Tournament time gets started this week

Contrary to clever slogans, it will still be February when the college basketball postseason gets under way.

The first of the 30 conference tournaments that determine the automatic bids to the NCAA's field of 65 starts Tuesday.

The first round of the Ohio Valley Conference gets the postseason going with the Atlantic Sun's opening round on Thursday.

The Ohio Valley, Atlantic Sun and Big South will all end Saturday, giving us the first three conference tournament champions.

The only conference not to have a tournament is the Ivy League. The Pac-10 will hold its first postseason tournament since 1990 in Los Angeles from March 7-9.

Four conferences -- Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big 12 and Southeastern -- don't have their title game until Selection Sunday, March 10.

The NCAA tournament officially starts March 12 with the opening-round game between the conference champions considered the 64th and 65th teams in the field. That game will be played in Dayton, Ohio, and the winner moves into the first round, which starts March 14-15.

REAL THROWBACK: Marist point guard Sean Kennedy doesn't look like the type of player who would come up with a triple-double.

The 6-foot-2 senior may not fill the highlight reels with impressive moves but he has reached basketball's special stat line twice this season.

He had 18 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists in the Red Foxes' 70-66 loss at Niagara on Jan. 5. Just over a month later, Kennedy had 14 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists in a 69-63 loss to Canisius.

Those games weren't flukes as he has flirted with a triple-double several times in recording six double-doubles while leading Marist (17-8) in scoring (14.6) and assists (7.4) and is second in rebounding (5.5).

"He's a throwback-type player," Marist coach Dave Magarity said. "He plays with a passion. Don't get me wrong, he does things that give coaches gray hair, and I have a lot of that, but he knows how to get himself out of a tough situation."

According to STATS, Inc., Kennedy is the fourth player since 1996 to have two triple-doubles in a season.

Wojciech Myrda of Louisiana-Monroe has also done it this season, while Adonal Foyle of Colgate and Jerome Jones of Florida A&M both did it in 1996-97.

The record-keeping concerning triple-doubles is spotty at best, but it's usually a good idea to check Oscar Robertson's stats as a starting point.

He had five triple-doubles in both his junior and senior seasons at Cincinnati and ended his collegiate career pretty impressively.

In the semifinals of the 1960 Final Four, Robertson had 18 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists in the 77-69 loss to eventual champion California.

In Cincinnati's 95-71 victory over NYU in the third-place game, Robertson exactly matched his numbers from a day earlier.

REAL FEELINGS: As much as coaches say they and their teams focus on the next game and don't get caught up in looking ahead to the postseason, it's always been hard to believe they don't.

Some players don't hold anything back.

Missouri, which was ranked as high as No. 2 this season, is fighting for a spot among the top four teams in the Big 12, so it gets a first-round bye. The Tigers can't afford a poor finish if they want to get an at-large berth to the NCAA tournament.

"I believe we deserve to be in," guard Clarence Gilbert said of the NCAA's field of 65. "Going to the NIT and stuff like that would just leave a bad taste in my mouth about my career."

GALE WARNINGS: Gale Catlett's retirement last week after 24 seasons as coach at West Virginia was something that had crossed his mind more than once before.

Catlett said his health was one of the factors that prompted him to leave his team with an 8-15 record and having lost 13 of 14. He turned it over to assistant Drew Catlett, his nephew.

"My heart was not where it should have been," said Catlett, who leaves as West Virginia's winningest coach with a 565-320 record.

Catlett said he first thought of retirement after leading West Virginia to the round of 16 in the NCAA tournament in 1998, but he didn't want to leave a team that was losing six seniors.

"I thought it was unfair to do it at that time. We were going to get killed," he said.

The following season, West Virginia went 10-19 and set a school record for losses in a season. He thought about retirement after that season, but changed his mind when the school's arena was closed for asbestos removal, forcing the Mountaineers to play all their games on the road in 1999-2000.

To give those problems to a new coach, "that's just not right," Catlett said.

He has already retired to his family farm in Hedgesville, W.Va.

"Aside from my wife being upset and my family being upset, everything's going pretty well," Catlett said.

COSTLY THROW: All the postgame one-liners about the "hot dog technical" couldn't have seemed funny at all to the Indiana State players.

The Sycamores had a 60-59 lead over Drake at home, but lost the ball out of bounds with 19 seconds to play. Indiana State fan William Butwin, upset with the official's call, threw a hot dog onto the floor from the lower concourse.

The wiener hit the floor with a thud, and the officials called a crowd-control technical foul on the home team fans, meaning Drake would get two free throws.

Luke McDonald made one free throw to tie it and his rebound basket with 2.7 seconds left gave the Bulldogs a 62-60 victory.

"At the time, you're concerned about the call, whether it's right or wrong," Indiana State sports information director Kent Johnson said. "And out of the corner of your eye, this hot dog lands a few feet away from where the coach and referee are."

Indiana State spokeswoman Teresa Exline said Butwin is not a student.

"He was detained and escorted out, and he was not confrontational at all," she said.