,” Konchalski recalled last year in an interview with Forbes magazine. “He had a great stop/ jump. He’d stop on a dime and really elevate. He was an extraterrestrial athlete.”Konchalski — who was known for his detailed recall of games and players from decades earlier — was something of a Luddite. He did not own a computer, a cellphone or an answering machine. Working from his apartment in Forest Hills, Queens, he typed each of the 16 annual issues of his newsletter, stapled them and mailed them in manila envelopes to about 200 coaches, who subscribed for several hundred dollars a year. He did not post his publication online.“I have an electric typewriter,” he told The Daily News of New York in 1990. “That’s my concession to the ages. I always say I was born seven centuries too late.”He did not drive, so he commuted to and from games by train or bus, and was nicknamed the Glider for the way he quietly slipped into a gym, settled onto the top level of the stands and started taking notes on players on a legal pad.In addition to his brother, he is survived by a sister, Judy Ball.In 1976, Konchalski saw that Chris Sellitri, a 6-foot-5 forward at Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School in Brooklyn, had no scholarship offers from colleges in the United States.“Today, a player who made All-Brooklyn would get a scholarship,” Steve Konchalski said. “But back then, some outstanding players fell through the cracks. So Tom directed me to Chris, and he became the leading rebounder in the history of our school.”He added: “He wouldn’t tell a kid, ‘Go to my brother’s school,’ but he’d say to me, ‘This kid is still available — here’s his coach’s name and my evaluation.’”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      High School Basketball Players Are Jumping to College

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesVaccine RolloutSee Your Local RiskNew Variants TrackerAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyLast Month, the High School Gym. This Month, the College Arena.An N.C.A.A. decision related to the pandemic inspired some elite players to finish high school early and jump to college to take advantage of an extra year of eligibility.Guard Carter Whitt finished high school early, jumped to Wake Forest and made his Division I college debut 10 days later.Credit…Charles Krupa/Associated PressFeb. 19, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETIn September, Carter Whitt, a 6-foot-4 guard from Raleigh, N.C., was preparing to spend his senior season at Brewster Academy, the prep basketball powerhouse in New Hampshire. But with the season delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, he made a strategic decision to return to his high school in North Carolina. He took online classes in history and English and graduated “a little bit early.”By New Year’s Eve, Whitt, whose long, dirty-blond hair makes him hard to miss on the court, was playing guard for Wake Forest, registering 11 points, 4 assists and 1 rebound in 25 minutes against Catawba College.Whitt is part of a wave of elite high school players taking advantage of an N.C.A.A. ruling that effectively gives them a free season of college eligibility. A decision by the Division I Council in October gives winter athletes who compete during 2020-21 the opportunity to play five seasons within a six-year window rather than the typical four seasons in five years.For many men, the goal is to get to the N.B.A. as fast as possible. Women are starting their college careers early as well, lured by the extra year of eligibility and the opportunity to compete at a higher level.“Carter Whitt should be playing his senior year in a fast-food-sponsored holiday tournament,” Wake Forest Coach Steve Forbes said. “Instead he’s playing against a seven-course meal” in the Atlantic Coast Conference. He continued, “On Jan. 6, when his high school team was playing their season opener, he was starting on the road against the defending national champions, the Virginia Cavaliers.”To Whitt, it didn’t make sense to continue at Brewster. “I figured if I’m going to be away from home, I might as well just be in college,” he said.For some players, the journey from their final high school game to their first Division I game was even shorter than Whitt’s.On Dec. 21, Jordan Nesbitt scored 18 points in a winning effort for St. Louis Christian Academy. On Feb. 1, having completed his academic work to finish high school, the 6-6 guard from St. Louis played seven minutes for Memphis in its 96-69 win over Central Florida.Guard Saylor Poffenbarger graduated from high school in Middletown, Md., in early January and made her college debut for the Connecticut women’s team against DePaul on Jan. 31.“I’m excited for Saylor and her family that they wanted to take advantage of this opportunity,” UConn Coach Geno Auriemma said.In recent years, it has become common for high school players to do the academic work needed to “reclassify” with a graduating class earlier than their original one, but there are obvious benefits to midyear enrollments this year.In the men’s game, DePaul added two midyear enrollees in Keon Edwards and David Jones. Among other high-profile high school players to make the jump: Sean Durugordon (Missouri), Mac Etienne (U.C.L.A.), James Graham (Maryland), Ben Gregg (Gonzaga), Trey James (Iona), Meechie Johnson (Ohio State), Franck Kepnang (Oregon), Austin Patterson (Wofford), Trey Patterson (Villanova) and Whitt of Wake Forest.Some are already playing, while others are practicing with their teams and will wait until the 2021-22 season to compete in games. Some plan to participate in their high school graduations this spring either virtually or in person.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      John Chaney, Hall of Fame Temple Basketball Coach, Dies at 89

