Chaney makes point for his Philly stakes

Temple men's basketball coach John Chaney has long been overrated.\nIf his matchup zone defense was so impenetrable, how come nobody else employs it? If it is so good, how come none of Chaney's assistants have gotten head coaching jobs at other major Division I schools to teach the matchup zone to their teams?\nIf it is so good, how come it always seems to allow open three-pointers at the most inopportune times in big games? If it is so good, how come Chaney has never coached in a Final Four?\nPlus, Chaney's offensive system is prehistoric. He's so afraid of turnovers that he basically just lets his perimeter guys dribble around and then make a one-on-one move. His offensive philosophy seems to be, "The fewer passes, the less likely it is that there will be a turnover."\nFortunately for him, he's had terrific players to make it work for him. Mark Macon, whom he just hired as one of his assistants, jacked up 30 shots a game. Eddie Jones is an excellent NBA shooting guard. Aaron McKie has had a solid NBA career. Rick Brunson is still hanging on in the league.\nChaney, though, does deserve compliments in one area: his moral stand on the Villanova phone card controversy.\nThe story begins in March toward the end of last season. Villanova suspended 12 players, including top scorers Gary Buchanan and Ricky Wright, after the players obtained an athletic department employee's phone access card and made unauthorized long-distance phone calls. (Can you think of any other schools that have had this problem in recent weeks? I bet you can.)\nSuspensions become mandatory after the phone charges exceed $100, and in this case, they did. The school staggered the suspensions, which ranged from three to eight games, to allow coach Jay Wright to field a squad so they wouldn't have to forfeit.\nThe suspensions bled over into this season for those who didn't graduate or otherwise leave school. So somebody, be it Wright or Athletic Director Vince Nicastro, decided that with Villanova scheduled to play in the Maui Invitational, they should play a patsy prior to Maui. Not only would this game help prepare Villanova for Maui, but they would also help work off the suspensions and allow certain players to be eligible for Maui.\nSo they actually will play the University of the Redlands (who?), a Division III team located in Southern California, on the road Saturday. This is where Chaney stepped in.\nVillanova also had scheduled another game against Claremont College, another Division III opponent in California on the way to Maui. Chaney felt that Villanova had backed out of its game against Temple to schedule Claremont. Considering that Temple is a traditional rival of Villanova's as part of the Philadelphia college hoops rivalry known as the Big Five -- the other schools are Pennsylvania, St. Joseph's and LaSalle -- Chaney was appalled.\nFurthermore, rumors had abounded for years that Villanova was elusive as to scheduling Big Five games.\nTo make a long story short, Villanova will play Temple at Temple's Liacouras Center. The game will begin at 12:01 a.m. Friday, literally the very first minute a college basketball team can play its first games. (Tournaments like the Preseason National Invitation Tournament and Guardians Classic are exempt.) Then, Villanova will fly to Los Angeles to play the University of the Redlands Saturday afternoon.\nChaney rightly said that Villanova was being deceptive to schedule the Division III games before informing Temple that it was backing out of playing them. That it would have denied Temple's athletic department and fans a home gate for what figured to be a very popular game added to the anger. \n"In all my years, I make all kinds of concessions for teams,'' Chaney told espn.com. "We need home games in our facility. I've done too many things for people and I wasn't going to deal with it anymore. I want our students to benefit from the games in our city.''\nChaney is not known as a night owl, or should I say Owl. He regularly holds early-morning practices, usually beginning at 5:30 a.m. It's his way of instilling discipline. But in his mind, if this is what he had to do, then he was going to do it.\nImagine Tubby Smith backing out of the IU game at the RCA Dome so he can play Centre College after Gerald Fitch got caught in some wrongdoing. How would IU fans feel?\nSo Chaney's stand is completely defensible. Just like his offense.