The Southern Highland Reader

From the because-I-just-can’t-help-myself department, here are a few basketball notes:

1. The Augusta Chronicle tells its readers that an entrepreneur’s plans to launch an all-white men’s professional basketball league in the southeast are meeting with an oddly tepid response.

In a statement, the All-American Basketball Alliance announced that “only players that are natural born United States citizens with both parents of Caucasian race are eligible to play … “.

The league is the brainchild of Don “Moose” Lewis, a professional wrestling promoter, who calls himself the league’s Commissioner and says he seeks to start teams in 10 or so southern cities.

“There’s nothing hatred about what we’re doing,” he told the Chronicle. “I don’t hate anyone of color. But people of white, American-born citizens are in the minority now. Here’s a league for white players to play fundamental basketball, which they like.”

The Atlanta Journal suggests that the whole thing might be a publicity stunt.

For the sake of Moose’s wallet, I hope so, because everybody who wants to sit and watch white guys play catch is over at the softball field.

2. The Washington Post’s Tracee Hamilton holds forth today on the NCAA’s notion to expand the NCAA men’s basketball tournament from its current field of 65 teams to 96.

This from the folks who can’t pull together a playoff system at all on the football side of things.

Writes Hamilton:

What is it about corporate greed that, when a company is making a kabillion dollars, it immediately begins wondering, “How can I make a kabillion and one dollars?” Capitalism is great, as long as you don’t screw up the product. The expanded field would definitely screw up the product.

Since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985, has there ever been a year when you watched the Selection Show and thought, “Man, 31 teams got hosed.” No. There have never been 31 teams who deserved to make the field but didn’t. One or two, maybe. Not 31.

3. Former Western Carolina star Kevin Martin, a Sacramento King, is one of the top scorers in the NBA. But he gets a lot of his points at the foul line, and all that foul-drawing has been tough on his 6-7, 185lb. frame. He’s been injured for great swaths of each of the past three seasons.

He’s back on the court now, trying to form a cohesive backcourt with rookie sensation Tyreke Evans.

Moreover, he’s trying to add to, not disrupt, the chemistry that got the young and dynamic Kings off to a hot start. So far, not so good: the Kings have lost four straight since his return. To be fair, the losses were on a tough eastern road swing, but the team’s chemistry problems are evident.

CULLOWHEE–The online basketball publication SLAM features WCU sophomore Harouna Mutombo in this Sunday post.

Mutombo, nephew of NBA great Dikembe Mutombo, was named Southern Conference Freshman of the Year last year, as well as to the SoCon All-Conference second team.

Here’s an excerpt from the story:

Playing in a mid-major conference, Mutombo’s exploits were regularly outshone by the bright star that was Stephen Curry at Davidson last season. Regardless, Harouna made a huge splash in the Southern Conference leading the Catamounts in both points (14.4) and rebounds (4.6) while placing second in assists (68), steals (56) and blocks (16) and minutes (30.4).

And it didn’t stop there. After he finished up his college season, Canada Basketball invited him to train with the National Team as they prepared for the World Championship Qualifying Tournament where he would be under the tutelage of not only Team Canada’s head coach Leo Rautins but also Raptors’ Maurizio Gherardini and Cavs assistant coach Mike Malone learning the international game, even playing a few exhibition games in Spain for Canada.

In a related matter, a Texas blogger wondered last week whether Harouna would adopt his uncle’s famous finger-wagging “no-no” after blocking an opponent’s shot. That remains to be seen, we suppose.

No-no.

CULLOWHEE–While Western Carolina’s men’s basketball program has had its moments, those moments have most often been related to individual performances, or nice late-season runs.

The Catamounts beat Nebraska, Tennessee, Florida State, Georgia Tech and Kansas State over the years. Danny Manning’s 1988 national championship Kansas Jayhawks team topped Western by only five points that year in Cullowhee. And Western once made a torrid run through the SoCon tournament and on to within a hair’s breadth of becoming the first 16th seed NCAA tourney team to knock off a number one seed, losing to Purdue by two in 1996.

WCU was also the first white southern school to admit African-American athletes (basketball players, in 1964); and a few pro players, including one of the NBA’s top current scorers, played college ball in Cullowhee.

Still, not since Western’s earliest years in the Southern Conference, some thirty years ago, have the Catamounts been regular, solid contenders, and never has a Western team been a preseason pick to win the league.

Finally, things have changed in Cullowhee. Coach Larry Hunter, one of the winningest coaches in college basketball, enters his fifth year at Western with a fully-stocked pantry of talent, and the Cats, coming off their first winning season in over a decade and a SoCon north division co-championship, are picked as the team to beat.

The Catamounts opened with a 23-point home win last weekend over NAIA St. Catherine, but leap directly into the fire tonight, when they visit number three Texas, in Austin.

Here’s a season preview from the WCU media folks:

Coming off its first winning season since 1996-97 and the program’s second conference divisional title a year ago, Western Carolina was today tabbed as the preseason favorite in the Southern Conference’s North Division as voted upon by the league’s 12 head coaches.

