Never mind what Bob Knight says.
Not everybody is howling about John Calipari’s decision
to relocate from Memphis to Kentucky.
Ask the coaches in Conference USA.
Finally, there’s oxygen in the gym for somebody other
than Calipari to breathe.
“I love Cal, but if he was still here, he would be so
dominant that nobody else in the league would get any
respect,” UAB coach Mike Davis said. “It took away from
our league because of how good he was.”
This is what Davis is talking about: In the last three
seasons, here is the list of teams C-USA has placed in the NCAA
tournament: Memphis, Memphis and, believe it or not, Memphis.
That is the entire list.
This is what college basketball should be noticing as the
season accelerates into league play: Conference USA has regained
its swagger.
Davis’ UAB team has won 11 of its first 12, swatting a
pair of top 25 teams by double figures — first Cincinnati by
17 points, then Butler by 10. The Bearcats and Bulldogs were
introduced to the Best Player You’ve Never Seen —
Elijah Millsap, a bruising 6-foot-6 guard who is nearly averaging a
double-double.
It’s time for Davis to finally be asked about
something other than living in Calipari’s shadow or trying to
follow Knight at Indiana.
“I only went out recruiting two days all
summer,” Davis said. “People asked me why I would do
that. I stayed home because I knew what kind of team we were going
to have. I wanted to make sure our system was right for our
guys.”
For the first time since 2006, C-USA is not behaving like a
one-bid league. Tulsa has won nine of 11, powered by a 7-footer
named Jerome Jordan whose name sits in the first round of most 2010
NBA mock drafts.
The nation’s leading scorer lives in Conference USA.
Aubrey Coleman, a 6-foot-4 guard, helped the Cougars whack
Oklahoma. Coleman went for his average, 27 points, against the
Sooners. UTEP (7-2) has worked Louisville transfer Derrick Caracter
into its solid lineup, and he’s been a double-double machine
the last three games.
Don’t forget Memphis, where Josh Pastner had his bags
packed to move to Kentucky until the school named him Cal’s
successor in April. Pastner was 31 when he got the job. Now,
he’s a more mature 32-year-old who has won eight of his first
10 games and recruited the nation’s top 2010 class, according
to Scout.com.
“Before, this league was all Cal,” Davis said.
“Now, we might get three or four teams in the tournament.
This is a good league with good players and good coaches.”
Davis is qualified to discuss March because he is the only
C-USA coach who has coached in the Final Four, guiding Indiana to
the 2002 NCAA championship game against Maryland. He stayed in
Bloomington four more seasons before departing to UAB, a move that
put him in a personal comfort zone back in the state where he grew
up and played college ball at Alabama.
Davis was convinced that this Blazers’ team, his
fourth, would be his best, although UAB lost nearly 90 percent of
its rebounding and scoring. The rest of the world wasn’t as
certain. Davis said the Blazers were picked as low as 10th in the
12-team league in one preseason poll.
Not only did Davis lose three guys (primarily Robert Vaden)
who are playing professionally overseas, he had an oral commitment
from Alabama high school phenom DeMarcus Cousins and was convinced
he had a great chance to sign a Birmingham high school point guard
named Eric Bledsoe.
Davis had chased Cousins since the kid was an eighth-grader,
and he secured an oral commitment from him before his senior
season. One problem: Cousins wanted a clause inserted in his
national letter of intent that would allow him to leave for another
school without penalty if Davis left UAB.
The school balked. So did Cousins. Now, Cousins and Bledsoe
are playing for Calipari, two of five guys that Davis thought would
be part of this team but landed elsewhere. “If somebody can
develop DeMarcus, I’m happy for him,” Davis said.
“I just tell people I’ve got two great teams, one
that’s here and another on other campuses.”
Davis can’t complain about players who relocate. Four
of his top six scorers are guys who transferred to UAB. The list
includes a pair of fifth-year seniors — guard George
Drake (Vanderbilt) and center Kenneth Cooper (Louisiana
Tech) — who became eligible immediately because they
earned degrees and then enrolled in graduate programs not offered
at their previous schools.
But the real UAB monster is Millsap, who sat out last season
after playing two years at Louisiana-Lafayette. He is the younger
brother Paul Millsap, who led the nation in rebounding for three
straight years at Louisiana Tech before joining the Utah Jazz.
Elijah might not lead the nation in rebounding, but Davis is
thrilled to have a guard who is giving him 15.4 points, 9.8
rebounds and 2.1 assists. Millsap punished Cincinnati with 22
points and 15 boards, one of four 15-rebound games he has
delivered.
“I know a lot of people didn’t feel that way,
but I thought we had a chance to win the conference
championship,” Davis said. “We’re pretty
good.”
And, like the rest of Conference USA, the Blazers are no
longer living in John Calipari’s shadow.
Rick Bozich is a sports columnist for The Louisville
Courier-Journal and blogs regularly
here
.
