Mike Stace's Blog Space

With his testimony today, Roger Clemens could really shoot himself in the foot as he tries to salvage his chance at a spot in the Hall of Fame.
Somewhat surprisingly, that’s both good news and bad news for the Rocket.
The bad news: Clemens isn’t likely to land in Cooperstown.
The good news: By shooting himself in the foot, the Rocket will show that he has become more self-sufficient. To shoot steroids in his ass, Clemens needed Brian McNamee’s help.

Welcome aboard the college basketball Coaching Carousel.

Beware: this ride can leave you dizzy and disoriented.

Don’t believe it? Try deciphering this…

On St. Patrick’s day, the Big Blue brass at the University of Michigan handed coach Tommy Amaker, who is apparently endowed with the anti-luck of the Irish, his pink slip, leaving him feeling blue on the day o’ green.

The Big Blue void created by Amaker’s canning sparked the interest of West Virginia coach John Beilein, who, two weeks and a $2.5 million contract buy-out later, made, well, a bee-line to to Ann Arbor take over the Wolverines.

Creighton’s Dana Altman, meanwhile, was linked to another Big Ten job. The rumor mill indicated the 13-year Creighton veteran was likely headed to the University of Iowa to fill the opening created by the departure of Steve Alford, a former rising star in the Missouri Valley Conference when he coached at Missouri State (the same school that, a few weeks ago, held a press conference to announce neither a hiring nor a firing, but to proclaim that embattled coach Barry Hinson would be retained, prompting me to wonder when press conferences had become necessary to announce the continuation of business as usual. Doesn’t that take the “news” right out of the “news conference?” But I digress...).

Altman, never one to tip his hand when it comes to job negotiations, shocked Creighton soon thereafter by announcing he was headed not to Iowa, but to the University of Arkansas, where he would take over as coach of the Razorbacks.

Alas, Altman quickly learned, it’s not an easy transition from CU to pig soo.

Within 24 hours, the DA era at the U of A had been ruled D.O.A.  Having endured enough of Arkansas' hogwash, Altman returned to Omaha, ready to reassume his previous position as Creighton’s head coach.

Of course, he just as easily might have returned to his previous previous job, at Kansas State. About the same time that Altman announced his return to Creighton, Wildcats head coach Bob Huggins, perhaps operating under the influence of John Denver, decided to go back to his mountain home, West Virginia, to take over the position vacated by Beilein.

So, you’re probably wondering, what’s the moral of this meandering story? Some might argue – and perhaps rightly so, especially in the case of the ubiquitously underhanded Huggins – that the moral is there are no morals.

College basketball is a business, and coaching changes are nothing more than career moves. You wouldn’t condemn an executive for moving to a Fortune 500 company from a corporation struggling to stay out of the red, so why criticize Altman for bolting back to Bluejay country when he wanted to get out of the (Razorback) red?

Sure, a big-time Division I basketball coach holds a particularly prominent occupation. But can we really expect the loftiness of an individual’s ethics to match that of his job title, for the love of Ken Lay?

In a fantasy world, yes. But Fantasy World is the next ride over. This is the Coaching Carousel. And, as much as it may leave people running for the exits, disillusioned and ill, the college Coaching Carousel will keep turning, driven by coaches’ dual desires: the almighty dollar and the ever-elusive national championship.

So, coaches, feel free to keep taking yourselves – and your supporters – for rides on the ol’ Carousel. Just don’t expect your money back if you don’t enjoy it. After all, as Beilein learned, a ride on the Carousel can cost a pretty penny (or 2.5 billion of them).

NEW ORLEANS – Sometimes you don’t need pages upon pages of notes or a mountain of post-game statistics to help tell the story of a college basketball game.

Sometimes all it takes is a few heartfelt words from a heartbroken coach:

“We’re going to miss them.”

Creighton coach Dana Altman closed his final post-game press conference of the season with those words, paying tribute to his trio of star seniors who had just played their last game in Creighton uniforms, falling to Nevada 77-71 in overtime in a gut-wrenching opening round NCAA tournament game at the New Orleans Arena.

