VERY FEW MAJOR COLLEGE basketball teams are breaking for the holiday tomorrow in any better spirits than Southern Utah University. In the category of Christmas Coming Early, the Thunderbirds lead the country.
Only four years into their experiment to see if Div. I basketball can survive in Cedar City, the 1990-91 Thunderbirds cruise into Christmas with the following already to their credit:- A 7-3 record.
- Road wins over respected Div. I schools Illinois State and Evansville.
- Home wins over Weber State and Montana.
- And, when the Thunderbirds paused to thumb through USA Today this past Wednesday, they looked at Jeff Sagarin's weekly computerized Div. I power ratings and saw that Southern Utah was ranked 26th. In the country. The T-Birds' power rating of 85.65 was better than a lot of teams they'd heard of, including Georgia Tech , St. John's , Houston , Kansas State , Oklahoma , UNLV and the University of Utah .
Actually, Sagarin's early-season power ratings can be somewhat misleading, since his computer puts a lot of weight on strength-of-schedule, and many traditional Div. I powers typically play December schedules that make the guys Larry Holmes has been fighting lately look world class.
Still, when you're 4-years-old like the Thunderbirds are, you take your triumphs where they come. And besides, there is the not insignificant factor that Southern Utah has not only won seven of its 10 games, but the three it lost were by just five points to a Nebraska team expected to be in the thick of this year's Big Eight Conference race, by just seven points to a New Mexico State team that could be nationally ranked any day soon, and by 12 points on the road to Montana State.
Weber State, for one, isn't going to be arguing that Southern Utah isn't formidable. The Wildcats took an 8-1 career record into their game two weeks ago in Cedar City, and came away with a 13-point loss. Add in the Thunderbirds' win over Montana (the Grizzlies were 8-0 at the time) and they have a 2-1 mark against Big Sky Conference teams - a mark that would be even more substantial if Southern Utah was a member of the conference.
As it is, with each win the T-Birds keep measuring one more notch toward their goal, which is to play in the postseason, hopefully the 64-team NCAA tournament.
Getting to the NCAA's Sweet Sixty-four has been the T-Birds' goal ever since they jumped into Div. I four years ago, at the beginning of the 1988-89 season. At the time, a lot of people thought the school had lost its basketball mind.
There were many good reasons for such thoughts, led by the fact that the Southern Utah campus is in Cedar City.
Cedar City is a terrific place to hunt, fish, ski, enjoy smog-free air, raise cattle, raise kids, eat chicken fried steak at Sullivan's Cafe, and avoid traffic lights. It also serves as a gateway to Zion National Park and is only 50 miles from the golf courses in St. George.
But a budding basketball capital? With the nearest major airport either three hours away in Las Vegas or four hours away in Salt Lake City? Without a league to join?
There were doubters.
Even Neil Roberts, the former Dixie College national championship-winning coach who was lured out of coaching retirement to lead Southern Utah's foray into Div. I, had his doubts that first year - when the T-Birds went 10-18 and played 19 games on the road.
But ever since, the ship has been righting itself. In 1989-90 the T-Birds improved to 13-15 and played 17 times on the road. Then last year they went 16-12 with 16 games on the road and 12 at home.
With Roberts and virtually the entire team returning for this season, and with 13 games at home (15 on the road), the stage was set for promising things.
This promising?
"To tell you the truth," says Roberts, "I'm not all that surprised. Pleased, yes. But not surprised.
"We've got all the ingredients to be good," says the coach. "We've got good shooters, we've got good quickness, we've got good size, and we've got a good work ethic."
The Thunderbirds also have probably the best Yugoslavian (Croatian, to be specific) playing collegiately in the country right now in Davor Marcelic, a 6-foot-7 swingman, and the 23rd-best scorer in the country in 6-foot-6 forward Dana Achtzehn, a transfer from Arizona who is averaging 23.5 points per game. The rest of the starters are all Utah-raised, including guards Rod Dixon from Layton High School and Sean Petersen from Hillcrest High School and 6-foot-11 center Kerry Sherwood from Milford High School.
"We don't have a schedule that's divided into preseason and regular season," says Roberts, who still has trips to the likes of Stanford, San Diego State, Kansas State, Idaho and UTEP to prepare for. "Every game means the same to us. To make it to the postseason we have to play good competition and we have to win."
At the Christmas break, the good news in Cedar City is that so far, the T-Birds are two out of two.