Of all the things Eric Maynor did in the 2008-09 season for the VCU Rams, one thing stands out above all others. Maynor made his teammates better. “I knew coming in that every team was going to try to key on me,“ Maynor said of his senior season at VCU.

North Carolina senior forward Tyler Hansbrough already is regarded as one of the best players in college basketball history. Now, he can call himself the ACC’s all-time leading scorer. With his third point—the first of two free throws—in yesterday’s 101-58 win over Radford in the NCAA tournament’s first round, Hansbrough broke the record previously held by Duke guard J.J. Redick. Hansbrough has 2,789 points—16th-most in NCAA history. Redick scored 2,769 points from 2003-06.

GREENSBORO, N.C.—Top-seed North Carolina beat 16th-seed Radford 101-58 today in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

When Virginia parted ways with coach Dave Leitao on Monday, one of the first potential successors mentioned was Minnesota coach Tubby Smith. After Virginia fired Pete Gillen in 2005, it unsuccessfully tried to lure Smith from Kentucky. Leitao was Virginia’s second choice. Smith, who is from Maryland, coached at Kentucky from 1997 to 2007 and won the 1998 national championship. He resigned from Kentucky and has led Minnesota, which was 9-22 the year before he arrived, to back-to-back 20-win seasons. The Golden Gophers are a No.10 seed in the NCAA tournament and will play seventh-seed Texas tonight in Greensboro, N.C.

Big man Radford’s unlikely catch GREENSBORO, N.C. - Radford center Artsiom Parakhouski’s journey to the NCAA tournament began when he knew nothing about it - a 17-year-old kid from Minsk, Belarus, two years of basketball experience to his credit, traveling to Russia with his country’s junior national team in summer 2005. Competing against players two and three years older, he didn’t dominate. But his coach, Kanstantin Shereverya, had dropped his name to a friend, Ali Ton, an official with Turkey’s national team. Ton was about to begin his first season as an assistant coach at Binghamton University. Parakhouski, 6-10 and thick, impressed Ton with his potential.

The beginning of his college basketball career did not go as Kenny Thomas had hoped. The second and third years were not exactly what he had envisioned either.

Radford coach
living dream
Greenberg, 55, took long, winding path to mid-major post RADFORD Radford’s basketball players sat in their locker room before the most significant game of their careers and looked up at the blackboard, where coach Brad Greenberg had written one of his favorite quotes, from 19th-center philosopher Henry David Thoreau.

The Radford Highlanders wanted Duke in the first round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Duke, the No. 2 seed in the East Region, with its finesse game vs. the Highlanders, with the inside power of 6-11, 260-pound Art Parakhouski. Oh, yeah, the Highlanders liked that matchup a lot. There was a mass groan when Binghamton drew the Blue Devils.

For two of the state’s men’s college basketball teams, it’s not a matter of whether they will make the NCAA tournament, it’s a matter of where they’ll play and the seeding they’ll receive. Virginia Commonwealth University’s Rams and Radford’s Highlanders—and fans of the two teams—will be watching the NCAA selection program this evening to see what bracket slots they will occupy.

RADFORD—Kenny Thomas closed his eyes Friday night, but he never fell asleep. He got up to get a drink, went back to bed, but no luck. All night, the possibilities for yesterday’s Big South championship game raced through his mind. Thomas, a Highland Springs High graduate, was sick of sitting around every March, watching the NCAA tournament, wondering how it would feel if he and his Radford teammates were on that television screen, trying to slay one of college basketball’s giants. “Why not us?“ he’d ask himself.

Before last season, Radford’s basketball players harbored little hope that they would play for a Big South championship during their careers. They were bad, and they knew it. “We had a losing mentality,“ said senior guard Kenny Thomas, a former Highland Springs High standout. The disheartening reality was impossible for them to ignore: They had just finished an 8-22 season—their fifth losing record in the past six seasons. They had lost in the first round of the conference tournament for five straight years.

YESTERDAY’S QUARTERFINALS
  No. 1 Radford 82,
No. 8 High Point 58
  No. 2 VMI 96,
No. 7 Coastal Carolina 76
  No. 3 Liberty 88,
No. 6 Gardner-Webb 77
  No. 4 UNC Asheville 76,
No. 5 Winthrop 68
 

Radford coach Brad Greenberg is the older brother of Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg. As long as they remain in those jobs, don’t look for a Highlanders-Hokies game, though Radford and Virginia Tech are Division I schools about 15 miles apart. “We really enjoy being able to toss back and forth ideas about our teams, brainstorm with each other,“ said Brad Greenberg, 55. Seth Greenberg is 52.

Name the only college basketball team in the state that has sold out every home game this season. Radford is the answer, with an asterisk. The Highlanders played home games thus far in Peters Hall, the university’s old-school gym that seats 575. Above and beyond season-ticket holders and family members of coaches and players, RU students were able to get tickets on a first-come, first-served basis.

COLLEGES DIVISION I TOURNAMENT
  FIRST ROUND
(Yesterday)
Boston University 1, Fairleigh Dickinson 0 California 3, San Francisco 0 Boston College 2, Colgate 0 William and Mary 3 , Winthrop 1 UNC-Greensboro 2, Duke 0 George Mason 1 , Penn 0