Monday, March 13, 2000
Hunch pays off at Appalachian St.
First NCAA berth since '79 season
BY JOHN FAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Buzz Peterson, the Appalachian State coach, had a chance to take the Southwest Missouri State job last year. He turned it down because he knew he had a good team coming back.
“I'm glad I did,” he said. “Southwest Missouri was 34th in the RPI and they didn't get a bid. I'd be sitting out there madder than a hornet.”
Instead, Peterson is sitting pretty. Appalachian is in the NCAA Tournament for the second time ever and the first time since 1979. The Mountaineers, the No.14 seed in the South Region, take on No.3-seeded Ohio State Friday in Nashville.
Appalachian State won the Southern Conference tournament title a week ago, beating College of Charleston 68-56. ASU is 23-8, but Peterson knew a win in the conference tourney finals was the only route in.
“We won 21 games back-to-back and didn't even get a sniff from the NIT,” he said.
But when Peterson was con sidering jobs in the offseason — he also interviewed at Saint Louis and Georgia — he kept thinking this could be the year.
He had three starters back and a talented junior-college transfer coming in.
“I thought we had a chance to be pretty good,” he said. “If we were ever going to get Charleston, this was the year. They lost eight players.”
ASU got rolling at midseason, winning 11 straight in one stretch.
The Mountaineers play up-tempo, averaging 79 points a game. They shoot 48.9 from the field, third best in the na tion. “We like to press,” Peterson said. “A lot of our baskets come off of that.”
The key is Tyson Patterson, the 5-foot-9 point guard and the Southern Conference player of the year. He averages 14.4 points and 6.9 assists a game. He is the school's all-time assists leader and only its second player to record more than 1,000 points, 600 assists and 200 steals in a career.
Rufus Leach, the junior-college transfer, added instant offense off the bench. He leads the team in scoring at 16.6 a game and shoots 42.9 percent from 3-point range.
NCAA brackets: Men |
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