Villanova Wildcats

Villanova and Temple, two football teams that started their seasons headed in different directions, will be in action tomorrow, one trying to continue its winning ways and one trying to turn its season around. The undefeated Villanova Wildcats (3-0) take on the Huskies from Connecticut in a 1:30 p.m. Yankee Conference game at Villanova Stadium. The Wildcats have been awesome on offense and defense in their first three games, which were wins over Maine, Bucknell and Richmond, outscoring their opponents 123 to 10. The Wildcats offense is led by the passing of junior quarterback Tom Colombo, and a strong defense is anchored by senior defensive tackle Willie Oshodin.

The usual pattern for the Villanova Wildcats is to sign a bunch of high school players and redshirt them as freshman, letting all the newcomers learn 'Nova's systems and schemes and work out in the weight room. The pattern has been altered slightly this year because more than half of Andy Talley's 1992 starters will have graduated. For the first time in nine years as Villanova's football coach, Talley is bringing in two junior-college players - and he must hope guard Jim Trischan from Mesa (Ariz.

Joseph Patrick Rogers Sr., 86, a retired marketing director and a former Villanova University football coach, died of cancer Friday, April 1, at home. Mr. Rogers, who was a star basketball and football player at Roman Catholic High School, played halfback for the Villanova Wildcats from 1946 to 1949. He returned to Villanova as freshman coach in 1952, and from 1956 to 1966, was backfield coach, He was interim head coach in 1959. He also coached basketball at Waldron Academy in Merion for several years.

Congratulations to coach Jay Wright and his Villanova Wildcats men's basketball team for their stirring run through March Madness. The team's tournament run ended Friday with a loss to mighty North Carolina, after a really, really, really awful referee's call cost them a chance to tie the game with two seconds left. Wright and his players were most impressive after the final horn blew, as they refused to whine about the call, blast the refs or blame anyone but themselves for the defeat.

The top-ranked Villanova Wildcats snared two of the Atlantic Ten Football Conference's three major postseason awards yesterday. Wide receiver Brian Finneran was named offensive player of the year, and Andy Talley coach of the year. The voting was by the league's 12 head coaches. Finneran, holder of 15 school records, completed the regular season with 75 catches for 1,151 yards and 17 touchdowns. "There were some terrific players in the league," Talley said. "A lot of the coaches felt Brian was an outstanding player, and week in and week out performed extremely well.

On Saturday, the Villanova Wildcats wrapped up the top seed in this week's Big East tournament. Yesterday, Villanova found out its quarterfinal opponent: the winner of Wednesday's first-round game between eighth-seeded Syracuse and ninth-seeded Notre Dame. The quarterfinal game will tip off at noon Thursday at Madison Square Garden in New York. The winner of that game moves into Friday's first semifinal, at 7 p.m. Saturday's championship game begins at 8 p.m. "Last year, all four top seeds held into the semis," said Villanova coach Steve Lappas.

Local sports activities this weekend feature swimming and diving, lots of college basketball and the Flyers. The Eastern Interscholastic Swimming and Diving Championships will take place today and tomorrow at La Salle University's Kirk Pool, at 20th Street and Olney Avenue. The meet features more than 700 swimmers and divers from Catholic and other private schools throughout the United States. Men's and women's swimming trials begin each day at 9 a.m., with men's and women's diving beginning at 1 p.m. each day. Swimming finals will be held each evening at 6:15 p.m. On the college basketball scene, Penn, Drexel and La Salle play their final home games of the regular season this weekend.

The sports calendar features the Flyers and Eagles and lots of college football this weekend. The Eagles meet the Indianapolis Colts at 1 p.m. Sunday at Veterans Stadium, with tight end Keith Jackson making his 1990 home debut. The Eagles will be trying to even their season record at 2-2 against the winless Colts (0-3), who are led by quarterback Jeff George, the first player taken in last spring's NFL draft. College football activity has the Villanova Wildcats hosting the Flames of Liberty University at 1:30 p.m. tomorrow at Villanova Stadium.

The Temple Owls and Villanova Wildcats have laced up their sneakers and gone at each other in every one of the last 37 seasons. Not this time. Owls athletic director Charles Theokas confirmed yesterday that Temple and Villanova will not play each other next season. The Owls' 1992-93 basketball schedule is chock full of teams that were invited to last season's NCAA tournament party. There are games at Cincinnati, which reached last year's Final Four, and against Florida State, in the Citrus Bowl Tournament in Orlando in mid- December.

Winning may not be everything, but it is something. Just ask anyone rooting for the Temple Owls or the Villanova Wildcats. Both teams were eliminated from the NCAA college basketball tournament on Saturday, and there's not a shade of doubt that their fans would have preferred a win instead. The outcome of Saturday's games was even more discouraging because it was apparent long before the final buzzers that both teams were going to be defeated soundly by their opponents. Temple, number one in the nation, with 32 wins and only one loss going into the game, offered the greater hope.

