Post by 01- PirateDave on Mar 6, 2015 9:50:15 GMT -6
William & Mary men’s basketball team aims to end NCAA Tournament drought and go dancing for first time ever
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Thursday, March 5, 2015, 7:30 PM A A A
Senior guard Marcus Thornton looks to drive Thomas Jefferson's old school into the NCAA tourney.
Senior guard Marcus Thornton looks to drive Thomas Jefferson's old school into the NCAA tourney.
Thomas Jefferson never got to spray-paint his body green and gold and go to an NCAA tournament game in his undergraduate days at the College of William & Mary. Neither did Sandra Day O’Connor, former chancellor, or Jon Stewart, a more recent alum of the nation’s second oldest university.
Sometimes, in the course of human events, it is time for historic oh-fers to end. William & Mary’s men’s basketball team has a major star with a Richard Sherman hairdo (but not a Richard Sherman mouth); a do-it-all forward with deep New York roots; a 6-8 AD who goes back to the 1969 NBA draft with Lew Alcindor/Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and a coach who transformed a glorified intramural program into a perennial conference power and wouldn’t be here without the late Dean Smith. It could be that the school’s pursuit of bracket happiness finally reaches fruition this weekend.
Or as that AD, Terry Driscoll, the former Boston College star who was selected three picks after Big Lew in the ’69 draft, put it, “We keep knocking on the door. Eventually they have to let us in.”
It’s a fascinating cast of characters in Williamsburg, Va., where student-athletes actually stay in college for four years — and graduate! — and where there is no academic machinery to steer ballplayers into a cupcake major to ensure their continued eligibility. So even if you’re rooting for St. Francis of Brooklyn, the No. 1 seed in the Northeast Conference, to make it to its first NCAA Tournament this weekend, well, it doesn’t mean you can’t salute the school from a little town famous for three-cornered hats, a Colonial Restoration and Marcus Thornton, a kinetic, 6-4 senior guard who Florida coach Billy Donovan called “as good a guard as we'll see this year.”
Thornton is the Colonial Athletic Association’s player of the year two years running, and figures to get some serious NBA looks. He recently broke a school scoring record on the books since the Truman Administration, and has done his time; William & Mary was 6-26 his freshman year.
Thomas Jefferson and Sandra Day O'Connor have something in common with more recent William & Mary alums ... they didn't get a chance to cheer on the Tribe in the NCAA Tournament.
“People saw us as a guaranteed win,” Thornton said.
A year ago, William & Mary was up six with 80 seconds to play in the conference championship game against Delaware, and lost.
Thornton’s 18-footer at the buzzer would’ve won it, but it bounced away. The miss meant that William & Mary would remain in NCAA infamy, alongside St. Francis, Army, The Citadel and Northwestern, the other schools never to make the tournament.
The next day Thornton was practicing his stepback jumpers in the student rec center, embracing what coach Tony Shaver, UNC walk-on turned scholarship player for Smith, has laid out as the challenge for his team, a No. 1 seed for the first time ever, for as long as it lasts in the Colonial tournament in Baltimore. Shaver loathes the notion that qualifying for the NCAAs “is the only measuring stick for whether your season was a success,” but gets it. William and Mary (18-11, 12-6) begins its journey Saturday at Royal Farms Arena, against the winner of Friday’s game between Elon and Towson.
Stamford's own Terry Tarpey hopes to be part of first class to lead William & Mary into the big dance.
“You can’t run from it. We’re attacking it. We’re good enough to do it. Let’s go ahead and be the first,” the coach said, and it is no different from the attitude of Terrence M. Tarpey III, a 6-5 junior forward from Stamford, Conn., by way of Poissy, France. You may recognize the name; Terry Tarpey Jr. was a star player alongside Derrick Chievous at Holy Cross HS in Flushing and then went on to NYU, leaving as the school’s all-time leading scorer before heading to play professionally in France — where his son was born, just outside Paris. These days, Tarpey Jr. is back at Holy Cross, coaching basketball and teaching, and making many grinding, 400-mile treks down I-95 to Williamsburg. The trips have been so worth it; his son is the only player in the country this season to lead his conference in rebounds, blocks and steals. Earlier this year he had the first triple-double they've ever had in William & Mary’s 322-year history. Now, as then, Tarpey the younger hopes to score, board, block and steal enough to win three more games.
“If we want to put the history behind us, it’s on us. Let’s get it done,” he said.
Up and down Shaver’s roster, there is a quality gene pool, and not just because Tarpey’s sister, Kaitlyn, is a former Miss Teenage America. Guard Daniel Dixon, the team’s top-three-point shooter at better than 46%, is the son of Boston University track athlete and a New England Patriots cheerleader. Swingman Omar Prewitt, who has a mother who was an All-SEC player at Kentucky and a sister who was a Div. III All-American, was offered a walk-on spot by John Calipari, but chose the three-cornered hats instead.
Terry Driscoll, who played for Bob Cousy at BC, will be at Royal Farms this weekend, and will see his old friend and teammate, Wes Unseld. Driscoll would be happy to leave tickets for the No. 1 pick of the ’69 draft, but there’s just one problem.
“Kareem didn’t ask,” Driscoll said. He laughed. He hopes his spirits remain high, and there is more March basketball to be played. The NCAA Tournament isn’t an inalienable right, but it sure would be nice.
