THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 10, 1996 TAG: 9601100565
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Bob Molinaro
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
In its winter of discontent, the Colonial Athletic Association needs real commitment from its fans.
More than in recent years, CAA basketball could use some friends to throw their arms around the conference and say, ``Everything will be OK.''
To put it kindly, the CAA has seen better days. At the start of conference play last week, seven of its nine teams were .500 or below.
Patience, loyalty and, on occasion, a pair of rose-colored glasses. This is what it takes to support CAA hoops in 1996.
It helps, too, to have an independent streak, for this, as you've probably heard, is ACC country.
What could be more chic, or less taxing, than glomming onto ACC basketball? The ACC creates some of the year's most memorable scenes, such as Dick Vitale kissing Dean Smith's ring.
The ACC is prime time, all the time. Larry King wishes he were as overexposed as Virginia, Maryland, Duke, North Carolina, Wake Forest, Florida State and Georgia Tech.
The ACC isn't a conference; it's a TV series. As a result, for most basketball fans, commitment to the ACC means simply picking up the remote control.
The CAA demands much more from its fans, especially this season. It demands, for example, that boosters search their memories to recall a time when Lefty Driesell was a vital force in college basketball.
Something has happened to the Lefthander over the last couple of years. He's stopped mattering. Driesell and his James Madison team have dropped off the radar screen.
Driesell's arrival in the CAA gave the league an important shot of credibility. But that was eight years ago. What is he contributing today to the league's image?
To a lesser degree, Paul Westhead also created a spasm of expectation when he took over at George Mason in 1993. Two losing seasons later, Westhead's run-and-stun style is more tedious than titillating.
Today, the CAA's brightest, most respected coach is one of its newest - Jeff Capel. Since March, the CAA has been dining out on Old Dominion's upset of Big East Villanova. But this is a new season and ODU is 5-8. Time to move onward, not to mention upward.
Capel's philosophy is to play a tough non-conference schedule and take your lumps in preparation for CAA play. But following his team's 85-70 victory over the Monarchs at Scope on Saturday night, Virginia Commonwealth coach Sonny Smith questioned the thinking behind this approach.
``We use a crazy scheduling philosophy,'' he said. ``People who rule this league, their philosophy is to schedule big and the others go along with them.''
For the sake of the CAA's image and self-respect, Smith would like to see teams break the pattern of losing games ``all over the continent and galaxy.''
Use November and December, he suggested, to ``schedule more wins.''
``This is a good mid-major conference that schedules like a high-major because we're in ACC country,'' he said.
Here's the problem, though. For a mid-major, scheduling nondescript non-conference opposition can create as many public relations problems as discouraging Novembers and Decembers do.
``Sure, we'll take a lickin' from you guys,'' said Smith, addressing the press. ``Take a lickin', but keep on tickin'.''
Sounds like a slogan for this year's CAA. by CNB