The Five Degrees of Separation Blog

One of the great things about college athletics is the endless web of relationships that extend across the country among coaches, administrators, athletes and ex-athletes. I'll expend a few electrons this week on some of the Idaho State and Pocatello connections that have popped up via the Internet recently: former Idaho State assistant basketball coach Louis Wilson (above) was recently named the head coach at Division II Adams State. Wilson, who was on Doug Oliver's staff at ISU for eight years, comes to Adams State from Cal-Northridge, where he was recently promoted to associate head coach. He inherits a team that finished 8-19 overall and 5-14 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference. Louis' son, Jacques, played at Century High School and recently completed his collegiate career at Eastern Oregon....

....Greg Byrne, son of former ISU student body president and current Texas A&M athletic director Bill Byrne, was recently named athletic director at Arizona. Byrne, 38, moves to Tucson from Mississippi State, where he was one of the youngest Division I ADs in the country when he was hired there two years ago. He's already had the experience of firing the football coach and replacing him at MSU. His dad, Bill, served as the long-time athletic director at Nebraska before departing for Texas A&M. He was fast friends with the late Dubby Holt going back to Byrne's days as student body president and Dubby's as ISU athletic director....

....This one is kind of a stretch, but new Hawaii basketball coach Gib Arnold has a loose connection to Pocatello. His father, former BYU coach Frank Arnold, started his coaching career at Pocatello High School. Arnold, who was hired by Hawaii from his latest position as an assistant at USC, has other Idaho roots -- his only head coaching experience was at College of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls, where he led CSI to the national junior college tournament in 2004 and 2005....

....Josh Fuller of Rexburg's Madison High School was recently named the outstanding player in the Upper Snake River Valley by the Idaho Falls Post Register. The 6-foot-7 forward, who signed with Utah in the fall, averaged 21 points and nearly eight rebounds a game for the Bobcats. He is the son of former Bengal forward David Fuller, who played for ISU from 1989 to 1991....

....Future Bengal point guard Sheryl Bitter of Shelley was also honored by the Post Register, named to their first-team all-area squad....

....Another future Bengal, Andre Hatchett, a 6-4 wing man from the Tucson area, was recently named to the Arizona Republic's second-team 4A all-state team. Hatchett led his Santa Rita team to the Arizona state title, along with teammate Terrell Stoglin, a Maryland signee. Hatchett scored 26 points in the championship contest....

....And finally, here's a gratuitous Kentucky link for my broadcasting partner and fervent UK supporter Mark Liptak. Kiel Turpin, a 7-foot-1 center who could barely walk and chew gum at the same time in high school, has come on with a rush, leading Lincoln College of Illinois to the Division II junior college national championship and earning MVP honors last week. Turpin is the son of former Kentucky and NBA center Mel Turpin. Oh, and there is an Idaho State connection here. John Hutchinson, former graduate school dean at ISU, is the outgoing president of Lincoln College. Hutchinson is retiring after five years at the school to become a higher education head hunter.....

Big Sky Basketball is Officially Over

Northern Colorado became the last Big Sky Conference school to hang up the foot wear this year, losing to Pacific 63-59 in the second round of the College Insider Tournament in Greeley Monday night. The Bears, who had a school record 25 wins just three years after being the lowest-rated Division I team in America, hosted two games in the CIT, which is geared toward so-called "mid-major programs." They beat Portland last week before losing to the Tigers. In order to get the host role, they had to put up $31,000 a game. Northern Colorado estimated they needed 2,400 fans in their 2,900-seat facility in order to break even on each game. They drew only 1,800 in their opener, but had almost 2,600 last night.

Weber President in a Powerful Position

Weber State University President Ann Millner may not know it, but she is one of the 18 most powerful people in college basketball right now. Dr. Millner is part of the 18-member NCAA Division I Board and Executive Committee. She and her 17 fellow presidents will make the ultimate decision on whether to expand the NCAA basketball tournament. The NCAA has until July 31 of this year to decide whether to continue its contract with CBS to televise the tournament, and a lot people are speculating the NCAA will expand the tournament to 96 teams in order to increase television revenue, whether it be from CBS or another entity. The NCAA gets 90 percent of its revenue from the tournament television contract.

--Brad Bugger

Row and Gilchrest: ISU's Dynamic Duo

The best thing about Idaho State's overtime victory over Portland State Saturday night was the grin from one Amorrow Morgan ear to the other. Row (right) had just put up 30 points on the Vikings in front of his mom and sisters, who came from Memphis for the weekend to watch him play. A polite, humble young man Row was brimming with joy at the Bengals' sweep of Eastern Washington and PSU, and the fact his family was able to witness it in person.

