Once Daven Harmeling and Caleb Forrest of Washington State found out they were returning to Colorado for this week’s subregional, the fight for tickets was on.
“My mom was asking how many tickets I could get. I told her I could get nine for sure, but I wasn’t sure,” said Forrest, who grew up in Pagosa Springs. “I just told her that so she would stop telling people I could get them tickets.”
Forrest, who was born in Durango because Pagosa Springs doesn’t have a hospital, secured enough tickets to satisfy his family. Of the eight family members coming to today’s game against Winthrop, six have not seen him play college ball in person.
“I was asking my teammates, and they said, ‘Oh, no, I already gave them to Daven,’ ” Forrest said. “I’m excited because my family gets to come.”
Said Washington State coach Tony Bennett: “Pagosa Springs, the big metropolis. We found a place smaller than Pullman.”
Forrest and Harmeling are backup forwards. After playing as a true freshman, then having to sit out the 2005-06 season because of a dislocated shoulder in the season opener, Harmeling came on last season and started 21 times. But toward the end of the season Aron Baynes and Taylor Rochestie improved and claimed more playing time.
“Now they are our bona fide starters, so I have to come off the bench. But it’s been good,” said Harmeling, who scored 13 points against Stanford in the Pac-10 Tournament last week, when he was 4-of-4 from beyond the 3-point arc.
It’s been a bumpy season for Har- meling, who has struggled through “a couple of shooting slumps,” in addition to battling a sprained ankle and a broken thumb. Born in Delta, Harmeling moved away when he was 3, but his family returned to Grand Junction before eighth grade. While he had wished his season was better, playing near home this weekend has returned some of the joy.
“Anytime you can make the tournament, it’s a good year,” Harmeling said with a smile, the same one he’s been wearing since he heard the Cougars were headed to Denver.
Filling it up.
Newly hired coaches usually need three or four years to get a program back on track. Not Temple’s Fran Dunphy. The former Penn coach has the Owls from Philadelphia back in the NCAA Tournament in his second year after going across town to change jobs.
“I’m not sure it’s a bad thing (for Dunphy) to inherit some of John Chaney’s kids,” Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said. “I think one thing that team has, it has some toughness and it has some guys that can really shoot the ball. Seems like John always had a couple of those 6-4, 6-5 wing guys that could fill it up.”
No need for a street map.
Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon knows his way around the Mile High City. As an assistant at Northern Arizona from 1994-98, Dixon recruited the Front Range.
His biggest recruiting plum was former Thompson Valley High basketball and football star Billy Hix, now an assistant at NAU.
“Billy Hix was probably the toughest kid we’ve ever had anywhere,” Dixon said.
Playing at altitude.
None of the players asked seemed to think playing at altitude would be a big factor in today’s games.
“We don’t pay much attention to that,” Temple’s Chris Clark said.
Michigan State’s Drew Neitzel noted the Spartans played BYU in Salt Lake City this season.
“I think that experience is going to help us as far as the altitude,” Neitzel said. “We got here a couple of days early and kind of got adjusted to it.”
Footnotes.
Eddie Sutton, father of Oral Roberts coach Scott Sutton, is in town after he cleared out his desk in San Francisco after his two- month coaching stint. He said he has decided not to coach again. . . . About 300 tickets for today’s first session were released to the public Wednesday afternoon, after being returned from allotments given to competing schools, and 250 were released for the night session.
John Henderson, Tom Kensler, Irv Moss and David Krause, The Denver Post
