Chaney Displaying Final Four-titude

You get the sense this may be John Chaney’s time.

The way it was Jim Calhoun’s time last season at Connecticut, John Elway’s time to win a Super Bowl, Mark O’Meara’s time to win a major.

At age 68, the sand sifts swiftly through Chaney’s hourglass, pressing the need for him to close escrow on a remarkable career.

Chaney is so synonymous with Temple he has all but morphed into the school mascot, an owl--dark circles encasing hollow eyes.

More than a pivotal game last weekend, Temple’s victory at No. 1 Cincinnati felt more like a prelude.

“The important person here is him,” point guard Pepe Sanchez said after the victory. “He is Temple. Not we. We leave.”

The sporting gods don’t always get it right--ask Gene Mauch, or Ted Williams--and to date they have only teased Chaney who, despite 400 wins at Temple in 18 seasons, has yet to make a Final Four.

He had teams advance to the Elite Eight four times--1988, ‘91, ‘93, and ‘99--but has never played Saturday for the chance to play Monday.

There are enough strange things happening to make you think this may be the year.

Temple, a notoriously poor shooting team, shot 52% against Cincinnati, 60% in the second half.

Friends, if Temple shoots 50% from the field, the NCAA field doesn’t stand a chance against the nation’s No. 1 gridlock defense.

More telling Sunday was the performance of point guard Sanchez, all but ruled out of the game because of a severe ankle sprain.

Sanchez probably had no business playing, and Chaney probably had no business taking the risk. When Sanchez turned the ankle three days earlier against Dayton, the team doctor first suspected it was broken.

Guess what? Sanchez played 38 minutes without a detectable limp. The senior from Bahia Blanca, Argentina, is an unremarkable-looking player and a 31% shooter. He has more assists (125) than shots (105).

Yet, he controls a game more effectively than any player in the country. Chaney has spent four years in Sanchez’s face, beating the ego out of him, apprising him daily of his selfless duty to the point. Now coach and player are reaping the rewards.

“I don’t have any crystal ball to know,” Chaney says of his team’s tournament chances. “I just know every game we play, our whole game is hanging on Pepe’s back. And when Pepe’s able to play, I know that our kids are capable of giving a much better performance. I just know without him, we really don’t stand much of a chance to play high-level basketball.”

Temple went 5-3 in the games Sanchez missed earlier this season because of another ankle sprain; the Owls are 15-1 with him in the lineup.

This is Chaney’s best team since 1988, the Mark Macon-led squad that finished 32-2. The Cincinnati win vaulted Temple’s national profile and may elevate the Owls to a No. 2 seeding in the NCAA tournament.

Things are breaking Chaney’s way, and it’s about time.

In 1996, his top assistant, Jim Maloney, 62, died of a heart attack while driving on the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. Six months later, a close friend committed suicide. In 1997, Ennis Cosby, son of Bill Cosby, a Temple grad and close Chaney friend, was murdered. In August of that year, the 9-year-old son of Temple Athletic Director Dave O’Brien was killed in a car accident.

Later that month, Marvin Webster Jr., an 18-year-old Temple sophomore center, died of a heart attack.

None of that means Chaney gets to skate to get to his first Final Four, or even guarantees Temple (20-4) will beat St. Bonaventure tonight.

“Regardless how much of a genius you are in your head and your heart, you better get yourself some players,” Chaney says.

Chaney has the players.

And if things happen for a reason, there is reason this year to believe in Temple.

Should this perennial Gang That Can’t Shoot Straight keeps shooting straight, Chaney’s time will come.

ARIZONA WRANGLING

The game is on again in the desert, where second-year Arizona State Coach Rob Evans has resurrected a scandal-plagued program and turned the barrels on Lute Olson and archrival Arizona.

It may take Evans a couple of more years to challenge Olson for in-state supremacy, but Arizona State is already ahead of schedule.

Riding superstar senior Eddie House and six freshmen who play significant minutes, the Sun Devils are 16-9 and have a shot at landing an NCAA bid.

Arizona State has won four consecutive games heading into Saturday’s game against Arizona, and Evans hasn’t been shy about taking on Olson, the silver-haired Desert Fox.

Last week, Evans labeled “selfish” Pacific 10 coaches who are not in favor of resurrecting a postseason tournament.