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Thursday, March 5, 2015, 7:30 PM A A A
Senior guard Marcus Thornton looks to drive Thomas Jefferson's old school into the NCAA tourney.
Senior guard Marcus Thornton looks to drive Thomas Jefferson's old school into the NCAA tourney.
Thomas Jefferson never got to spray-paint his body green and gold and go to an NCAA tournament game in his undergraduate days at the College of William & Mary. Neither did Sandra Day O’Connor, former chancellor, or Jon Stewart, a more recent alum of the nation’s second oldest university.
Sometimes, in the course of human events, it is time for historic oh-fers to end. William & Mary’s men’s basketball team has a major star with a Richard Sherman hairdo (but not a Richard Sherman mouth); a do-it-all forward with deep New York roots; a 6-8 AD who goes back to the 1969 NBA draft with Lew Alcindor/Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and a coach who transformed a glorified intramural program into a perennial conference power and wouldn’t be here without the late Dean Smith. It could be that the school’s pursuit of bracket happiness finally reaches fruition this weekend.
Or as that AD, Terry Driscoll, the former Boston College star who was selected three picks after Big Lew in the ’69 draft, put it, “We keep knocking on the door. Eventually they have to let us in.”
It’s a fascinating cast of characters in Williamsburg, Va., where student-athletes actually stay in college for four years — and graduate! — and where there is no academic machinery to steer ballplayers into a cupcake major to ensure their continued eligibility. So even if you’re rooting for St. Francis of Brooklyn, the No. 1 seed in the Northeast Conference, to make it to its first NCAA Tournament this weekend, well, it doesn’t mean you can’t salute the school from a little town famous for three-cornered hats, a Colonial Restoration and Marcus Thornton, a kinetic, 6-4 senior guard who Florida coach Billy Donovan called “as good a guard as we'll see this year.”
Thornton is the Colonial Athletic Association’s player of the year two years running, and figures to get some serious NBA looks. He recently broke a school scoring record on the books since the Truman Administration, and has done his time; William & Mary was 6-26 his freshman year.
Thomas Jefferson and Sandra Day O'Connor have something in common with more recent William & Mary alums ... they didn't get a chance to cheer on the Tribe in the NCAA Tournament.
“People saw us as a guaranteed win,” Thornton said.
A year ago, William & Mary was up six with 80 seconds to play in the conference championship game against Delaware, and lost.
Thornton’s 18-footer at the buzzer would’ve won it, but it bounced away. The miss meant that William & Mary would remain in NCAA infamy, alongside St. Francis, Army, The Citadel and Northwestern, the other schools never to make the tournament.
The next day Thornton was practicing his stepback jumpers in the student rec center, embracing what coach Tony Shaver, UNC walk-on turned scholarship player for Smith, has laid out as the challenge for his team, a No. 1 seed for the first time ever, for as long as it lasts in the Colonial tournament in Baltimore. Shaver loathes the notion that qualifying for the NCAAs “is the only measuring stick for whether your season was a success,” but gets it. William and Mary (18-11, 12-6) begins its journey Saturday at Royal Farms Arena, against the winner of Friday’s game between Elon and Towson.
Stamford's own Terry Tarpey hopes to be part of first class to lead William & Mary into the big dance.
“You can’t run from it. We’re attacking it. We’re good enough to do it. Let’s go ahead and be the first,” the coach said, and it is no different from the attitude of Terrence M. Tarpey III, a 6-5 junior forward from Stamford, Conn., by way of Poissy, France. You may recognize the name; Terry Tarpey Jr. was a star player alongside Derrick Chievous at Holy Cross HS in Flushing and then went on to NYU, leaving as the school’s all-time leading scorer before heading to play professionally in France — where his son was born, just outside Paris. These days, Tarpey Jr. is back at Holy Cross, coaching basketball and teaching, and making many grinding, 400-mile treks down I-95 to Williamsburg. The trips have been so worth it; his son is the only player in the country this season to lead his conference in rebounds, blocks and steals. Earlier this year he had the first triple-double they've ever had in William & Mary’s 322-year history. Now, as then, Tarpey the younger hopes to score, board, block and steal enough to win three more games.
“If we want to put the history behind us, it’s on us. Let’s get it done,” he said.
Up and down Shaver’s roster, there is a quality gene pool, and not just because Tarpey’s sister, Kaitlyn, is a former Miss Teenage America. Guard Daniel Dixon, the team’s top-three-point shooter at better than 46%, is the son of Boston University track athlete and a New England Patriots cheerleader. Swingman Omar Prewitt, who has a mother who was an All-SEC player at Kentucky and a sister who was a Div. III All-American, was offered a walk-on spot by John Calipari, but chose the three-cornered hats instead.
Terry Driscoll, who played for Bob Cousy at BC, will be at Royal Farms this weekend, and will see his old friend and teammate, Wes Unseld. Driscoll would be happy to leave tickets for the No. 1 pick of the ’69 draft, but there’s just one problem.
“Kareem didn’t ask,” Driscoll said. He laughed. He hopes his spirits remain high, and there is more March basketball to be played. The NCAA Tournament isn’t an inalienable right, but it sure would be nice.
good luck to all!