Losses should add up to gain

Sporting News, The, Sept 3, 2001 by MIKE DeCOURCY

The program is fresh out of high-maintenance players. No Winfied Walton. No Courtney Alexander. No Kenny Brunner or Avondre Jones or Chris Herren. And, officially, no more Tito Maddox. An era has passed at Fresno State.

Some of these guys played well in their time with the Bulldogs. Some did not. Brunner, for all the negative publicity he brought upon the school, never played. Those who did suit up had something in common: They played at Fresno State, but too often they played for themselves.

"I tried to talk our guys into playing hard," coach Jerry Tarkanian says, "and it didn't work."

The pride missing during his first five years, as Tarkanian attempted to revive the program by overstuffing it with individual talent, began to emerge last season. The change was apparent as center Melvin Ely and small forward Chris Jefferies became prominent players. It wasn't unanimous, though, not as long as Maddox concentrated more on his NBA draft status than the Bulldogs' success.

That no longer is a concern.

Maddox, a 6-4 sophomore who was among the NCAA's most gifted point guards, was removed from the program last week for accepting benefits from an agent while on the NBA's early-entry list. It was his second such offense. That left the point-guard position to junior college recruit Chris Sandy. Tarkanian will notice a difference in the level of talent, but also the level of cooperation.

"He's going to do everything he can to do what Coach Tark wants," says Doc Sadler, Sandy's coach at Westark Community College in Fort Smith, Ark. "Chris is about winning basketball games. He's going to put his individual goals second to the team goals. He will be as hard a worker as they've got."

Maddox did not rise to the same nuisance level as some of his predecessors. His dealings with agents were distracting, and they cost him eight games last season and the opportunity to play this season. But he was well liked by the staff and was, when he wanted to be, a positive force on the floor.

Fresno won 14 of its first 15 after Maddox joined the team, and he averaged 14.7 points and 9.3 assists. He fired 39 shots from 3-point range, making 12, or 30.8 percent.

Then Maddox became convinced he needed to demonstrate his deep shooting to NBA scouts. In the final 10 games, he fired 31 long-distance shots and made eight. His scoring average dropped to 11.6 points in those games and his assists fell to 6.1. The staff recognized what he was up to and tried to get him refocused on running the team, but it never quite took. The Bulldogs finished 6-4.

Sandy was recruited to play both backcourt positions, but he was Westark's regular point guard on the way to a fifth-place finish at the junior college national championships. Sadler, a former assistant at Arizona State, suggests that the one obstacle to Sandy's success is the adjustment all recruits face in moving to Division I competition.

Though Sandy will not be as forceful or creative on offense as Maddox, he can compensate by making open shots. Sandy is considered an excellent defender at the point of attack and might make it tougher to score against Fresno State.

"One of Chris' biggest strengths as a point guard is he can really shoot the basketball," Sadler says, "but at the same time, he doesn't get selfish with that."

With backcourt depth a problem and Sandy unproven, this no longer will be a preseason top 15 team. But the frontcourt is imposing, with Ely and Jeffries joined by power forward Hiram Fuller of NJCAA champion Wabash Valley. Ely showed an improved offensive game at the U.S. national team trials and in competition at the World University Games. The Bulldogs remain the favorite to win the Western Athletic Conference and still might have the goods to challenge for the school's first Sweet 16 trip since 1982.

They are not as good as they were on paper, but they'll be on the floor in another couple months.

Want more analysis from Mike DeCourcy? Read his online column Fridays at www.spotingnews.com/cbasketball.> RELATED ARTICLE: INSIDE DISH

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