Wednesday, May 25, 2005 | 9:52 a.m.
Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at [email protected] or (702) 259-4088.
Well, it looks like Air Force is going back to being a football school.
Former Denver Nuggets coach Jeff Bzdelik was formally introduced as the Falcons' new basketball coach Monday and immediately assuaged some concerns among his players and the athletic administration by saying, "I don't want to go anywhere else unless they throw me out."
That wasn't the case with predecessors Joe Scott and Chris Mooney, both of whom resigned during a 13-month period after taking Air Force from the Mountain West's basketball cellar to cruising altitude by adopting the disciplined offensive style of Princeton, from whence they came.
Then Bzdelik surprised onlookers by saying he wasn't committed to the Princeton system.
Good luck, Jeff. Unless the Academy starts recruiting a bunch of 6-foot-11 pilots, you are going to need it.
"I have all the respect for Princeton, but it's in New Jersey," Bzdelik said. "This is the Air Force system. I told our players that the first thing. We'll put our own spin on it."
You know what happens when you put too much spin on a 3-point shot, don't you?
Apparently, Bzdelik is living in a fantasy world where Air Force's vertically challenged 6-foot-5 forwards can dunk over Utah's Andrew Bogut. He said the emphasis will be on improved team defense and individual offensive play.
Individual play? When was the last time (discounting games against UNLV, of course) that an Air Force player beat anybody off the dribble?
Bzdelik said he will name his assistant coaches later this week. With a philosophy like that, he'd better get Phil Jackson and Red Auerbach.
Here's even more proof that the gap between men's college basketball and the women's game is shrinking.
Epiphanny Prince, one of the top girls' high school basketball players in the nation who is being courted by Rutgers, UConn and Tennessee, on Monday was acquitted in Brooklyn Criminal Court of assaulting and menacing a 13-year-old girl, and thus will not spend her summer in jail instead of on a basketball court.
Upon being cleared, Prince, a 5-foot-11 guard, was immediately contacted by the Ohio State football team and asked if she had any interest in playing free safety.
Maybe that budding UNLV-TCU baseball rivalry will end before it even begins.
Former Rebels coach Jim Schlossnagle, who made a lot of promises about building UNLV into a national force but then bolted for TCU before the job was finished, reportedly is on the short list of possible replacements for veteran Texas A&M coach Mark Johnson, who was fired Monday despite a 876-433-3 record over 21 seasons.
Schlossnagle, in his second year at TCU, has guided the Horned Frogs to a solid 37-18 record this season. TCU is seeded second in this week's Conference USA tournament behind Tulane, the top-rated team in the nation, where he once was an assistant.
TCU will become the ninth member of the Mountain West Conference beginning with football season in the fall.
At least long-legged Maria Sharapova rallied to win her match at Roland Garros on Tuesday, giving this casual Las Vegas tennis fan another reason to continue watching the French Open.
The other reason, Andre Agassi, lost his first-round match to Jarkko Nieminen of Finland in five sets.
Jarkko Nieminen? Wasn't he the guy who won the Grand Prix of Monaco over the weekend?
Actually, it was Kimi Raikkonen who won that race, although his tennis game probably isn't that much worse than his countryman Nieminen, who had to earn his way into the French Open via a qualifier.
The 35-year-old Agassi, troubled by back problems, was thus eliminated in the first round of a Grand Slam event for the ninth time, giving him one more early exit than titles in those marquee events.
The starting grid at the Indianapolis 500 isn't the only place in America where the boys from Brazil run up front.
Don't be surprised if Indy pole-sitter Tony Kanaan and two-time race winner Helio Castroneves become big BYU fans, given the Mountain West Conference member's increasing dependence on athletes from their homeland.
Last season, Brazilians Carlos Moreno and Fernando Pessoa led the Cougars to the NCAA volleyball championship. Swimmer Jorge Azevedo set a school record in the 100 butterfly and track star Rodrigo Mendes has posted the NCAA's best mark in the triple jump this year.
And then there's basketball, where Rafael Aruajo, now in the NBA with the Raptors, and Luis Lemes starred for the Cougars' 2004 NCAA tournament team. New coach Dave Rose recently signed another native of Brazil in Fernando Malaman, who like Aruajo, played junior college ball at Arizona Western.
Maybe you can't get a beer up in Provo, but it sure is becoming a good place to brush up on your Portuguese.
