March 3, 2003

By Chuck Mistovich
Basketball Times

Embry-Riddle (Fla.) coach Steve Ridder has guided his Eagles to the top in NAIA II basketball in recent years with the school's first-ever national championship in 2000 and then into the nationals again last year after being ranked number-one from the first through final polls of the season.

But the 19-12 E-R club has had to share the limelight a bit in the Florida Sun Conference this year as Warner Southern won the regular-season league title and Flagler captured the league tourney crown.

Flagler, ranked 22nd in the NAIA II with a 21-7 record, now roars into the national tournament. It was an extra-special start to the league playoffs when coach Bo Clark won his 300th career victory. Now he is hoping to top the 24-win season his Saints celebrated last year.

That Clark name should sound quite familiar to the NABC ranks. Bo led the country in scoring in 1977 with 31.6 points per game during his brilliant career at UCF, playing for his father, the legendary Torchy Clark.

Coach Kory Bays' Warner Southern club is ranked ninth in the final NAIA II poll and also heads to the national tourney. The club started the season with a miserable, 3-5 record but won 19 of its next 22 games to hit the big-time. Scoring, a lot of scoring, is Coach Bays' way, averaging 91 ppg for his second straight league championship.

Coach Ridder's Emry-Riddle club is still among the premier programs in the country, averaging over 25 wins per season since 1991, and seven of those teams earning national tourney berths.

Larry Chapman Wins 500th

Auburn-Montgomery reached a major milestone this season when coach Larry Chapman captured his 500th career victory at the school, and now the Senators want to build on that mark as they head into the Georgia Alabama Carolina Conference playoffs with hopes of reaching the NAIA I national tourney.

Coach Chapman said, "It has been wonderful to be around these kids...this victory is great."

Auburn-Montgomery has racked up a 17-8 overall record and 12-4 in the GACC but they finished behind 22-6 Faulkner (Ala.) and 20-10 Brewton-Parker (Ga.) in the league season.

Faulkner is really the team to watch from this conference as coach Jim Sanderson seems to peak his teams just at the right time - tournament time. His 2001 team won the national title. Of course, collecting 275 career wins and winning tons of league titles is nothing new for a Sanderson...just typical of the great career his dad, Wimp Sanderson, had at Alabama and other major programs, and his brother, Scott Sanderson, who recently won his 150th victory as he now coaches NCAA I Lipscomb (Tenn.).

The league certainly is surprised with the big season by Brewton-Parker, where coach Steve Barker has led the Barons to one of its best seasons ever in his 13th year at the school. He lost some major talent from last year's 17-14 club and was ranked fifth in the league pre-season poll, but the Barons have been face-to-face with Faulkner all year and it may be their time to win it all in the league tourney.

One team slipping a bit this season is Southern Polytechnic, but who would complain about a 20-9 record. Coach Mike Helfer may improve on that fourth-place regular-season league finish with hopes of winning the league tourney. Helfer has guided the Runnin' Hornets to 99-33 record in his last four seasons at the school, after a slow, 30-34 start in his debut seasons.

Coach Niland...Quite a Familiar Name

When you say Coach Niland, you better quickly clarify who the heck you are talking about. Maybe it is Joe Niland, who has won at least 20 games in sixth of his nine collegiate seasons, and has guided NAIA I Mobile (Ala.) to a 17-11 mark thus far this year.

Or are we talking about Joe Niland, Sr., Joe's father, who coached Canisius (N.Y.) from 1947-54...or is it Dave Niland, young Joe's younger brother, who is head coach at Penn State-Behrend (Pa.)...or uncle Tom Niland who coached LeMoyne (N.Y.) from 1947-72.

Then, to complicate matters, there is coach John Beilein at West Virginia. Nope, he's not a Niland, but he is a first cousin.

Said young Joe: "We try to be aggressive with full-court pressure. It's a philosophy that I've learned from my father and his coaching days."

Some Really Interesting Stuff!

Art Furman celebrated his 100th collegiate victory when his Eastern Oregon club stunned rival Albertson (Idaho), but the season ended the next time out when the Mountaineers lost to rugged Cascade (Ore.) in the Cascade Conference playoffs. Cascade, coached by Craig Moody, has roared into 14th in the NAIA II rankings with a 24-9 record and earned an NAIA playoff spot with its league championship. Coach Dan Miles is hoping that his 25-5 Oregon Tech club can win the league playoffs to grab the other automatic national berth...if not, Tech's eighth-place national ranking should easily qualify for an at-large berth in the 32-team tourney...

Coach Shane Murphy's Sioux Falls (S.D.) Cougars roared into the Great Plains Conference playoff finals with a 21-10 record, and the hope of somehow knocking off number-one-ranked Northwestern (Iowa), coached by Kris Korver. The Falls team has been a winner off the court too, as 12 players really got a kick out of reading to children from a local elementary school as part of the Basketball Coaches Dream to Read program, directed by assistant coach Nate Tibbetts...

Coach Claude English has certainly had better seasons than this 13-15 year at Park (Mo.). The coach, who guided the Pirates to the NAIA I national semi-finals in 1998 with a 27-8 record, still found positives this season, and thoroughly enjoyed a goodwill event recently when his players joined fans in donating more than 300 pounds of canned food to the Harvesters organization, which combats hunger in the Kansas City area. The Pirates followed that good deed with an upset victory over rival 15-14 Ozarks (Mo.).