A 7-foot-1 backup center for the 1985 national champion Villanova Wildcats, Chuck Everson said there is a series of four questions that everyone always asks him. "People come up to me and the first thing they say to me is, 'How tall are you?' " Everson said. "I tell them, and they say, 'Do you play basketball?' I tell them. 'Where do you play?' I tell them, and they say, 'Were you on that team?' And I say yeah. " "Then I hear everybody's story about where they were the night we beat Georgetown," he added.

SIX YEARS AGO, Mouphtaou Yarou remembers, there were many, many difficult phone calls home to Benin. He came here from that small West African country for high school, and for basketball, and for all of the attendant opportunities, but he wondered sometimes what he had gotten himself into. He wondered whether it was worth all of the anxiety. "I was very homesick," he said, a couple of days before the Villanova Wildcats begin another NCAA Tournament journey. Yarou, 22, is their senior big man, the oncourt leader of a team that swung wildly between disaster and elation - sometimes in the same week.

NEW YORK - Even on their best days this season, and there have been some very good ones, the Villanova Wildcats made it hard to believe they are destined to stick around very long once tournament time begins. Well, tournament time has begun, the Wildcats are undefeated in the postseason, and it's still a little hard to believe. Coach Jay Wright would agree there is a question whether his team, a mixture of talented youth and workmanlike veterans, can manage an extended stretch of good basketball.

For college basketball fans, this is a great time of year. As the season winds down and the conference tournaments near, it's great fun to speculate about "who's in and who's out" of the NCAA Tournament. Many schools have no realistic chance of winning it all. Just making the tournament and stealing a game or two is the whole goal of their season. Here in Philadelphia, we have a rich tradition regarding the NCAA Tournament. Every team in the Big 5 has not only been in the tournament many times, but each has advanced to the hallowed "Final Four.

THE PRESEASON is almost behind them. The Villanova Wildcats still have to go to Penn next week, but other than that it's all Colonial Athletic Association from here on out. Which is just the way coach Andy Talley prefers it. "That's a good place to be," he said. "It was good to get a win, for sure. Now we're excited to be back in our conference. " The win was over visiting Fordham, 28-13. That followed an opening, 41-10 loss to Temple. Next up is 0-1 Rhode Island, Saturday on the Main Line.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - The Tennessee Vols have been doing a little daydreaming about other spring break activities during practice and coach Pat Summitt says they better snap out of it. With how quiet and distracted her Tennessee team has been while preparing for a shot at the Final Four in Saturday's regional semifinal meeting with Kansas, Summitt is concerned they may not get that opportunity. "I think we've got to get them refocused," Summitt said. "It's obviously very important to all of us [to get to the Final Four]

Joseph Patrick Rogers Sr., 86, a retired marketing director and a former Villanova University football coach, died of cancer Friday, April 1, at home. Mr. Rogers, who was a star basketball and football player at Roman Catholic High School, played halfback for the Villanova Wildcats from 1946 to 1949. He returned to Villanova as freshman coach in 1952, and from 1956 to 1966, was backfield coach, He was interim head coach in 1959. He also coached basketball at Waldron Academy in Merion for several years.

CHENEY, Wash. - The defense rests. The defending Football Championship Series champion Villanova Wildcats are headed home following a 41-31 loss to Eastern Washington in a semifinal playoff game last night. Eastern Washington will play the winner of today's Georgia Southern-Delaware game in the title game on Jan. 7 in Frisco, Texas. Villanova star Matt Szczur left in the second half with concussion symptoms and did not return. Through its first two playoff games, Villanova prospered in the takeaway/giveaway department.

NACOGDOCHES, Texas - The head football coach has been quoted in the local paper equating the Villanova Wildcats to the Pittsburgh Steelers. The defensive coordinator has said publicly that 'Nova's running attack is every bit as good as Texas A&M's. The regent chairman thinks that playing the defending national champion on national TV is "a great opportunity for us to showcase our university nationally, and you can't buy that kind of publicity. " The business manager said they've been selling tickets "fast and furious," and indicated that the school was expecting a standing-room-only crowd of more than 14,000 in a stadium that would look something like the banks of the Ganges on a holy day. No question about it, the Stephen F. Austin University community is eager to take advantage of a rare opportunity when its No. 3 Lumberjacks (9-2)

For a team with national-title aspirations, last week's 17-14 loss at Rhode Island set back the Villanova football team. Entering that game, Villanova (6-3, 4-2 Colonial Athletic Association) was ranked third in the Sports Network top 25, and was on a three-game winning streak. Then came three turnovers (two fumbles, one interception) against Rhode Island, and Villanova missed an opportunity to be one of three schools in the CAA with just one conference loss. That also left Villanova, last year's national champion, in the ninth slot in the poll with only two games remaining.