For as long as I’ve watched college basketball, I’ve had a soft spot for departing seniors. End-of-game television shots of sidelined seniors, heads in hands, eyes welling up with tears, have always made me ache along with the players. And now, more than ever, as a senior myself, I feel as if I can commiserate.

So, for all the interesting plotlines running though Creighton’s opening round NCAA tournament matchup with Nevada, the only one that I feel right reflecting on in this space is the story of the seniors.

As they have so many times before, the seniors kept the Jays afloat Friday, sometimes seemingly by sheer will alone: an impossible leaner in traffic by Nate Funk here. A hard-fought two points in the paint for Anthony Tolliver there. A determined drive to the hoop by Nick Porter. Heck, even seldom-used reserve Manny Gakou got in on the action, playing tough defense on Nevada big man Nick Fazekas in the low post.

            Aside from the disappointing final outcome, Friday’s game served, in many ways, as a microcosm of the seniors’ careers as a whole.

            Gakou’s time on the court Friday, much like his tenure as a Jay, was brief. The Parisian, who came to Creighton via junior college to play two seasons, made a play or two against that proved he’s still raw. But he performed admirably filling in for Tolliver, showing soft touch as he knocked down his only shot of the game and, more importantly, hounding the taller Fazekas into a handful of missed shots. 

Porter, another transfer who played two seasons in a Jays uniform, frequently locked horns Friday with Nevada guard Marcelus Kemp in what turned out to be the most intriguing one-on-one matchup of the day: a battle of bulky slashers whose strength allowed them to play “bigger” than their listed height.

Against the 6-foot-5 Kemp and a handful of other, taller defenders, the 6-foot-3 Porter scored 15 points and grabbed eight rebounds, exhibiting the ability to, quite literally, overcome big obstacles – an ability that aided him throughout his Creighton career.

Sidelined with a knee injury for an entire season before he ever played a game, Porter came back from injury to garner Missouri Valley Conference newcomer of the year honors last season. Dogged by memories of a costly turnover in an unspectacular early exit from last year’s MVC tournament, Porter responded with 41 points and 24 rebounds in three games at this year’s Valley tournament, earning a spot on the All-Tournament team for his efforts.

Tolliver, in an apparent effort to wear down Fazekas on the defensive end, touched the ball on nearly every one of the Jays’ possessions in the early going. That Tolliver was a focal point for the offense seems appropriate given that he has been such a vocal leader for the team.

After two years in which his play was inconsistent at best, Tolliver broke through last year, providing the Jays a much needed low-post presence and serving as a voice for the squad.

The Missouri Valley Conference’s 2006 Most Improved Player is on pace to graduate in May with a degree in finance and a 3.5 GPA. After holding his own Friday against one of the top big men in the country in Fazekas, Tolliver should draw interest from professional teams somewhere. But if he finds that basketball isn’t his calling, last year’s NCAA Division I-AAA scholar athlete of the year should have plenty of other career options.

Last but certainly not least, Funk put on the sort of spectacular show that has seemingly become par for the course for him. An informal survey of Bourbon Street patrons Thursday night revealed the limited extent of most opposing fans’ knowledge of Creighton basketball: Nate Funk. They knew the name, and Friday they got to see the game. Funk was lights-out from inside the arc in the opening half, hitting five of six two-point field goal attempts and proving that being able to see the hoop while shooting is not a prerequisite for making the ball go into that hoop.

A silent assassin, Funk let his play do the talking, and it spoke volumes. Throughout his final three full seasons, during which he led the Jays in scoring three times,  Funk was Creighton’s marquee player, and he was treated as such, always drawing the opponents’ toughest defender and enduring the opposing fans’ harshest abuse. But, as he did Friday, when he led the Jays with 23 points, Funk shrugged off such adversity, drawing his coach’s praise for his ability to do so.

“He’s been a big-time player for us,” Altman said. “He’s got a great work ethic, and he’ll play basketball for awhile here, hopefully here in the States.”

While it remains to be seen what stages the Nate Funk show will play on in the future, the show will go on for Creighton basketball.