Western Carolina returns all five starters from a team that tied for the North Division Championship last season with an 11-9 mark in league play. The Catamounts earned 10 first-place votes and finished the balloting with 64 points, the most of any squad in the conference.

According to available records, WCU’s preseason first-place pick in the North Division is the first in program history since joining the SoCon in 1977-78. The media preseason poll will be announced next week as a part of the SoCon Preseason Head Coaches’ Teleconference.

Additionally, senior guard Brandon Giles and reigning conference freshman of the year, red-shirt sophomore Harouna Mutombo, were named to the preseason All-SoCon team as three teams put two teammates on the 10-man honorary squad.

Giles, who became the 37th different Catamount to eclipse the 1,000-point career plateau a season ago, earned third team All-SoCon plaudits from the media a season ago after ranking 13th in the league in scoring at 13.3 points per game. He led WCU in scoring on nine occasions including scoring 20-or-more five times.

Mutombo became the fourth different Catamount all-time to garner SoCon Freshman of the Year plaudits, and the first since Jarvis Hayes in 2000. The Pickering, Ontario native was the top-scoring freshman – and only one of three in the top 30 in the SoCon – with a 14.6 point per game average. He posted 24 double-digit scoring outings in his first season, reaching the 20-point plateau six times including a career-best 29 in the home win over UNC Greensboro.

Behind the first-place Catamounts, Appalachian State earned the remaining two first-place votes in the North Division and finished with 55 points. Samford (44) was chosen third while last season’s tournament champion, Chattanooga (39), was slotted fourth. Elon and UNC Greensboro tied for fifth place with 22 points apiece.

Opposite WCU in the South Division, the College of Charleston – led by preseason Player of the Year, Andrew Goudelock – was selected by the head coaches to finish first, garnering eight first-place votes. The Cougars finished 15-5 in league play a season ago and advanced to the tournament championship before falling to the Mocs.

Wofford picked up three first-place votes and finished second in the preseason balloting with 54 points. Davidson, which has won the South Division each of the past three years, earned the final first-place vote in the South Division and came in third with 48 points. The Citadel (36) finished fourth, followed by Furman (24) and Georgia Southern (21).

In addition to aforementioned Giles, Goudelock and Mutombo, the preseason all-conference team included Tony White, Jr., from the College of Charleston; Noah Dahlman and Junior Salters from Wofford. Other members of the preseason team included Will Archambault (Davidson), Kellen Brand (Appalachian State), Willie Powers (Georgia Southern) and Cameron Wells (The Citadel).

The regular season opens Friday, November 13 when nine teams hit the court with 11 of the 12 SoCon teams will begin play over that weekend. Western Carolina takes to the hardwood for the first time on Saturday, Nov. 14, as it hosts St. Catharine’s College at 7:00 pm in the Ramsey Center.

SoCon Men’s Basketball Predicted Order of Finish

North Division

Team (1st Place Votes) Total

1. Western Carolina (10) – 64

2. Appalachian State (2) – 55

3. Samford – 44

4. Chattanooga – 39

5. Elon – 22

UNC Greensboro – 22

South Division

Team (1st Place Votes) Total

1. College of Charleston (8) – 63

2. Wofford (3) – 54

3. Davidson (1) – 48

4. The Citadel – 36

5. Furman – 24

6. Georgia Southern – 21

2009-10 Preseason All-Conference Team

Will Archambault, Davidson

Kellen Brand, Appalachian State

Noah Dahlman, Wofford

Brandon Giles, Western Carolina

Andrew Goudelock, College of Charleston

Harouna Mutombo, Western Carolina

Willie Powers, Georgia Southern

Junior Salters, Wofford

Cameron Wells, The Citadel

Tony White, Jr., College of Charleston

2009-10 Preseason Player of the Year

Andrew Goudelock, College of Charleston

CULLOWHEE–Former Western Carolina basketball player and current NBA standout Kevin Martin got the royal treatment in Indonesia this week, as he visited to head up the inaugural Indonesia Development Camp as part of the NBA Cares program.

Martin took his grandma along — and went despite some bombings that preceded his trip by a matter of days.

Here’s an excerpt from the Sacramento Bee’s feature about the trip:

It was a new experience in almost every way even for Martin. Upon his arrival, the newspaper in Surabaya splashed a greeting across the top of its front page showing Martin with his arms spread wide. Upon his departure, the paper ran a full-page ad from the DBL with pictures of Martin’s visit and messages from dozens of the league’s players wishing him well and encouraging him to become an All-Star for the first time this season.

“One time, I felt like (President Barack) Obama – and that’s no exaggeration,” Martin said. “There were like a thousand … people with signs around the basketball court (in the arena during a DetEksi game). It was crazy.

“It’s fun to be able to give back to the community and the world in a good way. It just makes you look at the other side of it, beyond basketball.”

Read the piece from the Bee here.