Amorrow, whose father passed away just about a year ago, is truly one of the good people to come through the Idaho State basketball program, and he's having one of the greatest senior seasons in the last 30 years of Bengal basketball. Things started off rough for Morgan and the Bengals this year, and a lot of folks (Coach O'Brien and this blog, included) have pointed to Row as the player who was going to have to lead his teammates out of the doldrums. Boy has he responded.

After half a Big Sky Conference season (eight games), Morgan leads in scoring (22.9) and three-point shooting (68 percent), ranks sixth in field goal percentage (53 percent) and eleventh in rebounding (5.1). Should his league scoring average hold up, it would be the best by a Bengal since Lawrence Butler, who led the nation in scoring, averaged 31 points a game in the Big Sky during the 1978-79 season.

And as Morgan has exploded, so too has his fellow backcourt mate and Memphian, point guard Broderick Gilchrest. The junior college transfer is fifth in the league in scoring in conference games only (16.8), third in assists (3.6), second in three-pointers made per game (2.8), tied for first in steals (2.5), sixth in three-point percentage (48 percent), and 15th in field goal percentage (49.5 percent).

ISU's dynamic duo is averaging almost 40 points a game in league play (39.7), the best one-two punch in the Big Sky by far (Weber State's Damian Lilliard and Franklin Session are second at 34.9). If Morgan and Gilchrest can sustain those numbers, they will be the best one-two scoring figures in league play for ISU over the last seven seasons, better even than the Marquis Poole-Scott Henry inside-outside combo who averaged 37.7 points in league play in the 2003-04 season.

Watching these two blossom in recent weeks has been pure joy. Gilchrest capped his emergence with a big steal and a thunder dunk Saturday night, right after it looked like PSU had snatched the momentum with a controversial non-call and a technical foul against O'Brien. The Reed Gym crowd was already in a frenzy over the officiating and PSU had rallied to claim the lead when Gilchrest swooped in, stole the in-bounds pass near half-court and followed with a throw-down, sparking a Bengal rally. ISU lists Broderick at 6-foot-1, but O'Brien says he's really closer to 5-11, making the dunk all the more dramatic.

Both Gilchrest and Morgan have shown they could score from the get-go this year, but what has really made them unguardable has been their recent emergence as three-point shooters. Morgan shot only 27 percent, Gilchrest just 26 percent from the arc in non-league play; in the Big Sky, Morgan has elevated his shooting percentage 41 points, Gilchrest 22 points. Both already had great ability to put the ball on the floor and get to the glass. Now, defenders have to close out hard on them or risk their draining a three.

The Big Sky season is only half over and we know league coaches will be watching plenty of video and devising new schemes to slow down the dynamic duo. The law of averages surely will play a role, as well; nobody expects Morgan to finish the conference season at 68 percent from three-point range. And the heavy workload (Morgan is averaging 39.8 minutes a game in league play, Gilchrest just 39 -- slacker!) could eventually get to them.

So Chron Tatum and Austin Kilpatrick will have to continue their recent offensive productivity, and hopefully Demetrius Monroe, Donnie Carson and Sherrod Baldwin will provide more consistent contributions. In the end, however, it will be the dynamic duo of Gilchrest and Morgan who will carry this team on their shoulders. It will be fun to see how far they get.

The Next Amorrow Morgan?

The Bengals will return five scholarship perimeter players next year if all goes according to plan: Gilchrest, Baldwin, senior-to-be Mike Lacey, redshirt freshman Eric Segert and Phyllip Taylor, who is sitting out this year while trying to get his grades in order. But the player most likely to become the next Amorrow Morgan, at least eventually, may still be playing high school basketball in Arizona.

The Bengals inked 6-4 wing man Andre' Hatchett during the early signing period in November, and he is having a very nice senior season. Hatchett was named to the all-tournament team of the prestigious Arrowhead Desert Classic in Glendale at the beginning of this season. He's averaged over 20 points a game over his last four games of the season, even while having to share the ball with Terrell Stoglin, Tucson's all-time leading scorer and an early signee with the University of Maryland.

O'Brien said on our coaches' show Monday night that Hatchett reminds him a lot of Morgan, who came to ISU out of prep school. They are similar height and weight, and Hatchett is confident putting the ball on the floor and attacking the basket, which has always been Morgan's biggest strength. Like Morgan, Hatchett is playing a lot of small forward in high school, so there will be an adjustment period for him learning to play the two guard and expanding his shooting range at the college level. But if Hatchett has the work ethic of other recent Bengal two-guards -- Logan Kinghorn, David Schroeder, Matt Stucki and Morgan -- he should contribute early, and be an all-conference quality player by the end of his Bengal career.

With center David Busma expected to be granted a medical redshirt for this season and return next year, O'Brien will have to sign six players this spring, and he only has seven campus visits left to offer under NCAA rules. He's going to have to be very judicious about who he brings on campus, and may even have to convince a player or two to sign without an official trip. The spring signing period begins April 14.

--Brad B.