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Wednesday, January 10, 2001
Staley is 'entrepreneur of the year'
By Nancy Lieberman-Cline
Special to ESPN.com
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It started with Temple's season-opening win over Lehigh, when six Owls scored in double figures to help Dawn Staley's coaching debut get off to a winning start.
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BARMORE RAISES BAR
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During halftime of the Connecticut-Louisiana Tech game in Ruston on Sunday, Lady Techster coach Leon Barmore's number will be retired.
Barmore, who started for La. Tech from 1965 through 1967, scored 1,168 points -- which currently ranks No. 23 in the Tech record books -- over the course of his career. The team posted a 44-30 record during that time.
"Preserving the history of Bulldog basketball is very important to our program," Bulldog coach Keith Richard said on La. Tech's official athletic site. "Only three Tech players have ever scored 1,000 points in only a three-year varsity career. Two of them, Karl Malone and Jackie Moreland, have their numbers retired. On Jan. 7th, we will add the third player -- Leon Barmore's No. 12."
This is a great honor, and one Barmore is certainly touched by. It's great to see, especially since Louisiana Tech doesn't always get enough credit for being the foundation of women's basketball as Tennessee, Texas, Old Dominion and Stephen F. Austin do. But Barmore's Lady Techsters have been a real backbone of where women's basketball has come from.
He has done a phenomenal job over the years, and been to made more Final Four appearances than anybody except Pat Summitt.
Barmore's an icon of the game, with the highest winning percentage of any active coach, male or female. He has won 87 percent of his games, and equally impressive is the fact he has continued to churn out great players year after year.
-- Nancy Lieberman-Cline |
But that 34-point victory -- which saw several Liacouras Center records fall -- was just the beginning. Since then, the Owls have gone 7-3 as Staley has gotten her team off to the best start of any first-year Temple coach since the mid-1950s.
While the team's record is impressive, Staley's courtside performance has been outstanding. Up until now, Staley has been known as an Olympian, a three-time Kodak All-American, a two-time national collegiate player of the year and as a professional athlete. But after just a few months as a coach, she has done an unbelievable job. And it's as if she has been coaching for a long time.
The biggest key for Temple this season is that the Owls are beating the teams they're supposed to, and that's the mark of good coaching. Temple is playing the same teams it always plays in its nonconference schedule, but this year, the Owls are coming out on top.
For example, Temple lost 53-41 to Marist last season. In the second game this season, the Owls beat Marist 77-57. Last season, Temple also lost to Rider and Pennsylvania, but beat both this season. The 79-50 win over Penn on Dec. 9 was perhaps most impressive, as the Owls avenged last season's 16-point loss and also held Diana Caramanico, who ranked second in the nation in scoring in 1999-2000, to 18 points on 6-for-13 shooting.
Beating the teams you're supposed to beat will help Temple step up to the next level and start being competitive. And for Staley, who barely had enough time to unpack her bags after returning from Sydney -- where she won her second gold medal at the 2000 Olympics -- before taking the court for preseason training, that's all she could want at this point of her career.
Best yet, she has what it takes to keep improving, and my vote for entrepreneur of the year. Staley has a great mentality for coaching. She's mature, intelligent, has a tremendous sense of humor and has been in every situation you can be at in women's basketball.
Even her opponents agree. After Vanderbilt (No. 21 ESPN/USA Today; No. 23 AP) beat Temple 70-51 on Tuesday, Vanderbilt coach Jim Foster said the Owls are "a hard-nosed basketball team."
"They play very hard, they compete, I thought they had a lot of energy," the Temple alum continued. "I enjoyed the way they played. They play the way they have to play."
Where might Staley and the Owls be come mid-March?
That's hard to tell, and a question we can't answer at this point of the season. But we'll have a better idea once Temple gets into the heart of its conference schedule.
The Owls face St. Bonaventure in their first Atlantic 10 Conference game of the season on Jan. 15.
Grentz and Co. grind it out
There's no nice way to put it: Illinois has been one of this season's biggest disappointments.
But the Illini seemed to right the ship a bit with a huge win over then-No. 14-ranked Auburn, which snapped the Tigers' 55-game home winning streak over nonconference opponents.
Illinois came into the season hoping to make a statement in the Big Ten and continue building off of last season's success. Instead, the Illini suffered some bad early losses and haven't been playing to the level one would expect from a team coached by Theresa Grentz.
But against Auburn, Illinois finally came together as a team. The Illini were more cohesive, finishing plays and taking the ball side-to-side very effectively. They also played good defense.
Illinois' next opponent seems to agree.
Georgia coach Andy Landers, whose Lady Bulldogs host the Illini on Thursday, said Illinois' 5-7 mark is deceiving.
"Illinois is without a doubt the most talented 5-7 team in the nation," he said.
ESPN analyst Nancy Lieberman-Cline, a Hall of Famer, will break down the women's college basketball world throughout the 2000-2001 season.
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