            The Jays return two starters and will add a promising bunch of newcomers, including two of the top 150 high school players in the nation and a kid with a name – Korver – that should ring a bell with a few people around these parts. Barring major disaster or a ban on beer sales at Qwest Center Omaha, the Jays will continue to draw fans in droves to their sparkling NBA-caliber arena and continue to make Creighton basketball the best show in town.

But despite all that, I still can't completely shake the disappointment of knowing that one of the best senior classes to come through Creighton will never don CU blue again.

We’re going to miss them, indeed.

For the Jays, it’s time to laissez les bon temps roulez.

The Creighton men’s basketball team is headed to New Orleans in hopes of letting the good times roll.

The team learned of its NCAA Tournament first round fate – a No. 10 seed in the South Regional and a Friday afternoon matchup with seventh-seeded Nevada in the Crescent City – in front of an estimated crowd of 2,000 at the Sunday afternoon.

The announcement didn’t come without a wait; Creighton’s was the final of the four regionals unveiled. Before Jays fans could cheer their own team, they jeered and booed a variety of other pairings. Notre Dame, Duke and Southern Illinois, the Missouri Valley Conference’s only other representative in the tournament and a four seed in the West Regional, all drew boos from the crowd.

The announcement of Xavier, a team the Jays topped early in the season, as a nine seed was met by appreciative applause. The unveiling of matchups in Chicago, the closest destination for Jays fans interested in following the team, garnered lots of attention but came and passed without mention of the Jays.

Finally, and perhaps a bit surprisingly for the Jays, who were projected as high as a five seed by USA Today heading into Sunday, Creighton was announced as the 10 seed in the South Regional, drawing a loud ovation from the crowd as video footage of the team’s reaction was broadcast live on CBS’s selection show.

This marks the seventh time in the last nine years that the Jays have earned a spot in the field of 65. And despite the frequency with which his Jays have made the NCAA tournament, coach Dana Altman still enjoys days like Sunday.

“This never gets old, does it?” Altman said during a short speech he gave following the announcement of the pairings.

But anymore, as near-regulars in the tournament, the Jays are far from content just being invited to the dance; they would like to stick around for a couple of rounds. Asked about the importance of his team enjoying a trip to the NCAA tournament and having fun in versus taking care of business on the basketball court, Altman did not hesitate.

“The fun comes from winning,” Altman said. “We’ve got to think about playing the game - going down there and playing as well as we can. The fun part of basketball is winning.”

In order to do that, the Jays will have to top 13th-ranked Nevada, 28-4. The Wolfpack earned an at-large berth into the tournament after starting the year 17-1 and posting a 14-2 record in league play to win the Western Athletic Conference regular season title.

Nevada owns an 8-2 record in its last ten games, with the only setbacks coming by identical 79-77 scores against Utah State, most recently in the semifinals of last weekend’s WAC tournament.

Led by all-everything 6-foot-11 senior forward Nick Fazekas, who paces the squad in scoring and rebounding with 20.5 points and 11.2 rebounds per game, the Wolfpack present a challenging matchup for the Jays, Altman said.

“[Fazekas] can post up. He can shoot it. He scores in a lot of different ways,” Altman said. “They beat pretty bad a couple weeks ago. They’ll be a tough matchup for us.”

Beyond Fazekas, the Wolfpack feature another All-WAC performer in 6-foot-5 Marcellus Kemp, who leads the team in minutes per game and is second in scoring and rebounding, averaging 18.3 points and 4.3 boards per contest.

Nevada averages just under 78 points per game and allows opponents an average of 67.1 points per contest. The Wolfpack ranks sixth nationally in 3-point percentage, (41.4 percent), 16th in free throw percentage and 17th in field goal percentage.

In other words, the Jays’ opening round matchup in the Big Easy will be anything but, well – easy.

“Nevada’s a good team,” Altman said. “It’ll be a tough matchup for us, but it’s one that we look forward to playing.”

Should the Jays survive to play another day, they will likely face another power team from a so-called mid-major conference on Sunday. The Creighton-Nevada winner faces the winner of a first-round tilt between second-seeded Memphis and 15th-seeded North Texas, with No. 5 Memphis, boasting a 30-3 record and riding a nation-best 22-game winning streak, the odds-on favorite to win the first round game.

