I admit it. I didn't know that Catholic Church leaders played hoops. But there it is on the University of Utah basketball schedule:
Cardinal Stritch. He's taking on the Utes Thursday night in the Huntsman Center, presumably with some help from the choir.Rumor has it that Father Mulcahey and Reverend Jesse Jackson are trying to get on the slate, too, but that might be, uh, stritching things a bit, even by preseason hoops standards.
But maybe not. Last Saturday, on one foul day of hoops, three of Utah's top four in-state schools played Oklahoma Baptist, Chicago State and Chadron State.
Question: Who are these people? The college basketball season supposedly begins in November, but not really. The season consists of four stages. The first stage is the exhibition season, when college teams play Marathon Oil, the Kansas City AAU, Lee Jeans (no, I'm being serious here), Race Express, Athletes in Action, Fort Sill and various touring international teams, some of which have names that sound like someone's very old girlfriend (B.C. Dona Zagreb?).
Then there are stages II and III, which are devoted to nonconference and conference games, respectively, followed by stage IV, post-season tournament play.
We are currently in Stage II. It covers November and December, and for the most part it's worth ignoring unless you're Dick Vitale. Set your hoops alarm for January.
The prevailing philosophy in Phase II is simple: Schedule yourself a few W's. Dial a win.
Simon Fraser played UTEP and New Mexico. Westmont played San Diego State. New Mexico invited Eastern Washington, Centenary and North Texas to its Lobo Classic (classic?). Doane College and Mesa State played Air Force. So did Regis, sans Kathy Lee. Utah State has Lewis and Clark - that's one school, two names - and Chadron State on the schedule this month. Weber State has dates with Central Washington and Oregon Tech, but will have to play U.S. Coast Guard.
Question: Which of the following teams was scheduled to make the finals of the Cougar Classic? a. BYU, b. Oregon State, c. Nicholls State or d. Oklahoma Baptist? Well, no one has made an art form of preseason scheduling quite like coach Rick Majerus. Since he came to Utah, the Utes have played, for keeps, Cal State Stanislaus (St. Nicklaus's alma mater), Lewis and Clark (the explorers' alma mater), Humboldt State (Scrooge's alma mater), Pacific College, St. Peters, Alaska-Fairbanks, Milwaukee-Wisconsin, Cal-Davis, Cal-Northridge, Cal-Irvine, Seattle Pacific, Morehead State, Denver, Eastern Montana, Montana Tech, Sacramento State and Southern Cal College. Sample scores: 89-42, 84-57, 96-62, 105-64, etc. The Utes have collected 20 wins in the last four years against US-Grade A patsies.
Question: What would coaches do in November and December without the Cal State-(fill in the blank)s of the world?
Last week, the Utes traveled all the way to the south side of Chicago to play the Chicago State Cougars, whose four wins last season are four more than they have this year. The Utes should have saved themselves the airfare and played a comparable opponent closer to home; say, the Draper Second Ward.
Question: Why do coaches schedule patsies?
A few extra wins never hurt anybody, especially wins against Division 1 teams, no matter how bad they are. It always looks good in the won-loss column and on the resume. Twenty-five wins are 25 wins. There is no asterisk next to the record that says, "Yeah, but Chicago State was a dog."
Chicago State, by the way, has a home-and-home arrangement with Utah. We can hardly wait for the 1995 rematch in the Huntsman Center.
Coaches have other reasons for playing such teams. Majerus, for instance, freely admits that he schedules pushovers for his season opener (to devote another week to his own team rather than preparation for an opponent) and for final exams week (to allow more time for study).
Fair enough, but Southern Cal College and Cardinal Stritch? Surely the Utes can do better than that. And none of this explains Chicago State.
By the end of the month, the Utes will have played a grand total of seven games against name opponents in four years of preseason play - Michigan, Oregon, Washington, Arizona (twice) and Texas (twice), unless you want to count Bradley, Wichita State, Utah State (all three were suffering through major down cycles at the time) and Weber State.
On the other hand, the Utes have won two league championships in the last three years, and they've played well in the NCAA and NIT tournaments. It's difficult to argue with results. And everybody's scheduling a pushover or two these days.
It just makes for a rather dull warmup act in November and December. See you in January.