Golden Bulls left to carry bannerLUT WILLIAMS After Hampton's gallant run ended Saturday with a loss in the second round of the NCAA Div. I men's basketball tournament, it's now up to the Johnson C. Smith University Golden Bulls to carry the black college banner. And they'll do it in a place black colleges have had the most hoop success on the national scene.
CIAA and South Atlantic Region champion JCSU (27-4), under 14-year head coach Steve Joyner, plays Washburn College (27-4) Wednesday (March 21) at 9 p. m. (EST) in Bakersfield, Ca., in an NCAA Div. II national quarterfinal game. The Elite Eight appearance is the first-ever for the Golden Bulls and Joyner but they will be looking to follow in the footsteps of black college predecessors that have brought home seven Div. II national titles. The last to do it were the Panthers of Virginia Union in 1992. That's when head coach Dave Robbins won his second title after claiming his first in 1980. Present Fayetteville State head coach Mike Bernard guided the North Carolina Central Eagles to the 1989 national crown before leaving to become head coach at Norfolk State. Current Norfolk State head coach Wil Jones cut down the nets in 1982 when he led the Firebirds of the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) to the national title. Current Temple head coach John Chaney, whose Owls are still alive in this year's NCAA Div. I Tournament, made his first hit on the national scene winning the 1978 title for Cheyney University. He was preceded in the winner's circle by Nat Frazier who guided the 1974 Bears of Morgan State to the crown. Clarence "Big House" Gaines got the ball rolling back in 1967 when he won the first NCAA title for a black college leading Earl "The Pearl" Monroe and the Rams of Winston-Salem State University to what was then called the NCAA Small College Championship. Each of those championship teams had stars like Monroe, Morgan State's Marvin "The Human Eraser" Webster, and the UDC tandem of Michael Britt and Earl Jones. Joyner enters the fray with his own triumvirate of stars, senior frontcourt players Wylie Petty and Lemans Shingler and junior guard Antoine Sims. The silky smooth Sims, a six-foot junior college transfer who hails from Buffalo, New York, is the team's leading scorer (18.2 ppg.) and the guy Joyner says has brought the Golden Bulls the kind of mental toughness they've not had in the past. He's comfortable going to the hoop or shooting it from long range. Sims was inexplicably left off the all-CIAA team and then punctuated that slight by winning the CIAA Tournament's most valuable player trophy, throwing in 40 points in the semifinals and coming back with 24 in the finals.
Petty, a 6-5 deadly left-handed shooter and slasher (17.7 ppg.) from Boiling Springs, N. C., took home the Region MVP award. At 6-7, Shingler, a native of Santee, S. C., is the inside force. He averaged 12.6 points per game and led the Bulls off the boards with 6.9 rebounds per contest. Both Petty and Shingler were voted to the all-CIAA team. They'll have to contend with the Ichabods of Topeka, Kansas who are led by head coach Bob Chipman. Chipman has compiled a 484-173 record in 22 years at the school and has them in the Elite Eight for the third time since the 1993-94 season. The Ichabods defeated conference foe Northwest Missouri State for both the Missouri Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA) tournament title and the South Central Regional crown. Their best player is two-time MIAA Player of the Year, Ewan Auguste a 6-8 center from St. Lucia. Auguste finished ninth in the MIAA in scoring (15.2 ppg), fifth in rebounding (7.2 rpg), first in field goal percentage (.640) and eighth in block shots (0.93) while pacing the Ichabods to a 15-3 conference record. Three others average double figure scoring. They are guard Randolph Williams (13.3 ppg.) and forwards Ryan Murphy (13.0) and Eric Carter (11.1). The game is being played at Centennial Gardens in Bakersfield. Live stats and updates will be available at the Elite Eight statistics site online at www.comrecon.com/e8/. If the Golden Bulls advance to the semifinals, check online at www.onnidan.com for any television, radio or internet broadcasts. The final game will be televised Saturday at 1 p. m. on CBS. A win in the quarterfinals could pit JCSU against Queens College, champions of the East Region, in a matchup of crosstown Charlotte, N. C. teams. Queens (26-5) plays West Region champ Western Washington (26-3) in Wednesday's 11:30 (EST) quarterfinal game. © 2001 Azeez Communications, Inc.
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