Following a coaching legend is difficult whether it's at UCLA or the College of Charleston, and what Tom Herrion is doing this year isn't much different in succeeding John Kresse than John Wooden.
The average college basketball fan might not have heard of Kresse, - Coach K, as he's known around the South Carolina school - but the sport's connoisseurs are well aware of what he did in Charleston.
Over Kresse's 23 years, the Cougars averaged more than 24 wins a season, including a 29-3 mark in 1996-97. That was the season Charleston made one of its four trips to the NCAA tournament and got its only victory - over Maryland.
Herrion, a former assistant under Pete Gillen at both Virginia and Providence, understood what he was stepping into when he took over after Kresse retired from coaching last spring.
"I knew they had high expectations," Herrion, 35, said this week. "One of the things I was looking for when I decided to take a job was to go where basketball is special. That's the case here in Charleston."
Herrion has picked up where Kresse left off. The Cougars won the recent Great Alaska Shootout, knocking off Wyoming, Oklahoma State and Villanova, and are 6-1 after last night's loss to Central Florida.
"I didn't know how good we were going up to Alaska," Herrion said. "Our kids came out and played with tremendous confidence [against Wyoming] and it kind of had a snowball effect."
Aside from jumping into the Top 25 this week for the first time in three years, the College of Charleston was ranked No. 1 in one of the myriad power rating indexes.
That will inevitably drop with a schedule that includes only one other team from a major conference - Vanderbilt, on the road - the rest of the season. Then again, Herrion was aware that big-name teams have an aversion to playing at John Kresse Arena.
"Scheduling is very difficult at this level," Herrion said. "We can't get quality home games, so taking advantage of these neutral-site events is crucial for us."
Picked to finish in the middle of the pack in the Southern Conference's South Division, Charleston has been helped by the arrival of two junior college players with ties to the Baltimore area.
Zeke Johnson, a 6-foot-7, 210-pound forward who played at Southern and started at New Mexico two years ago before playing at Palm Beach (Fla.) Community College last season, is second on the team in scoring (13.3) and rebounding (5.3).
Marcus Johnson, a 6-4, 200-pound guard from Annapolis who was the leading scorer at Tallahassee (Fla.) Community College last season, is coming off the bench for the Cougars.
Eyes on the Irish
By beating three ranked teams in succession - Marquette, Maryland and Texas - Notre Dame jumped from being unranked and mostly unnoticed to No. 10 in the country.
Though the Irish were briefly ranked as high in coach Mike Brey's first season, this has a different feel that it did two years ago.
"I think we're in all new territory now," Brey said after the Irish held off the then-No. 2 Longhorns, 98-92, to win the BB&T; Classic on Sunday at MCI Center. "We came into Washington, D.C., Friday off the radar screen. We're going to be all over the radar screen."
How the Irish react will be demonstrated tomorrow, when Notre Dame plays host to DePaul. The Irish hope to fare better than they did two years ago, when they lost to Indiana and Miami (Ohio).
"One of the things I told our guys at the end [of the Texas game] was that we needed to understand how to handle success," Brey said. "It's where we want the program to be thought about, but how do we handle it?"
Huggins' hassles
The patience of Cincinnati coach Bob Huggins is being seriously tested by his inconsistent Bearcats.
Huggins, who suffered a heart attack in late September but was back for Midnight Madness two weeks later, has watched his team lose to in-state rival Dayton and cross-town rival Xavier in its first five games.
On doctor's orders, Huggins lost weight (nearly 30 pounds so far), gave up smoking cigars and has switched from beer to red wine (on ice). Given the makeup of his team, Huggins might have to get used to taking his lumps.
Said one of the coach's confidants: "With the way the team is, it would have probably been a good year for him to take off."