As March roared in like a lion across the Midwest, dumping a foot of snow on Omaha last Thursday and complicating Creighton men’s basketball fans’ mass exodus to St. Louis for the Missouri Valley Conference tournament, so too did the Jays defense roar to life once the calendar changed.

After struggling mightily on defense in late-season losses to Drexel and Illinois State, surrendering second half leads and casting doubt on their NCAA tournament worthiness, the Jays clamped down on “D” during their weekend charge through the MVC.

“I really let our team down against Drexel and Illinois State,” coach Dana Altman said, shouldering the blame for the Jays’ defensive collapses against the Dragons and Redbirds. “I didn’t make very good adjustments, you know, and I kind of left them hanging, to be real honest.

“So after those two games I just said, ‘We’re going to change of bunch of things. Here’s the way we’re going to play. I don’t want to hear any argument. This is where we’re going to go,’ and our guys did a great job with it.”

A great job, indeed.

With all due respect to such standout offensive performances as senior guard Nate Funk’s season-high 33 point output against Missouri State and double-doubles by senior guard Nick Porter and senior center Anthony Tolliver, the most striking aspect of the Jays’ St. Louis resurgence was their intensity and effectiveness on defense.

The Jays set the tone for the weekend by holding Indiana State to an MVC tournament-record-low 38 points in a 59-38 quarterfinal triumph Friday.

The Sycamores featured a trio of frontcourt players – 6-10, 285 pound Mick Yelovich and 6-8 bruisers Trent Wurtz and Jay Tunnel – that looked more like Sylvester Stalone sparring partners from “Rocky” movies than basketball players.

But, if I may wax pugilistic for a moment more, it was the Creighton’s defense, not Indiana State's, that landed repeated blows to the body before felling the opposition with a knockout punch: a 21-8 run during which the Jays surrendered just two field goals over the first 14 minutes of a second half. 

The next night out, the Jays were at it again, slapping the floor and smothering Missouri State’s usually wide-open offensive attack en route to a 75-58 win.  Time and again on big defensive possessions throughout the game, a Jays defender, crouched in the defensive ready position, would bend over and emphatically smack the court with both hands, setting off a chain reaction among his teammates that served as a sort of percussive prelude to what, particularly in the second half, was likely to be a great defensive possession.

In that second stanza, the Jays limited the Bears to just one field goal on 14 attempts over the first 10:28 and held Missouri State to 21.9 percent shooting for the entire half while hassling all-conference guard Blake Ahearn into five points on one of six shooting after he had enjoyed a 15-point first half.  

Sunday, the Jays fittingly donned their road jerseys for the first time all tournament for a championship game that left both teams, like the Jays’ jerseys, black and blue all over. Take Tolliver, for instance. He had his nose bloodied, his contact lens knocked out, his legs cramp up. But bumps and bruises are to be expected in any clash between Creighton and Southern Illinois, particularly when it’s for all the marbles in the MVC tournament.

Most unexpected about the physical play this time around was that, for the first time in recent memory, it was the Jays rather than the Salukis who instigated it.

“You’ve got to tip your hat to Creighton,” Southern Illinois coach Chris Lowery said. “They came and really played very physical… and we did a very poor job of guarding in the paint, being tough in the trenches.”

            Southern Illinois junior forward Matt Shaw went so far as to suggest that the Jays’ early aggression may have thrown the Salukis out of sync.

            “The players were extremely physical today,” Shaw said. “That’s something uncharacteristic of us, not to fight back.”

Indeed, from the opening tip, when Creighton worked the ball inside to Tolliver for a layup and the early lead, the Jays seemed to impose their more physical, more aggressive agenda on the Salukis for extended periods of time.

The most glaring example of this came early in the second half, when the Jays converted a series of steals and loose balls into easy transition baskets, fueling a 7-0 run and adding to a lead that they would never relinquish. 

However, I was more impressed by a subtle but no less important instance of Jays’ defensive aggression.

