CHARLOTTE, N.C. — On the eve of his official return from a three-game suspension, University of Washington senior Venoy Overton could thank Bruce Pearl, Kyrie Irving and the local basketball powers for taking some of the spotlight off him Thursday.
The biggest story among the eight teams at the Charlotte regional was Pearl, the Tennessee coach whose job status is in limbo after Vols athletic director Mike Hamilton told a Knoxville radio station that “the jury is out” on whether Pearl will be back next season.
Almost Pearl’s entire session with the media Thursday was dedicated to questions about the Hamilton interview. While he said the timing of Hamilton’s comments “came as a bit of a surprise,” Pearl added that there is no one to blame for the situation but himself.
“I was the one who broke the rules — not Mike Hamilton, not our chancellor, and not the student-athletes,” said Pearl, who was suspended earlier this season for lying to NCAA officials about an infraction. “So I put myself in this position.”
The most attention in these parts, of course, has been heaped upon Duke and North Carolina. Although the two rivals play in different regions — Duke in the West, and the Tar Heels as a possible UW Sunday opponent in the East — they’re both playing this week a couple hours from their respective campuses.
“The fan base down here in Charlotte is going to be tremendous,” said Duke guard Nolan Smith. “It’s going to be a great atmosphere with Carolina and Duke in one building.”
Irving, a Duke point guard who looked like a national-freshman-of-the-year candidate before a toe injury sidelined him in early December, is in the spotlight because he has a chance to make his long-anticipated return to the court today. Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski said Irving would play against Hampton today in a reserve role.
“We never thought that this could happen,” Krzyzewski said Thursday. “The fact that it is happening, we need to take advantage of it and go from there.”
As for Overton, he sat in the open locker room at Time Warner Cable Arena late Thursday afternoon with barely a glance from national or regional reporters. After being suspended for last week’s Pac-10 tournament following one of those made-for-the-tabloids scandals, Overton was out of the spotlight Thursday.
While playing against a Georgia team that typically likes to take its time bringing the ball up the floor, the addition of Overton comes at a good time for UW.
“He can help us change the game with his defensive tenacity and his push on the offensive end,” Huskies coach Lorenzo Romar said Thursday.
Overton said he’s eager to get back in action, and he hopes to be a thorn in the Bulldogs’ side tonight.
“They don’t like to get in transition,” he said, “and I’m pretty good at harassing guys when they’ve got to run their offense.”
Everyone hates Cinderella here
The most popular teams on television this time of year are the so-called Cinderella stories. Teams carrying double-digit seeds immediately become fan favorites to viewers throughout the country — many of whom may think Oakland (Mich.) University is in the Bay Area and St. Peter’s is just another Irish holiday.
But in these parts, No. 15 seed Long Island and No. 16 Hampton won’t be getting much love.
Hampton opens against local favorite Duke this afternoon, while LIU will kick off the night session with a game against North Carolina.
“We’re like a road team,” Long Island senior Kyle Johnson said Thursday. “We like playing on the road. We like taking the crowd out of the game.”
The Duke-Hampton game has added local importance because Hampton coach Edward Joyner Jr. is a Charlotte native who grew up a fan of the Blue Devils.
Joyner knows the cards are stacked against him — no No. 16 seed has ever won a game at the tournament — but he does have some history on his side. This year marks the 10th anniversary of 15th-seeded Hampton’s upset of No. 2 Iowa State.
As of Thursday morning, Joyner had yet to show his players a tape of that game.
“They’re going to see it tonight,” he said early yesterday, “along with ‘Miracle,’ ‘Rudy,’ and any other movies you can find. If y’all got any suggestions, you can give it to me.”
And as far as playing the Blue Devils today?
“This,” Joyner said, “is our national championship.”
A boy among men
A national player-of-the-year candidate is here in Duke’s Smith. So is the Most Outstanding Player of last year’s Final Four, teammate Kyle Singler.
Scottie Hopson is one of the most prolific scorers in Tennessee history, Georgia’s Trey Thompkins could be an NBA lottery pick, and two members of the U.S. Basketball Writers’ Association freshman all-America team — North Carolina’s Harrison Barnes and Tennessee’s Tobias Harris — are also at this regional.
But when it comes to NCAA resumes, none of them have what UW’s Brendan Sherrer brings to the dance.
Entering his second tournament in as many seasons with the Huskies, the Archbishop Murphy High School product has a perfect 23-0 record in games he’s played. He hasn’t been on the court for a game decided by less than 18 points.
Not even Singler, who has had the gall to lose 22 games in his four-year career at Duke, can say that.
Sherrer, who has earned the nicknamed Human Victory Cigar because of his propensity to play mop-up duty in blowout wins, does have a ways to go to catch some of the other players here in some other categories. His eight career points are 2,342 behind Singler, 1,862 behind Smith and 1,126 behind fellow UW junior Isaiah Thomas.
Short jumpers
Georgia coach Mark Fox spent two seasons as a UW assistant under Lynn Nance in the early 1990s. During that time, Fox met his future wife, Cindy, who was the Huskies’ marketing and promotions manager. … The seventh-seeded Huskies are by no means a lock when facing No. 10 Georgia tonight. Going into last night’s game between UCLA and Michigan State, No. 7 seeds had a .600 winning percentage in first-round matchups with No. 10 seeds — marking the second-lowest winning percentage for a higher seed. In the past two tournaments, the 10th seed upset the No. 7 in six of eight meetings.
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