Fort Collins – If retro is your idea of cool, then those icy blue jerseys of the Air Force Falcons might be the hippest threads in college basketball.
How many teams ranked in the top 20 of the national polls have no names printed on the back of the jersey? In a game full of in-your-face attitude, the Falcons might own the least ego in the country.
No names sewn across the back of a jersey went out of basketball style somewhere between the Fab Four (those shaggy-haired Beatles) and the Fab Five (those baggy-short-stylin’ Michigan Wolverines).
But, here it is 2007, and you literally cannot tell the players on the 14-1 Air Force team without a program. In this me-first era of chest-thumping individualism, isn’t that almost unbelievable?
“That’s a good question. And it’s probably a question I shouldn’t answer,” senior Dan Nwaelele replied Wednesday, after he stopped laughing.
The team identified only as Air Force beat Colorado State 81-75 in the Mountain West Conference opener for both teams, which prompted Nwaelele to explain: “As our coach always says, ‘The names on the back of the jerseys don’t matter. It’s about the team.”‘
It has become hip to suggest Air Force has become the ultimate little team that could, the new Gonzaga for a country of hoopheads looking for a fresh underdog to embrace. The Falcons are portrayed as a collection of hustling, clean-shaven, teachable players whose sum success is greater than the total of their separate talents.
All that stuff about being willing to mop the gym floor with those nameless uniforms is true. The Falcons do dive for loose basketballs. And they do want it more than Wake Forest, Texas Tech and any number of teams they have already beaten.
But all those synonyms for scrappy also do a disservice to the physical abilities of these servicemen from the military academy.
I give you Nwaelele as proof. He might be the best player in the country known by almost nobody outside of area code 719.
Nobody knows how to spell the name of this 6-foot-5 forward.
Nobody knows how to pronounce his name. (It’s wuh-Lay-lay, which wasn’t my first guess, either.)
And nobody has figured out how to stop him.
“Dan Nwaelele should be a player who is looked at as a prospect for the next level. Why? He is one of the finest shooters in this country. Period,” said Falcons coach Jeff Bzdelik, who should know. He worked in the NBA for 15 years before taking the job at Air Force in 2005.
While the Falcons play defiant defense and sneak back door like a band of burglars, they live and die with the chutzpah of 3-point shooting.
In a road contest that Air Force won by six points, the Falcons sank 15 shots behind the 3-point arc, compared to nine by Colorado State. You do the math.
And it’s the marksmanship of Nwaelele that makes Air Force so dangerous. Shut him down and the Falcons would look small and vulnerable.
How far Air Force ultimately can go in the NCAA Tournament will be decided by how much Nwaelele grows.
He must not only be Mr. Big Shot, but the guy who drives to the hole and draws the tough foul when the game is tight, the scoreboard clock is ticking and a hostile crowd is screaming.
“He has improved his overall game so much,” Bzdelik said of Nwaelele. “He can drive it. He can shoot off the dribble. He can post up. He has become a complete player.”
It won’t be easy for Air Force to win a conference that is as dangerous as it’s been since big, bad, hungry coach Rick Majerus moved from the Utah bench to a full-time spot in a restaurant booth.
But come March, could Nwaelele and the Falcons create real basketball madness, grab big headlines and have their praises shouted by Dick Vitale in households across the country?
Yes, even without any names sewn on the back of those very hip, very retro jerseys.
Staff writer Mark Kiszla can be reached at 303-954-1053 or mkiszla@denverpost.com.
