Pine Bluff pumped to move on in NCAA

High school sports results for May 26
5/26/12
Reds' six-game winning streak broken
5/26/12
Annual Warrior Soccer Classic kicks off today
5/26/12
Dragons' rally falls short against Lansing
5/26/12
WSU baseball ousted from tournament
5/26/12
> More sports headlines

By Tom Archdeacon, Staff Writer Updated 1:26 AM Wednesday, March 17, 2010

The University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff men’s basketball team had only been home for a few hours and now the Golden Lions were on the road again, headed to Ann Arbor and a game with the Michigan Wolverines.

In the wee hours of this early December day, they had just gotten back to their school from a trip to Tempe, Ariz. A couple of days before that, they’d been in Akron and the week before that, they’d been on a 2,800-mile trip through Colorado and Texas to play three games.

Headed to the sixth of what would be a season-opening 14 games on the road, it hit the players — somewhere right around Ohio, said Pine Bluff Athletic Director Skip Perkins — what a grind this was.

“They travel pretty good most of the time,” Perkins said. “But going to Michigan by bus is a long, long trip and finally some of them said, ‘I wish this bus would just stop. Please just let us off right here. We’ll be OK.’ ”

That didn’t happen — Pine Bluff went on to Michigan and was beaten, part of an 0-11 start on the season against several big-name teams — but the Golden Lions finally did get dumped off in Ohio.

And like they said, they were OK.

Against a lot of odds — their top scorer, Terrence Calvin, was on the bench most of the second half with four fouls, their well-muscled 6-foot-7 forward Tyree Glass was there, too, with an injury — Pine Bluff still pushed aside Winthrop 61-44 Tuesday night, March 16, in front of 8,205 in the NCAA tournament’s opening-round game at UD Arena. On Friday, it plays Duke, the No. 1 seed in the South Regional, in Jacksonville, Fla.

It may seem a stretch to paint a David-versus-Goliath script for the opening-round game, but Winthrop has been to the NCAA tournament nine times and in 2007 knocked out Notre Dame.

This was Pine Bluff’s first trip ever to the tournament and everything was new to it. The Golden Lions played the entire first half without the NCAA tournament stickers affixed to their jerseys, which is protocol. They didn’t know.

If Pine Bluff is just learning to dress for the Big Dance, it didn’t know the rigors of the road.

Using a strategy the opposite of the Dayton Flyers, the Golden Lions played their entire nonconference schedule on the road against teams like Arizona State, Oklahoma State, Georgia Tech, Missouri, Kansas State and Oregon.

“Yes, it’s about making money for our school,” said Perkins. “As a small HBCU (historically black college/university), the $800,000 we made on the road funds our other sports. But it’s also about getting us toughened up for our conference and the tournament that follows. Coach (George) Ivory put the schedule together top to bottom. ... And now it turns out he was right.”

After the game Ivory said his plan brings his team closer together: “You travel together, study together, you get to know each other. You go through a lot of bumps and bruises on the road — you play in hostile situations — and that gets you ready for a night like tonight.”

Back when those players begged off the bus on the way to Michigan, Perkins said they teasingly pleaded: “Just let us off here. We’ll find a way and fly home.”

And now that’s just what they’ll do. They were scheduled to fly out of Dayton on a charter arranged by the NCAA.

Share this article