No guarantees for St. Joe’s, Stanford

Friday, Feb. 13, 2004 | 10:04 a.m.

The 20-2 Bulldogs have lost only to St. Joseph's and Stanford, the nation's only unbeatens, in '03-04, and both of those defeats were by single digits.

Alum Mark Jackson might want to think twice about coaching the Johnnies, 5-16 overall and 0-10 in the Big East. School brass vowed Thursday not to shut the program down. A good thing, we think.

The Scoop -- Neither program has been very dominating lately, but this matchup between Conference USA and Atlantic Coast Conference squads is too tempting to pass up. Five Demon Deacons average double digits in points, but they are also young. In addition, three Wake Forest starters are guards. Those two items could spell trouble against a Cincinnati defense known for its grit. Plus, Cincy is 5-0 vs. the Deacons and won at Wake two years ago.

Prediction (4-4) -- Cincinnati 69, Wake Forest 66.

Over the past 10 years, the last Division I team in the nation to lose its first game of the season has won a national championship only once

Take a bow, Connecticut Huskies of 1998-99, who won their first 19 games before taking one on the chin and then winning it all.

Neither St. Joseph's (21-0) nor Stanford (20-0) will want to hear that statistic.

Moreover, only one of those other nine teams advanced to a Final Four and without having that erased from the record books by NCAA penalties.

Utah won its first 18 games in 1997-98, just beating Stanford to earn Last Team To Lose A Game honors, then bowed to Kentucky in the national championship game in San Antonio.

In 1995-96, Massachusetts advanced to the Final Four before losing to Kentucky in a national semifinal game in East Rutherford, N.J. Improper benefits to center Marcus Camby cost coach John Calipari his job and the Minutemen their place in history.

Of our tantalizing 10, only UCLA, in 1993-94, failed to win a game in the NCAA tournament.

The Bruins won their first 14 games that season, losing their first later than anyone else, and then got dumped in an infamous 112-102 defeat to Tulsa in a first-rounder in Oklahoma City.

To no avail, UCLA scored 85 points in the final 30 minutes. But it didn't matter after coach Tubby Smith's Golden Hurricane had ambushed the Bruins in the first 10 minutes.

UCLA coach Jim Harrick's staff was certain that it would all receive pink slips, perhaps even before that game ended. Then-athletic director Pete Dalis rang a courtside telephone at the Myriad, and he hadn't dialed a wrong number.

(Harrick & Co. weathered that storm, then won the national title the following season. Nineteen months after that, though, Dalis did pull the trigger on those pink slips for a host of personal reasons.)

The list of the past 10 teams to become the last team in the nation to lose its first game, according to the NCAA:

To say the least, we are deeply intrigued by what awaits Stanford and St. Joseph's.

Hawks coach Phil Martelli has the elite backcourt, in Jameer Nelson and Delonte West. And only one of their remaining regular-season foes, Rhode Island, has a winning record. St. Joe's has also played the tougher schedule.

The Cardinal, however, could be a dynamo when completely healthy. It throttled UNLV without guard Chris Hernandez or forward Josh Childress. Last weekend, it beat Arizona without forward Justin Davis.

Even at full strength, we perceive a problem or two for Stanford at Oregon (Thursday). Fortunately for the Cardinal, it gets pesky Washington State (Feb. 28) and Ike Diogu of Arizona State (March 6) at home.

We'll go with St. Joe's to get through the regular season unscathed, the first team to do so since UNLV in 1990-91. But we're picking Stanford to go farther in the NCAA tournament.

Bennett, who directed Wisconsin to the Final Four in 2000 and then cited burnout when he resigned less than a year later, has given Washington State a boost that produced impressive results over the weekend.

The Cougars (11-11) swept the L.A. schools, in Southern California, for the first time. The big win was the 55-48 decision against UCLA at Pauley Pavilion, which made the dousing of Southern California anticlimactic.

Tubbs, who directed track meets at Lamar, Oklahoma and Texas Christian, was the Lamar athletic director last season when he watched coach Mike Deane's squad underachieve.

So Tubbs dumped Deane and took over, and the Cardinals are 10-12 overall and 4-5 in the Southland Conference.

Davis, who made his name as a bounce-pass guru at Iowa, Stanford and Boston College, landed at Drake, and the Bulldogs (9-12, 5-8 in the Missouri Valley Conference) have been trying to grasp some old-school ways.

As Bennett has shown, players who listen can experience some fantastic achievements. And the game is better with three coaches who have combined to win 1,621 games back in it.

The collegiate jerseys of Earvin Johnson (Michigan State, No. 33), Danny Ainge (Brigham Young, No. 22), Bill Walton (UCLA, No. 32), Bobby Hurley (Duke, No. 11) and Wes Unseld (Louisville, No. 31) are all solid throwbacks.

The Glenn Rivers (Marquette, No. 31) and Tree Rollins (Clemson, No. 30) models might have been stretches, but not outlandish.

Then some jerseys really caught our attention, like the blue and gold Dennis Rodman top, bearing No. 10, from Cooke County (Texas) Junior College. Huh? It reads "Savages" across the front.

Even more interesting is the Earvin Johnson No. 32 jersey that he wore in high school. The white top with red trim reads "Vikings" on the front.

Now, for the topper. Tracy McGrady of NBA fame attended Mt. Zion Academy in North Carolina for his senior prep season. Before that, he went to Auburndale (Fla.) High, and that's the jersey Eastbay is peddling.

It's white with blue and gold trim, bears McGrady's No. 3, his name on the back and "Auburndale" in capitalized letters on the front.

Take your pick. Each is only $249.99.