Not-so-great four all the wiser after losing in Chicago

Sporting News, The, Dec 20, 1999 by Mike DeCourcy

There are a few elemental differences between the Great Eight and the Final Four, from the size of the field to the size of the arena audience to the size of the TV audience to the size of the TV deal.

The Final Four wins most of those arguments by a bunch. The one advantage the Great Eight offers, though, is the losers receive a second chance.

Lose at the Final Four, and you're done for the season. Lose at the Great Eight, and you can return to campus and work on what went wrong so these problems become a memory when the opportunity arrives to play for a Final Four berth.

Each of the four not-yet-great teams at Chicago's United Center last week had at least one player not functioning at maximum efficiency. More than two months remain to squeeze the most from these guys.

Kansas' Eric Chenowith, 7-0 junior center. On his first possession against Michigan State, Chenowith shot a fadeaway jumper to avoid contact rather than attempt to create a 3-point play. His retreat was right there in the open, impossible to miss.

The Spartans feasted on that reticence the way they did against North Carolina's Brendan Haywood a week earlier. Aggressive teams are thrilled to discover an opponent who detests being bumped.

"It's not as easy for him to get angry as it is me, because he's not as competitive," coach Roy Williams says. "If kids aren't as competitive, they can get a little bit of that from us as a staff, but it's got to come internally."

A coach can't expect everyone to be tenacious, but it's reasonable to ask all players to be aggressive. Chenowith recognizes this deficiency. After a writer for the Kansas school paper authored a blistering criticism of Chenowith's play--which bothered Williams, who thought it was excessive given the Jayhawks' fine play--Chenowith e-mailed the writer and conceded that he had a point.

Chenowith's numbers are down in scoring and rebounding. Williams could bench him for motivational reasons and play 6-9 forwards Andrew Gooden and Nick Collison. Although the two freshmen are good enough to make it work, Kansas would be best with Chenowith playing his best.

"He's struggling a little bit, but I haven't lost faith in him," Williams said. "We're going to keep working, keep giving him a chance."

Arizona's Michael Wright, 6-7 sophomore power forward. There were about three minutes during the Wildcats' loss to Connecticut when the choreography involving Wright and 7-1 center Loren Woods was perfectly artful.

Woods blocked a shot, then stayed well clear of the lane on the left so Wright could score on a jump hook from the right block. Next time, UConn's Ajou Deng lost track of Woods, and he scored easily inside. After another stop, Wright beat everybody downcourt for a bucket that made it a one-point deficit for Arizona.

That was as close as the Wildcats got, and as close as the big men came to seamless integration. Otherwise, Wright's best sequence came with Woods resting.

"We're sort of not clicking all season," says Wright, a brutish power forward with a punishing lefthanded jump hook. "I think we'll get it together by the time the Pac-10 season starts, but this game, it seemed like we were bumping into each other, fighting each other for rebounds. We just played sloppy, played out of sync."

To get in sync, Woods needs a better grasp on operating a high-low offense. Woods admits to being "more of a finesse player" and admiring Wright's brute force beneath the goal, but Woods hasn't consistently drawn defenders from inside the way A.J. Bramlett did.

"Congestion? I'm not unhappy about that," Arizona coach Lute Olson says. "We want the ball in there. The thing that needs to be done is once they catch it, they've got to catch-shoot. If you're six feet away from the basket, you don't need to try to get four feet away.

"Right now it's a problem, but I don't think that'll be a problem come January."

Gonzaga's Matt Santangelo, 6-2 senior point guard, When Santangelo was merely a point guard, but not the point guard, his life was less complicated.

With Quentin Hall at the point last season, Santangelo could create plays but mostly finished them. Now, he runs the team. With the transition, and the recovery from a preseason bout with mononucleosis, his 3-point percentage dropped from .381 last season to .265.

"Coach put a lot of emphasis on getting our feet ready--as the ban's coming to us, getting our feet ready, so you're ready to shoot on balance," Santangelo says. "We were doing a poor job of that the first couple of games."

The Bulldogs are determined to prove their Elite Eight finish last season was no fluke, which is why they found themselves playing Cincinnati, Temple and UCLA in succession.

Without Santangelo as a primary option, the Bulldogs shot a combined .306 from the field against Temple and became more dependent on their defense.

The defensive emphasis worked against the Bruins, who hit .262 and had one double-figure scorer in Gonzaga's 59-43 win last Saturday.

"At the point position, it's very difficult to score a lot of points," Bulldogs coach Mark Few says. "If you look in the NBA, look anywhere, the points that are scoring a lot of baskets--their teams aren't doing so well."