Richards, Babington among local athletes in NCAA

Everyone's road to the NCAA Tournament has to start somewhere. But it's even better, and more befitting the public's penchant for underdogs, when the path unfurls where you'd least expect it.

When Davidson senior point guard Jason Richards was a third-grader growing up in the Pittsburgh suburbs, it wasn't easy to find peers who could challenge him.

So on weekends his father, Tom, would drive Jason into the inner city to play in a league at the Pittsburgh Boys Club.

A league of eighth-graders.

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"I don't want to make it sound like he was the best or anything, because he wasn't," Tom Richards said. "He was really overmatched physically, but he found a way to compete."

That theme repeated itself once the Richards family relocated to the Chicago suburbs. Jason became a four-year starter at Barrington High School, including as a freshman sharpshooter who stood just 5-foot-6.

Years have passed. Jason has grown to 6-2 and 195 pounds. And now it has become more difficult to find peers to compete with him.

In fact, when it comes to finding Division I players who pass the ball as well as he does, it's impossible.

Richards leads the nation with 8.0 assists per game going into Davidson's NCAA first-round game against Gonzaga at 11:25 a.m. Friday.

In a bemusing coincidence, Richards and the Wildcats have been assigned to the subregional being held in Raleigh, N.C.

That's where Tom Richards' greatest season as a collegian ended 34 Marches ago.

Richards, who led Pittsburgh in assists in 1973-74, and his teammates lost in the Elite Eight to David Thompson and eventual NCAA champion North Carolina State.

When Davidson's tipoff approaches Friday morning, Tom Richards will be far more unnerved by the prospect of watching his son than he was by the prospect of dealing with otherworldly David Thompson.

"It's not remotely close," Tom Richards said. "It's worse being a parent. I can remember looking at my dad and how worn out he'd look after my games and I'd say, 'How are you tired? I'm the one who just played.'

"And he said, 'You wait. You'll find out.' "

Someday, Tom will find the right moment to share the same advice with Jason. Now's not that time.

Jason is so focused on Davidson's bid to become the next Gonzaga -- he likes to say his school is building "a basketball empire" -- that he didn't even want to talk about next month's invitation to the NBA's Portsmouth camp. Or what he might do with his degree in history.

"I'm about winning basketball games," Jason said. "I'm not looking forward to what's next. My focus is all on the NCAA Tournament and winning a couple of games."

Richards isn't the only former local prodigy who thinks an NCAA win or two would be the perfect way to wrap up a career.

Austin Peay senior guard Todd Babington, a 2004 Prairie Ridge graduate, heard from dozens of family and friends last week after ESPN turned his team's Ohio Valley title-game win into a Babington showcase.

The SportsCenter highlights focused on Babington's six 3-pointers that earned him OVC Most Valuable Player honors.

"It's been pretty cool," Babington said. "Everyone's talking about us. Campus is pretty fun right now."

Austin Peay's automatic bid earned the little school from Clarksville, Tenn., a No. 15 seed in the South regional, which means a first-round game against sixth-ranked Texas at 2 p.m. Friday.

If the Longhorns focus primarily on those Babington-heavy highlights, then they'll miss the point when it comes to Austin Peay.

Yes, Babington is a terrific shooter. He owns 99 3-pointers this year and 251 for his career, but he's just one of five Governors averaging double figures.

"That's why we're so dangerous," Babington said. "You never know where it's coming from. It's a different guy as our leading scorer each game.

"We pretty much just run motion (offense), see who's going off that night and get him the ball."

That's one of the genius aspects to the NCAA Tournament.

While players like Duke's Jon Scheyer had their recruiting process plastered all over newspapers and Web sites -- and they've spent more time playing on ESPN than guys like Babington and Richards have spent watching ESPN -- Babington and Richards are perfect examples of players who have worked to become equals of guys like Scheyer.

Richards' other college options, for example, were Colgate, Furman and Ivy League schools that can't offer scholarships.

Jonathan "Bucky" Cox, who played with Richards at Barrington, went to Drake as a walk-on. Now the 6-8 forward is leading the 28-4 team from Des Moines against Western Kentucky on Friday.

Most of Babington's offers came from football programs intrigued by his skills as a quarterback.

"I didn't get any (basketball) looks from schools in Illinois or anywhere in the Midwest," Babington said.

If Austin Peay hadn't come through with an offer, Babington's top basketball option would have been Augustana.

As in Division III Augustana.

While everyone's road to the NCAA Tournament must start somewhere, it can't start at Augustana.

When asked how he might feel in the moments leading up to tipoff Friday, the glib Babington was momentarily stumped.

"Probably like nothing I've ever felt before," he said. "I've been dreaming about this since I was a little kid -- and it's probably like that for a lot of our guys.

"Hopefully we can get a win or two."