For 322 of the 330 Division I teams, conference season is well underway. That leaves eight nomads, scattered all over the country, wandering in the sport’s no-man’s land – a place where they are officially known as Independents. Few people even know they exist in college basketball.

‘Those that aren’t in a conference have one thing in common: They’re looking for one,’ said Rick Mazzuto, the athletic director at Longwood, a D-I Independent. The drifters include Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne, Longwood (Va.), Northern Colorado, Savannah State, Texas A&M Corpus-Christi, Texas-Pan American, UC Davis and Utah Valley State.

With the exception of Texas Pan-American, all the schools are either in the process of or have completed the transfer to Division I from Division II or Junior College in the last seven years. ‘If I felt we weren’t going to get into a conference,’ Utah Valley State athletic director Michael Jacobsen said, ‘we would never have made the move to Division I.

‘We talk to (conference officials) at least once a week about affiliation.’

The reasons that all of these schools desperately want to be in a conference, which will likely happen for some within five years, are quite obvious considering college basketball’s landscape.

Who do the Independents schedule, for instance, after Jan. 1, when everyone else is playing within their conferences?

How do they recruit talented players to come to a program without conference rivalries?

And what do they have to play for, considering they aren’t in a conference race, have no conference tournament and thus almost no chance at the postseason? But these schools would be cellar-dwellers anyway. Since all but one of them is new to Division I, their main challenge now is the slow process of bringing the program to competitiveness.

Case in point: Corpus-Christi (12-6) is the only Independent with a winning record this season. Longwood, in its first season with a Division I schedule, is 1-20.

‘The most difficult part,’ Longwood head coach Mike Gillian said, ‘is probably the feeling that I have for everybody involved in our program. All the effort they are putting in to get Longwood basketball on the map and having that pay some dividends.

‘You want (the players) to be able to get some Ws and see some positive result out of everything that they are doing.’

Players from Independents are not as discouraged as might be expected, though. They knew where they were headed.

‘You still get to play a full schedule of games,’ Utah Valley State forward David Heck said. ‘We’re building the ground for the school’s basketball history.’

‘I don’t even think about the fact that we are playing as an Independent,’ UC Davis forward Ryan Moore said. ‘We just look at ourselves.’

‘I think what the coaches have sold,’ Texas Pan-American interim athletic director Jim Lancaster said of recruiting, ‘is that, yes, we are a Division I program, we do play major Division I programs and we do have great travel trips.’

Indeed, the primary type of player at these schools is just happy to be playing D-I basketball. That fact helps keep the intensity up through a season without the crescendo of a conference race. Still, landing talent remains difficult. ‘You have guys that are being recruited by the mid-major (conferences),’ Northern Colorado head coach Craig Rasmuson said. ‘We’re just happy to be on their list and hope they fall to us. But 99 out of 100 times, they won’t.’

Then there’s the issue of scheduling.

Contests after Jan. 1 are few and far between, and more often than not, they are part of a home-and-home series against fellow Independents.

Furthermore, a large majority of their games are on the road because that is the only way other teams will play them. Longwood, for instance, has played 16 of its 21 games away from home.

‘The labor is to put together a 28-game schedule that has any type of flow or rhythm,’ Texas Pan-American head coach Robert Davenport said. ‘There was this one road trip that was not bright on my part, but we needed a game. We played in Macomb, Ill., on a Tuesday night, which you can’t get to without a 5-hour bus ride from Chicago or St Louis. Then, on Thursday, we were in Billings, Mont.’

One positive is that the players get many opportunities to play against big-name opponents. For example, Northern Colorado was paid to visit SU back in November as part of the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic.

But are there any true advantages to being an Independent? Echoing his athletic director counterparts, Mazzuto’s quick response summed them all up best:

‘No.’

NO. 4 SYRACUSE (+5) AT NO. 20 PITTSBURGHSATURDAY, 7:00 P.M., ESPNThe Panthers will go into the game with a week of rest and preparation after Saturday’s impressive road win over Connecticut. Led by Chevon Troutman, whose offensive game is starting to rival his well-documented defensive prowess, Pitt proves SU’s effort against Rutgers wasn’t a fluke.PICK: PITT 64, SU 55

NO. 16 TEXAS (+5) AT NO. 6 KANSAS SATURDAY, 9:00 P.M., ESPN2The Jayhawks are reeling after being shocked at Villanova on Saturday, three days after beating Nebraska by only two. And this after star forward Wayne Simien returned from a broken thumb. The Longhorns played well in Saturday’s loss to Oklahoma for a team that just lost its leading scorer – P.J. Tucker – due to academic reasons. Texas takes it.PICK: TEXAS 71, KANSAS 66

GEORGETOWN (+6) AT NO. 8 BOSTON COLLEGESATURDAY, 7:30 P.M., NO TVIf the Hoyas can come within inches of winning at Syracuse, they won’t be intimidated by Boston College, even with the dynamic duo of Craig Smith and Jared Dudley. GU coach John Thompson III’s phenomenal job continues. PICK: GEORGETOWN 75, BC 69

NO. 3 NORTH CAROLINA (-11) AT VIRGINIASATURDAY, 12:00 P.M., ESPNThe Tar Heels are in the middle of a stretch that includes six of eight games on the road, tough in any conference, let alone the Atlantic Coast. They lead the nation in scoring with more than 90 points a game, and shouldn’t have any problems running by the Cavaliers.PICK: UNC 81, VIRGINIA 66

INDIANA (+3) AT NO. 23 IOWASATURDAY, 5:00 P.M., ESPNLast week, the Hawkeyes nearly knocked off undefeated No. 1 Illinois, falling in overtime. But their ranking belies the fact that they are two games behind the Hoosiers in the Big Ten. Head coach Mike Davis’ young Indiana team has seemingly turned a corner and will make it five straight wins.PICK: INDIANA 65, IOWA 63

Published on January 24, 2005 at 12:00 pm