Southern Conference report

SportsLine Report
March 1, 2000

In the Paint

Even though the Cougars are in the same spot as they were last season -- the South Division's top seed -- College of Charleston does not head into the tournament with quite the same attitude.

"Last year we had eight seniors, and this year six of our top 10 guys are freshmen," said College of Charleston coach John Kresse.

The Cougars depend heavily on the inside presence of junior Jody Lumpkin, who leads the league in blocked shots. In fact, the Cougars blocked more shots than any team in the league, averaging 6.04 a game.

On the perimeter, sophomore guard Jeff Bolton and junior guard James Griffin, a Wake Forest transfer, have been terrific. Freshman forward Leighton Bowie has emerged as one of the league's top rookies, along with point guard A.J. Harris and freshmen subs Troy Wheless and Rudy Rothseiden.

"All of the freshmen have stepped up beyond expectations," Kresse said. "Rookies today coming from great high school and AAU programs are more fit to play right away than a few years ago."

A staple of the Cougars game has been their defense, and they allowed opponents to score just 58.4 points per game and shoot .384 from the floor. The 58.4 points allowed is on target to set a new SoCon record. The record is 59.2, set last season.

NOTEWORTHY: Bolton is the league's fourth-best free throw shooter but he had a string of 32 consecutive made free throws during the season. ... The Cougars enter the SoCon Tournament having won six of their last seven games. ... After going a perfect 19-0 in SoCon play last year (16-0 regular season, 3-0 in the tournament), CofC was touched up for conference losses at Western Carolina and at Chattanooga as well as a home loss to Davidson. ... Bowie made the all-freshman team as he averages 11.7 points and 6.4 rebounds per game and set a school record for points by a freshman.

THIS WEEK: Charleston will watch The Citadel and East Tennessee State play on March 2 and the winner gets to play the Cougars on March 3. The only drawback to Charleston's seeding is its semifinal game would be only about 17 hours after the quarterfinal game.