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Bargain shopping; At Loyola, recruiting not the same for Patsos.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Jon Siegel, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Second in an occasional series on one of college basketball's worst programs trying to improve its fortunes.

EWING, N.J. - The midsummer sun blazes on the tennis courts at the College of New Jersey. There is no tennis being played as the temperature surges toward 90 degrees, but there are plenty of coaches looking for love - the college basketball variety - on the simmering asphalt.

Nets have been taken down and portable basketball hoops set up beyond the baselines. Some 700 high school players are participating at the Eastern Invitational Camp, hoping to be discovered by the 250 college coaches who wear shirts bearing the logos of small-college outposts like Canisius, Sacred Heart, Quinnipiac and Philadelphia University.

You won't find Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Calhoun or Jim Boeheim combing the 12 makeshift basketball courts - eight indoor, four outdoor - for their next blue-chip recruit. The Who's Who of college coaches are up the New Jersey Turnpike at Fairleigh Dickinson at the posh ABCD Reebok Camp, where 250 of the nation's top prospects enjoy the red-carpet treatment, not to mention air conditioning and true bounces.

Jimmy Patsos once would have been with them. He spent the last 13 seasons as an assistant at Maryland, where he was Gary Williams' scout at places like Reebok. But as the new coach of Loyola, this year he's at the South Jersey camp, where the Who's Not of hoops congregate in sweltering conditions. There is no admission fee, except for players who invest $155 to attend the no-frills two-day session in hopes of playing their way into a college scholarship.

"I want...