Oakland earns first tourney win

It took eight years in Division I for Oakland to get its first win in the NCAA Tournament.

As a reward, the Golden Grizzlies get to play top-seeded North Carolina – in Charlotte, no less.

Oakland broke open a tight game behind Rawle Marshall’s 29 points and Cortney Scott’s 21 to beat Alabama A&M 79-69 Tuesday night in the opening round of the NCAA tournament in Dayton, Ohio.

“There can’t be too many colleges who can say they won a game in the NCAA Tournament,” Marshall said. “We’ll ride this momentum and see how far it takes us.”

The Golden Grizzlies (13-18) won their sixth game in a row, including three upsets in as many days last week by a combined seven points to take the Mid-Continent Conference title, giving them a berth in the field of 65.

“If we win the national championship, we’ll finally get to 19-18,” coach Greg Kampe said with a laugh.

Now they get to play the mighty Tar Heels on their home turf.

“To play against some of the No. 1 players in the nation – it’ll be great to put your talent up against them and see where you stand,” Scott said.

Oakland became only the fifth team with a losing record to win an NCAA Tournament game, following Bradley in 1955 and the last three years at the Dayton opening round: Siena in 2002, UNC-Asheville in 2003 and Florida A&M a year ago.

Obie Trotter scored 24 points and Joseph Martin added 22 for the Bulldogs (18-14).

Both teams were making their first appearance in the tournament.

Big Sky honors Durham

Montana State coach Mick Durham was named the Big Sky Conference men’s basketball coach of the year, four months after a preseason poll of fellow coaches and media picked his team to finish last in the league.

“Obviously our team came together much quicker than I thought,” said Durham, whose team finished 6-8 in league in 2003-04, but improved with the help of four junior college transfers.

Durham led MSU to a second-place finish in the regular season with a 9-5 conference record. The Bobcats finished 14-14 overall after falling to Montana in the semifinals of the Big Sky Conference tournament.

Tourney teams lag in graduation

The University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport released its annual study of the graduation rates for each of the teams playing in this month’s NCAA basketball tournaments.

The numbers, gathered from the NCAA and based on a four-year class average of athletes who enrolled from 1994-1997, reveal the familiar gaps between success on the court and in the classroom, and in particular between white and black student-athletes.

“When you look at the overall graduation rates of the men’s teams, 43 of them would not be eligible for the tournament if a simple 50 percent minimum graduation rate for overall basketball student-athletes was in place on Selection Sunday,” said Richard Lapchick, the institute’s director.

Based on these latest numbers, which allow an athlete six years to graduate, only 17 of the 65 men’s teams graduated 70 percent or more of their white players, and only 10 programs graduated as many of their black players.

Of the 328 Division I men’s programs in the country, 45 did not graduate a single black player in six years in a division where 58 percent of the players are black.

Georgia Tech (19 percent), Kentucky (8) and Louisville (17) had some of the worst rates. Utah State and Bucknell had perfect rates.

The teams in the women’s tournament had substantially better numbers. Two-thirds of the women’s teams graduated 70 or more percent of their white players, while 41 percent did the same with their black players.

Around the country

Duke guard Sean Dockery returned to practice for the first time since injuring his knee last month, and is expected play in the Blue Devils’ NCAA Tournament opener. … New Mexico basketball coach Ritchie McKay was given a three-year contract extension after guiding the Lobos to their first NCAA Tournament appearance in six seasons. … California assistant George Nessman was hired as coach of the San Jose State men’s team. … Jim Tomey resigned as women’s coach at San Diego State after going just 25-58 in three seasons.