Link:July 5, 2004
Last modified July 5, 2004 - 1:06 am
Bobcats leap, bound out of 5 and 8 rule
By FRITZ NEIGHBOR
Of The Gazette Staff
When the NCAA rescinded it's "5 and 8 rule" for basketball this spring, some wrote that it could be a death knell for the mid-major programs - schools like Santa Clara, Gonzaga, Nevada, Evansville.
But it is possible that no men's basketball program benefited more than Montana State in Bozeman, where Mick Durham was looking at having nine scholarship players for the 2004-05 season, four below the NCAA limit of 13.
"I can't imagine many more schools at our level that had nine on scholarship," said Durham, the Big Sky Conference's career leader in league and overall wins. "If you have players leaving the program, you couldn't replace them, and that's a problem in a lot of programs this size."
The "5 and 8" limited schools to signing a maximum of five new players for one season, and eight for two seasons. It was a challenging rule to live with, a fact epitomized by MSU after its Big Sky regular-season championship of 2001-02. The Bobcats graduated three seniors off that 20-10 team: Aaron Rich, Kenny Plummer and James Clark. Then junior college transfer Damir Latovic left a year early to pursue a pro career in Europe, and two freshmen, Jeff Williams and Luke Anderson, left after one year.
Durham was only able to fill three of those six spots under the "5 and 8," After signing five players last year, he was looking at having only three scholarships to give to recruits again this season.
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We should also mention that the past two years the Cats have gone 11-16 and 14-13, with five league wins in '02-03 and six last season. "We almost pulled off something pretty good last year," Durham adds. "Until the last game. I really liked what we were doing last year, but that last game was a disappointing way to end."
It's also disappointing to lose a player like the graduated Jason Erickson, but with a few more scholarships to give, MSU might just find a replacement.
"We thought by signing three guys, we would have a good recruiting class," Durham said. "And we ended up being able to sign four more."
The other side of the rule getting rescinded is that two other players who were in line for scholarships - guards Marcus Clift and Wes Morales - ended up transferring out. Clift is headed to Northwest Nazarene in Nampa, Idaho, and Morales will be suiting up at Rocky Mountain College. The "5 and 8" did have loophole in that if a player stayed with the program two years, he or she could go on scholarship and it wouldn't count against the limit.
"There's no question - we would've put Wes and Clift on scholarship, and that would've given us 11," Durham said. "When that rule was rescinded, we felt we recruited over them. Fair or unfair, that's what we thought."
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The rule itself was borderline unfair, and could hit higher-echelon programs who recruited kids that left early for the NBA draft particularly hard. That in turn may have trickled down and helped a Gonzaga or St. Joseph's make hay in the NCAA tournament.
Meanwhile, MSU was getting hit hard. "Our level is a level where the players aren't sure bets," he said. "The higher level, the players they get can play. Here, we're gambling that they develop right. That's one area it's different."
Durham feels good about his recruiting class, which includes five junior college transfers, another transfer from Indiana State (6-foot-9, 225-pound Ted Morris), and a prep standout from Phoenix, 6-1 Ryan Holmes, who averaged 29 points a game in high school.
Holmes was recruited by Santa Clara, Utah and Akron, who for one reason or another backed off. Former MSU coach Bruce Haroldson told Holmes' high school coach, Tim Butler, to contact Durham. "He slipped through the cracks a little bit," Durham said. "I was impressed with how unselfish he was for how he could score. He's really deceptive, quickness-wise."
Add in 6-11 Alioune Beye, a 210-pounder from Senegal; 6-6 Marvin Moss, 6-7 Taylor Pratt and 6-1 guards Ja'Ron Jefferson and Branden Miller, and Durham has what he feels is a more athletic team. New assistant coach Johnny Brown helped bring Beye and Pratt out of the Oklahoma JC ranks.
"We're excited about it," Durham said of the squad. "We've become more athletic, and we've added more depth both inside and outside."
Of course that and 50 cents will get you a cup of coffee. The Big Sky has yet to move into so-called mid-major territory. "It's going to be tough for us regardless," Durham said of the league, which has celebrated NCAA tournament wins just twice - both by Weber State - since 1979. "We're still 13, 14, 15 seeds. Gonzaga's established themselves as one of the better programs in the West, but can they be a top 10 consistently anymore? I don't know."
Big Sky titles are hard enough to come by. The Bobcats haven't gone to the NCAAs since 1996. "Eastern Washington, they've kind of got it going," Durham said of the Eagles, who made the NCAAs for the first time this past spring. "Then I think it's pretty wide-open. But we are quite a bit different. We've got a little look with our personnel.
"I guess that's what makes each year fun."
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