Sam King, a fullback/linebacker for Palo Verde High's state championship football team, will play his college ball at New Mexico State for new Aggies coach Hal Mumme, the former head man at Kentucky.
If King's name sounds familiar to longtime Las Vegas football fans, there's a reason. He is the son of former UNLV passing whiz Sam King, who now owns an insurance business in Green Valley.
Sam Jr. can't throw the football as well as his old man, who engineered what most veteran Rebels fans still consider the greatest win in school history -- a 45-41 last-minute upset against No. 8 BYU and Steve Young in 1981. But he's a much better interview. Sam Jr. recently was named "Life of the Party" on Palo Verde's list of "Senior Superlatives."
Now I know why the Gladiators' Wilky Bazile kept hitting guys after the whistle and getting flagged for personal fouls in Sunday's Arena Football League season finale at the Thomas & Mack Center.
He must have thought the Gladiators were playing The Guards instead of the Arizona Wranglers.
Bazile is one of four Las Vegas players who worked as football doubles or extras in the remake of "The Longest Yard," which opens at a theatre near you this weekend.
On the surface, the Gladiators seem to have gone out of their way to reach out to the local community, which is admirable. But one Sun reader who attended a function for season-ticket holders last weekend claims they aren't reaching out as far as they could.
He wrote in an e-mail that the players talked among themselves and did not appear interested in mingling with the team's supporters.
"Unlike the Thunder (of the defunct International Hockey League), who still far and away had more relationships with the fans than any other team that has come along, this team does not interact with their fans on or off the field," wrote the disgruntled onlooker.
"This team continues to look more and more like the Charlestown Chiefs."
Well, at least that would make Oggy Ogelthorpe happy.
While at the Gladiators' game Sunday, I couldn't help but notice from my vantage point in the press section in the upper reaches of the Thomas & Mack Center all of the UNLV basketball jerseys that have been retired. And that Greg Anthony's isn't among them.
For my money, Anthony was every bit as vital as Larry Johnson and Stacey Augmon to the success of those great Rebels teams of the early 1990s. The uniform shirts of those guys are among those on display in the Mack.
For what it's worth, Anthony is also a local kid, having played his high school ball at Rancho. And unlike Johnson and Augmon, he continues to bring honor to UNLV now that his playing career is over with his outstanding work as an NBA analyst on ESPN.
Anthony wore No. 50, which is a strange number for a point guard. What's stranger yet is that his shirt isn't up there in the rafters with the rest of them.
On the topic of old Rebels, Thursday's Senior Classic high school basketball all-star games featuring Las Vegas-area stars will be played at the Tarkanian Basketball Academy (as in Jerry) at 2730 S. Rancho, behind the Palace Station hotel-casino.
The girls' game and 3-point shootout begin at 6 p.m. with the boys' game and 3-point and slam dunk contests to follow.
Discounting the Mystery hockey team's victory over the New York Rangers in the movies, great sports moments in Alaska are much more rare than the Midnight Sun. Which may explain why the Alaska Aces' recently concluded ECHL season has been selected the "greatest team moment in Alaska history" in an online poll conducted by the Anchorage Daily News.
The Aces had a good year but only made it as far as the National Conference Finals, where they suffered a 2-0 Game 7 loss to Trenton. Alaska made it that far without its best player, NHL all-star Scott Gomez of the New Jersey Devils, an Anchorage native who skated circles around the ECHL during the NHL lockout before being injured in the West Division semifinals.
The Aces beat out Libby Riddles becoming the first woman to win the Iditarod dog race in 1985 for the top team moment.
I received an e-mail from Christy Martin, the female boxer who will face Lucia Rijker at Mandalay Bay July 30 in a fight that will pay the winner $1 million, an unprecedented sum for a women's bout, setting me straight on a couple of issues.
Martin wanted to assure me she had country singing legend Loretta Lynn's blessing when she lifted her nickname, "The Coal Miner's Daughter."
I never said she didn't have permission. I just questioned the originality.
"We have met several times and she has a fighter's streak in her, too," Martin wrote in an e-mail. "My father and both grandfathers were coal miners, along with my brother and uncles."
More importantly, Martin took exception to me referring to her as a 38-year-old, which is what a press release said.
"I am 36 years old and feel great, much like (age) 26 when I fought on the Mike Tyson cards," she wrote.
Martin signed her e-mail "keep punching," which, she will be happy to learn, is exactly what I plan to do.
Only with words instead of fists.
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