Saturday, March 24, 2001

By Rusty Bryan
Stars and Stripes

MANNHEIM, Germany — As the "confirmation phase" of the 2001 USAREUR basketball tournament went into its 17th hour Friday afternoon, two facts were already clear: Mannheim’s men are the best team in the Northern Region, and it pays to take the positional part of this tournament seriously.

"I’m totally in favor of this format," said Mannheim coach Thomas Benson of the system that devotes the first two days of the tournament to a round-robin series of three games to determine the seeds from each of the Army in Europe’s two regional leagues.

"It gives everyone a chance to play and to shoot in a building where they might not have shot before."

Benson made his comments long before his Mustangs, the defending USAREUR and U.S. Forces champions nailed down the No. 1 seed in the North with a 79-69 victory Friday morning over Baumholder.

Rodney Carmichael, whose second-half scoring had brought the Mustangs back from a 45-39 halftime deficit to an 86-81 victory over Darmstadt on Thursday, poured home 29 points in Friday’s clincher.

"You want to have pride in what you do every time you go onto the court," Benson said in explaining why his Mustangs, who tied Darmstadt for the North Region regular-season crown with an 8-1 mark, were pulling out all the stops in the positionals, even though the single-elimination, knock-out portion of the tournament doesn’t begin until 10 a.m. Saturday. The tournament is being played at the Benjamin Franklin Village Sports Arena and the Sullivan Barracks gym.

In the past, the positional portion of the tournament was played in best-of-three home-and-home series. The process took weeks to complete.

This year, it took 24 games and two days.

"The new format brings everyone together; the best-of-the-best in one place," Benson said. "It’s much better than trying to get players released for the six-week slog we used to have."

Benson also downplayed the idea that teams could save their energy by taking it easy in the positional part of the tourney, saving their stars for the knockout portion of the event.

"We have to play these games straight up," he said. "If you don’t, some team will jump up and bite you."

Mannheim women’s coach, Mike Newsome, agreed.

"My players want to win every time they go onto the court," said Newsome, whose Lady Mustangs, were 2-0 going into Friday night’s grudge match against neighborhood rival Heidelberg, which was, surprisingly, winless going into the positional finale. "If you take it easy, you can’t be sure that you’ll be able to turn it back on when it counts."

At press time Friday, Mannheim’s men were the only team to have clinched a No 1 seed. The Mustangs will play the No. 4 seed from the South, probably Schweinfurt, at 10 a.m. Saturday in the BFV Sports Arena to continue their defense of their USAREUR crown.

Kitzingen’s men and women, the regular-season champs from the Southern Region each were a game away Friday afternoon from a top-seed. Kitrzingen’s men, 7-1 on the season were to take on Vilseck (5-2) later Friday, while Ansbach alone stood between Kitzingen’s unbeaten Lady Rattlers and the women’s top seed in the South.

There will be six games at each of the two sites Saturday, with the semifinals set for 6 and 8 p.m. at each gym. Sunday’s schedule will be played exclusively at the Sports Arena, with the women’s third-place game to tip off at 11 a.m., men’s consolation game at 1 p.m., women’s title game at 3 p.m. and men’s championship at 5 p.m.

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