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyJohn Chaney, Hall of Fame Temple Basketball Coach, Dies at 89He won more than 500 games and six Atlantic 10 tournament championships with Temple, and he took his teams to the N.C.A.A. tournament’s regional finals five times.John Chaney, the longtime Temple University basketball coach, in 1999. He insisted that his players show discipline on the court and that they pursue their studies.Credit…Jonathan Daniel/Getty ImagesJan. 29, 2021Updated 5:54 p.m. ETJohn Chaney, the famously combative Hall of Fame coach who took Temple University to 17 N.C.A.A. basketball tournaments, largely recruiting high school players from poor neighborhoods who were overlooked by the college game’s national powers, died on Friday. He was 89.His death was announced by Temple. The university did not say where he died or specify the cause, saying only that he died “after a short illness.”Chaney was 50 when Temple hired him, giving him a chance to coach major-college basketball after 10 seasons and a Division II championship at Cheyney State College (now Cheyney University), outside Philadelphia.He coached at Temple, in Philadelphia, for 24 seasons, winning more than 500 games and six Atlantic 10 tournament championships and taking his teams to the N.C.A.A. tournament’s regional finals five times. He did that despite having only one consensus all-American, the guard Mark Macon, who led the Temple team that was ranked No. 1 at the close of the 1987-88 regular season.Chaney was voted the national coach of the year in 1987 and 1988 and elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., in 2001.His tie often askew as he shouted in his raspy voice at his players and the referees, Chaney was a consummate battler. He insisted that his players show discipline on the court — he regarded turnovers as basketball’s greatest sin — and that they pursue their studies and conduct themselves properly, however chaotic their lives might be.Having grown up poor in the segregated Depression-era South and in Philadelphia, Chaney viewed himself as a mentor to young men who often came from broken homes.“Sometimes I’m a little nasty,” he once told The Orlando Sentinel. “But underneath I still carry with me a strong feeling of concern for youngsters. I’ll do just about anything to convince a youngster he can be a winner, and not just a winner in basketball but a winner in life. I want players to take up my value system.”Macon, who later played in the N.B.A. and became an assistant to Chaney at Temple, said in an interview with Comcast SportsNet that Chaney was “my mother and my father,” adding, “He’d tell me the right thing to do and not to do.”But Chaney’s outrage at what he perceived as injustice sometimes raised questions about his own standards of behavior.Incensed by what he saw as an effort by John Calipari, then the coach of his Atlantic 10 rival Massachusetts, to intimidate referees, he charged at Calipari after Temple had lost to his team by one point in a 1994 game, shouting “I’ll kill you” as onlookers held him back.On the eve of a 2005 game against St. Joseph’s, Chaney said he would send “one of my goons” after the team’s players, whom he accused of using illegal screens to free up shooters. The next night he inserted a 6-foot-8-inch, 250-pound bench warmer, Nehemiah Ingram, into the game. Ingram committed a flurry of fouls, one of which leveled a St. Joseph’s senior forward, John Bryant, breaking his arm.Chaney was suspended for one game over the outburst at Calipari and for five games after the St. Joseph’s incident.Always outspoken, he railed against what he perceived as culturally biased and racist standardized academic testing requirements imposed by the N.C.A.A. for basketball eligibility. He expressed disdain for the administration of President George W. Bush and spoke out against the Iraq war.Chaney was surrounded by his players after Temple beat St. Bonaventure on Jan. 28, 2004, for his 700th career victory. He finished his career with a total of 741.Credit…George Widman/Associated PressJohn Chaney was born on Jan. 21, 1932, in Jacksonville, Fla., and grew up in a low-lying house that often flooded. His stepfather, seeking work in a defense plant, brought the family to the Philadelphia area during World War II.Chaney was voted the most valuable player of Philadelphia’s public high school basketball league in 1951, but his family was too poor to buy a suit for him for the award ceremonies. He wore his stepfather’s suit, its sleeves and pants hanging down.He became a small-college all-American at the historically Black Bethune-Cookman College in Florida, then played briefly for the Harlem Globetrotters and played for teams in Sunbury and Williamsport, Pa., in the semipro Eastern League, where he was named the most valuable player.Chaney was the first Black basketball coach in Philadelphia’s Big Five — Temple, Penn, Villanova, St. Joseph’s and La Salle. His first Temple team went 14-15, but that was his only losing season with the Owls. His 1987-88 squad finished with a 32-2 record and went to a regional final. But Chaney’s teams were barely above the .500 mark in his last four years at Temple.He had a record of 516-253 at Temple from 1982 to 2006 after posting a 225-59 record at Cheyney State from 1972 to 1982.Information on survivors was not immediately available.While Chaney’s temper memorably got the best of him at times, he apologized for the Calipari and St. Joseph’s incidents.But even after his retirement, he seemed to enjoy reprising his provocative image. In a 2010 interview with The Temple News, a student newspaper, Chaney was asked if he had any regrets.“The only regret I have is that I exposed so much of myself to the media,” he said. “Certainly, I regret the language I used with Calipari. I should have waited until after the game was over and then took him outside and beat the hell out of him.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More