With 14:11 to play in the second half, Jays freshman guard Isacc Miles, assigned to mark Southern Illinois senior guard Jamaal Tatum for much of the game, bumped Tatum, knocking the MVC player of the year to the floor.

Miles picked up his third foul on the play, but he earned plenty of but positive applause from Altman at the other end of the floor. Did the coach perhaps appreciate Miles’ aggressive mistake as a purposeful foul, for lack of a better term? I never broached the subject with Altman, but I did note that on the ensuing play, the typically sure-shooting Tatum missed a makeable jumper.

Miles didn’t score a point all game, but aggressive defensive efforts like his were a big part of the reason the Jays stormed to the title in St. Louis, ripping and roaring their way through Arch Madness and on into March Madness.

ST. LOUIS -- As Nate Funk stepped to the free throw line in the final minute of Creighton’s 75-58 Missouri Valley Conference tournament semifinal win over Missouri State Saturday evening, the blue-clad portion of the crowd of 22,612 at the Scottrade Center offered its opinion of the senior guard’s performance, showering him with chants of “M-V-P!”

While any decision on the MVC tournament Most Outstanding Paper will have to wait until tomorrow, Funk proved worthy of the crowd’s accolades tonight.   

The senior guard scored a game-high and Creighton MVC tournament-record 33 points, grabbed eight rebounds and dished out three assists in 38 minutes to lead the Jays. Creighton improved to 21-10 and advances to tomorrow’s MVC championship with the win. Missouri State fell to 22-10.   

“I'm not sure,” coach Dana Altman said, “that we’ve had a better all-around performance for a ballgame than Nathan’s today.”

Funk’s performance was one among a trio of impressive contributions by Creighton seniors. Guard Nick Porter recorded his first career double-double, scoring 19 points and grabbing 13 rebounds, and center Anthony Tolliver chipped in 13 points despite early foul trouble.

The trio accounted for 65 of the Jays’ 75 points, drawing praise from Missouri State coach Barry Hinson.

“Their three seniors were just absolutely phenomenal today,” Hinson said. “Hats off to them.”

Tolliver opened the scoring with a pair of free throws, setting the Jays on a 9-2 game-opening run fueled entirely by the three senior starters.

After a 3-pointer by Bears senior guard Blake Ahearn, the Jays rattled off eight unanswered points to extend their lead to 17-5.

From there, the Bears battled back, stringing together a 21-9 run to tie the game at 26 with just over five minutes left in the half. 

Ahearn scored 10 points during the run and 15 overall in the opening half. The MVC All-Conference selection hit four of six shots, including three of four 3-pointers, seemingly countering Funk’s every move to keep the Bears within striking distance, down 39-34, at halftime.  

However Ahearn hit just one of six shots from the field in the second half to finish with 20 points.  Funk, meanwhile, kept pace with his first half performance.

After Missouri State cut Creighton’s lead to 39-36 two minutes into the second half, Porter responded with a lay-up on a strong drive to the basket, and Funk extended the lead to 43-36 with a lay-up of his own two possessions later. 

From there, the Bears drew no closer than five points down the rest of the way. 

“I said we didn’t deserve to win the ballgame,” Hinson said of his postgame speech to his team. “Creighton just absolutely whipped our tails.”

Altman pointed to the Jays’ defensive intensity as a key to their success. 

“I'm really excited and proud of our second half defensive effort,” Altman said. “The first 12 minutes of the second half, I think they only scored nine points… and I thought that was the turning point of the game.”

The Jays hassled the Bears into 21 percent shooting in that second half and limited them to 12 fast break points all game, holding Missouri State’s usually high-octane offense well below its season average of 74 points per game one night after limiting Indiana State to 38 points.

According to Altman, defense will again be in focus when the Jays take on the conference regular season champions, No. 11 Southern Illinois, at 1:05 p.m. Sunday in the MVC championship.

The Salukis, who secured a spot in the championship with a 53-51 win over Bradley in the early semifinal Saturday, have beaten the Jays eight straight times, including twice this year by a total of three points. 

“We had our chances in both games,” Altman said. “We just weren’t tough enough to finish it. Tomorrow we’ll swing away and see if we’re a little bit tougher.”