Olson has been the most outspoken opponent of a tournament.

Evans did not back down from his remarks this week.

“Everybody has their opinion, I certainly have mine,” Evans said.

Olson says he knows better than Evans what is good for the conference.

“I think we have the right to publicly disagree on the tournament,” Olson said. “I’ve been in this league 17 years, and I was in the league when we tried five tournaments, and frankly, they were a bust. We didn’t get any more teams in and we got teams on the bubble knocked out.”

Evans versus Olson figures to get more interesting.

Evans is all business. As the first African-American coach at Mississippi, he led the Rebels in 1997 to their second NCAA tournament berth in history.

He continues to knock down walls.

Last weekend, Arizona State ended a losing streak at 11 years to UCLA .

Next up: the Arizona mystique.

“We’re a work in progress, we’re trying to get to where they are and will continue to do that,” Evans said about Arizona. “We know what it takes to get there and we’re working toward that end.”

Saturday’s game in Tucson is critical to Arizona State’s NCAA resume, given the Sun Devils’ ho-hum No. 58 Ratings Percentage Index ranking and the lack of a quality nonconference win.

Arizona State has another dose of Stanford and Oregon in conference play. With Arizona forward Richard Jefferson still sidelined and center Loren Woods’ back ailing, this might be the time to steal a game in Tucson.

LOOSE ENDS

* Cincinnati Coach Bob Huggins might be a genius. By scheduling Temple in the regular season, his Bearcats will less likely be paired in the same region for next month’s NCAA tournament. Slick move, considering Temple has a three-game winning streak against Cincinnati.

“It’s a fallacy to say they own us,” Huggins said after last Sunday’s loss to the Owls. “Since I’ve been here, we’re still up on them.” Huggins is 5-4 against Temple.

* Most assume Virginia is a lock to make the NCAA tournament despite the Cavaliers’ mediocre No. 66 ranking in the RPI.

The NCAA Selection Committee uses the RPI to help it select and seed tournament teams. How does the No. 3 team in the Atlantic Coast Conference check in at 66?

“It’s a flawed system,” Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski griped this week. “Hopefully not too much is made of the RPI. I don’t think it’s a good indicator of a team and what a team has done. If Virginia didn’t make the NCAA, it would be nuts. They have a chance to finish in second place in our conference.”

* Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen could have slapped Awvee Storey with double-secret probation given that last Saturday’s altercation with USC’s Jeff Trepagnier wasn’t the Arizona State forward’s first scrape this season. On Jan. 8, at Palo Alto, Storey kicked the Stanford Tree square in the bark side when the school’s mascot invaded the Arizona State huddle during pregame warmups.

* Just the facts: The last UCLA coach who finished with a losing conference record, Wilbur Johns in 1948, was replaced in 1949 by John Wooden. The last UCLA coach who failed to lead his team to the NCAA tournament, Walt Hazzard in 1988, was replaced in 1989 by Jim Harrick.

The last UCLA coach who failed to lead his team to an NIT bid . . . well, no need to go there yet.

* Nice to hear UCLA has decided to recruit a point guard for next year, but what about the one that got away? Wesley Stokes out of Long Beach Poly, the high school that pipelined Tyus Edney to the Bruins, wanted to go to UCLA but was not heavily recruited. Stokes has since committed to Missouri.

* Give Bobby Cremins credit for facing reality and stepping down last week at Georgia Tech. His shaky relationship with Athletic Director Dave Braine was not going to improve, and at least this way Cremins got to dictate the terms of his departure.

Cremins was too harshly criticized for last season’s 15-16 record, given he lost superstar Dion Glover to a season-ending knee injury on the first day of practice, but there were no excuses this season.

“It’s just not there,” Cremins acknowledged. “I was hoping we could regain some of the magic, but it’s just not there.”

* Loyola Marymount should consider hiring UCLA assistant Michael Holton, who has strong ties to the area as a former UCLA and Pasadena High star. Holton was one of five finalists last year for the Pepperdine job given to Jan van Breda Kolff, who has done a terrific job.

* George Washington guard SirValiant Brown, who leads the nation in scoring at 25 points a game, is trying to become the first freshman to win a scoring title. Only four sophomores have ever done it.