Explorers armed with humor & confidence

LOS ANGELES - The day starts out light for the La Salle Explorers as coach John Giannini knows the value of rest, especially at this time of the season. The team isn't required to be anywhere until a 10 a.m. breakfast in the basement of their hotel.

While a lot of food does get consumed, the session primarily consists of laughter. Tyrone Garland, owner of the now-famous Southwest Philly Floater, cracks everyone up with some witty - and secretive - one-liners. His main audience is Ramon Galloway, who stands up to laugh loudly after a Garland quip. The laughter is so loud, it drowns out conversations at tables 20 feet away. Two things come to mind: that these players really like each other; and that they don't think they can win this Sweet 16 game Thursday against Wichita State - they know it.

After breakfast, the players scatter to their rooms to change into their practice gear and fill the time until they have to reconvene at 11:30 for a walkthrough. While the players are doing that, managers are sifting through about 10 boxes that have been delivered to the hotel. They are filled with equipment - sneakers, practice shirts, shorts, etc. - and need to be delivered to the players' rooms. The coaching staff also breaks up for the most part, some to catch even more film of the Shockers (assistant coach Will Bailey seems to be a film-watching freak).

Giannini pops into assistant coach Harris Adler's room, tosses around a few ideas, pokes fun at a certain reporter for a bit, and throws around some more thoughts on Thursday's opponent. Giannini, who has his doctorate in sports psychology, is a thinker. If there is an edge to be found, he finds it. His mind really is a wheel that never stops spinning.

The walkthrough is in the same basement where breakfast was served earlier. A chair sits at one end of the room, representing the basket. Giannini's team walks through some offensive and defensive sets, for about a half an hour. The most impressive part of the session is the scout team. Players such as Taylor Dunn, Jermaine Davis and Garvin Hunt, who don't get a ton of minutes, picked up the Wichita State offensive and defensive tendencies in a 15-minute session with Giannini the day before. They run through them while their teammates run the counters that Giannini has implemented. It is all quite impressive and jammed, as they are performing all this in about a 20-by-20-foot area.

"Those players who do the scout team for us are so important, so important," raves Giannini. "It is amazing how well they pick up what we need them to do in such a short time. It is a huge help for us."

The walkthrough complete, as director of operations Sean Neal counts down the minutes to Giannini when they have to be done, the team heads to the bus waiting outside for the 5-minute drive down Figueroa Street to the Staples Center and an open-to-the-public practice session. The players do some basic drills (not wanting to show anything to anyone in the stands), get themselves used to the shooting and pretty much soak it in, until there are about 15 minutes remaining in the session.

That is when Steve Zack, the 6-11 sophomore who has been out since March 2 with a foot injury, pulls a Willis Reed and comes running onto the floor. "Steve, you're wearing sneakers," exclaims academic advisor Christine Cahill, perhaps the team's biggest (loudest?) fan. With a wave, Zack hits the floor and runs up and down a couple of times and throws down a few dunks. Afterward in the locker room, with the boot that has been on his left foot for quite some time discarded near a trash can, Zack says he was cleared to play just before he ran out on the court.

"It has been so hard for me to sit there and watch my teammates and not be able to contribute," he says. "I mean, I'm so happy for us, of course, but it has been hard." Zack says he could maybe play in "1- or 2-minute stretches if Coach G needs me." We'll see.

In the stands are some La Salle fans, none more excited than 1990 grad Kevin Williams. An independent filmmaker, Williams screened his picture, "Fear of a Black Republican," at the University of Southern California, which is right across the street from the team hotel. In fact, Williams is staying at the hotel, which he booked over a month ago.

"I congratulated the players and thanked them for what they did in the hotel," Williams says. "It's unbelievable, a small, little Catholic school. It's special. It's the March Madness that the whole country loves."

As the practice nears an end, the La Salle players, spearheaded by Galloway, start showing off their dunking skills. The biggest applause from the group comes when 6-foot Tyreek Duren throws down a couple. Again, laughs and fun are overflowing. This team knows it belongs here, knows it's good enough to advance.

Getting the players to leave the Staples Center is a futile mission. They want to soak it all in, see the locker rooms where Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul get ready for their games. They joke in the hallway and wonder what they'll do for the rest of the day until the team dinner. D.J. Peterson claims to need a haircut, but Galloway tells him no.

"Can't do it now, bro. We've won with your hair like that, you don't change it now." Peterson puts up a protest, but you just know the way-more vocal Galloway will get his way. Galloway then runs the hallways like a little kid, and talks to the security guards like they are long-lost friends. He is the best player on the team and certainly its most outgoing.

The Explorers are a confident group and, more important, a very skilled basketball team. While the talk is about what problems Wichita State presents, particularly its rebounding and physicality, a thought pops to mind: It must be mind-boggling to come up with a way to stop the guard-heavy Explorers with a big man like Jerrell Wright, who has shot 16-for-18 in the tournament.

It has caught the eye of Shockers coach Gregg Marshall.

"They play with a great amount of confidence," Marshall says. "Their ability to break down defenses off the dribble, create shots for one another and just the multitude of guys that they have that can do that. John has them really exuding confidence and belief in one another."