Hoyas Put Classes First Georgetown Coach Has Harsh Words About Player Who Let Grades Slip

John Thompson has always spoken his mind, and things haven’t changed much in his 26th season as coach at Georgetown.

Starting guard Shernard Long was recently declared indefinitely ineligible because of academic problems. There was very little empathy from coach to player when Thompson was asked about the situation.

“I’m not interested in spending a lot of time discussing Shernard when I got kids out here busting their ass and working hard and trying to play,” Thompson said.

“When you don’t do what you are supposed to, it’s your fault. I have no pity, no sympathy whatsoever.”

Record setters

It’s so easy just to throw numbers out in sports and expect people to be impressed. Every once in a while it’s a good idea to break the number down and really be impressed.

Kentucky is the winningest program in college basketball history and the Wildcats’ victory over South Carolina on Tuesday night was their 1,700th.

Nice round number that 1,700 and it isn’t very far from 2,000. There is a way, however, to make it very impressive to college basketball fans.

If you take the combined total of two successful programs like Boston College and UNLV, you still need 37 more wins to reach 1,700. Going into the weekend, Boston College had 44 wins and UNLV had 19.

Only five schools - Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas, St. John’s and Duke - have won 1,500 games.

Nice goodbye

Yet another fine old building has been replaced by a state-of-the-art palace as a home for a college basketball team.

The latest school to bid a fond farewell to a longtime home was Wisconsin, which ended its 67-year run in the University of Wisconsin Field House with a 76-57 victory over Penn State on Wednesday night.

The Badgers move into the $76 million Kohl Center this weekend, opening it today against Northwestern.

The Badgers have struggled this season amid some offcourt distractions, but everything seemed fine in the final game as they led by as many as 30 points in the second half.

“I guess if I were to write a scenario for a game to go out on, in terms of quality and style, it would be something like this,” coach Dick Bennett said. “That’s the way I love to see the game played.

“I always envisioned that we could play that way, but we have not been able to achieve that. Tonight we did, at a very fitting time.”

Freshman guard Mike Kelley seemed to get caught up in the moment.

“It was like something out of a dream. It was almost like there was some outside force helping us,” he said. “It was just a special night and we wanted to go out with a bang… . Once we got going, it was just magical.”

Then there was the senior sense of captain Sean Daugherty.

“Our fans have been great to us in here and we didn’t want to do anything to disrespect the tradition of this building by not coming out and playing well,” he said. “But as sad as we are to be leaving this place, we’re excited about going to the Kohl Center. I just hope we can keep playing like this.”

Blood drive

The most heralded recruit at Oklahoma since Wayman Tisdale has had to contend with more than just opposing defenses this year.

Ryan Humphrey, a 6-foot-8 forward, was diagnosed Dec. 17 with iron-deficiency anemia, or thin blood. The condition prevents his muscles from receiving the necessary oxygen and causes fatigue.

Humphrey has missed just one game since being diagnosed. He was held out of the Jan. 10 game against Texas A&M on doctor’s orders, but returned Monday night against Texas after going through more tests.

“His tests were all clear,” coach Kelvin Sampson said. “He came through them all with flying colors, so he’s fine and he’s ready to go. He’s just got to get over this mentally.”

Doctors have prescribed iron pills and increased red meat in Humphrey’s diet. They expect him to be back at full strength by about mid-February.

Humphrey is averaging 9.0 points and has started eight games.

Cloning controversy

In a season where the marquee teams and superstar players seem few and far between, the race for All-America honors should be interesting. Sports information offices may play a bigger-than-usual role by creatively bringing players to the attention of the people who vote for postseason awards.

Georgia Tech forward Matt Harpring doesn’t need much more help than presenting the facts to make his case - he leads the Atlantic Coast Conference in scoring and rebounding and is among the leaders in field goal and free-throw percentage - but the publicity folks at the school came up with a clever idea.

They distributed a small poster that at first looks like a typical team photo. But each player is Harpring, whether he’s sitting cross-legged in front, standing straight with arms behind his back in the rear or sitting on either side of coach Bobby Cremins, who is holding a ball in his lap.

The bottom of the poster declares Harpring “the hardest working player in America,” and the top has a quote from Cremins: “Give me a team full of Matt Harprings.”

Extra minutes

If it seems games involving Holy Cross have taken a little longer lately it’s because they have.

The Crusaders (5-11) have played three consecutive games that went into overtime, one short of the NCAA record.

The streak started in the third-place game of the Lobo Invitational when Holy Cross came away with a 90-82 victory over Drake. Then came an 84-80 loss to Army and a 78-76 win over Colgate.

The Division I record is four consecutive overtime games set by Jacksonville twice, in 1982 and 1985, and matched by Dayton in 1988.

Jacksonville went 3-1 both times and Dayton went 1-3.

Shhhhhhhh

Coaches better beware about what they say about officials after games.

Louisville’s Denny Crum was reprimanded by Conference USA commissioner Mike Slive for comments he made about the officiating in the Cardinals’ 71-70 loss to Marquette on Jan. 3.

Mid-American Conference commissioner Jerry Ippoliti went a step further this week, suspending Eastern Michigan coach Milton Barnes for this weekend’s game against Northern Illinois for his comments about the officials in last Saturday’s 78-75 loss at Bowling Green.

“We didn’t deserve to lose this game like that,” Barnes said. “You lose to a ballclub because they outplay you, not because officials blow a call.”

He also said officials should “get out of the way” in the final minutes of close games and that it was the second time this season Eastern Michigan had been “screwed down the stretch.”

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