Falcons flying high

AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. -- They aren't that tall -- these are Air Force cadets, remember - and the team hasn't had a winning season in 25 years. But basketball is back at Air Force.

Behind a patient offense and the nation's stingiest defense, the Falcons are on a school-record 10-game winning streak and a surprising 12-2 overall - the best start in Air Force history.

"That's a very, very good basketball team," said Colorado State coach Dale Layer, whose team lost at home to the Falcons last week. "It's more than just the system. Those guys can play." Air Force sports has never had a big national profile, except perhaps for the football team, which has been to a dozen bowl games and tends to dominate the other military academies.

The Falcons have never sent anyone to the NBA. But Dean Smith was an assistant coach here in the late 1950s and San Antonio Spurs coach Greg Popovich is a graduate and former assistant. The Falcons have even been to the NCAA tournament, but the last visit was in 1962 and the years have been pretty lean since then.

The last winning season was in 1978 and Air Force has made a habit of posting 20-loss seasons with just two or three conference wins. Often undersized and not particularly talented, Air Force has been easy pickings for everyone, including their Mountain West Conference foes.

This season has been different.

The Falcons' 49-44 win over California in the Bears' own tournament opened eyes in December. The 65-57 victory at Colorado State ended a 27-game losing streak in conference road games. Then they routed New Mexico 68-42 for their first win in Albuquerque since 1962.

"We finally are to the point where when somebody says the last time we did something was 27 games ago or 40 years ago, our guys just don't care," coach Joe Scott said. "We don't have anybody who was around for that stuff." Scott, who played and coached under Pete Carril at Princeton, insists he wasn't crazy in 2000 when he took over what most of his colleagues viewed as a dead-end job. He also admits he underestimated his task.

In Scott's first season, Air Force went 8-21. The next year the Falcons went 9-19, and last year they were 12-16.

"Pretty much everybody I talked to said this was the hardest job in the country," Scott said. "I didn't believe that. Coming from Princeton, I knew I could get good players who were smart and who were gym rats, and if I could get them to compete the right way we could be good.

"But I really underestimated 23 years of losing. It has taken us four years to change the culture here."

Scott's rebuilding job was made harder by the fact that Air Force doesn't recruit blue-chip high school players and can't get transfers. Their tallest player this year, sophomore center Nick Welch, is 6-foot-8.

Don't get the wrong impression: There is no height restriction on Air Force basketball players and not all cadets train to fly planes. Tall players - like 7-foot-1 post man Kyle Clark, who played one year a decade ago and is now an Air Force engineer - can be admitted under special waivers.

Air Force, however, focuses on finding quality players who buy into Scott's back-cutting, 3-point-shooting, half-court offense. They aren't going to win any slam-dunk contests, but the methodical offense has its positives.

"Everybody touches the ball every time down the court," Scott said. "How can you not like that? Everybody gets eight to 10 shots."

And then there's the defense that is holding opponents to 46.6 points per game.

"When you're giving up 46, that's unheard of," Scott said. "Defense is important to our guys. They want to make sure teams don't get 50 on us. Obviously, if you do that you have a chance to win every game."