Today NCAA Tournament: First round, at Dayton n Liberty vs. N.C. A&T, 4:30 p.m., TruTV n Mid. Tenn., vs. Saint Mary’s, 7 p.m., TruTV

It’s a game few, if any, in college basketball expected the Flames to make less than two weeks ago.

It’s also a game they struggled to make as recently as Monday, when mechanical problems caused a change in planes and an 8-hour delay of their flight from Virginia to Ohio.

“The goal when you fly is for the plane to take off and land, right?,” Joyce told the Journal on Monday night. “The first one couldn’t take off, which means it’s probably not going to land. So we were kind of blessed to get the second one.”

The Flames (15-20) finally made it to the tournament late Monday afternoon, and so did Joyce – who could very well be the only New Mexico connection in the tournament outside of the Lobos and Aggies.

“It’s pretty special,” he said. “Anytime you’re in coaching, seeing players on a day-to-day basis and the challenges every team goes through, it’s just so exciting and gratifying when it comes together.”

It came together just in time for Liberty, a private Christian school founded by the late evangelist Dr. Jerry Falwell.

JOYCE: Was a star guard at La Cueva in the 1990s.

The Flames, coached by former Colorado State coach Dale Layer, started the season 0-8 on the way to an 11-20 regular season record. They finished fifth in their six-team division of the Big South at 6-10.

But in the conference tournament the Flames – well – caught fire.

They won 78-61 at Coastal Carolina, then edged South Division champ High Point 61-60 and Gardner Webb 65-62 before shocking top-seeded and North Division winner Charleston Southern 87-76 in the title game.

Just like that, Liberty was dancing again – the third trip to the NCAA Tournament for a program that began in 1972.

It’s the second time ever a team with 20 losses made the field (Coppin State was 16-20 in 2008), and the Flames’ .429 winning percentage (15-20) is the lowest for an NCAA tournament team since Oakland (Michigan) had a 12-18 record (.400) in 2005.

But Liberty isn’t making any apologies.

“We are just embracing where we are at,” Joyce says. “People don’t realize how many injures we had to deal with the first semester. We were better than record the whole year. A lot of time teams fall into that pit they can’t get out of. But the players just kept going to work, going to work. We used different lineups all year, but we got healthy at the right time. This is a surprise to other people, but not to our team.”

Indirectly, Joyce – who was raised by his grandfather, the late Albuquerque sportscaster Frank Joyce – ended up at Liberty because of former University of New Mexico coach Ritchie McKay.

After being fired at UNM in 2007, McKay was hired as Liberty’s head coach that spring and hired Layer as an assistant, after Layer had been fired at Colorado State. McKay and Layer are long-time friends and previously coached together – with each being an assistant for the other.

Layer left after one year to become an assistant at Marquette, but when McKay left Liberty in 2009 to become an assistant at Virginia, Layer was hired as Liberty’s head coach. Layer then hired Joyce, who had been an assistant for Layer at Colorado State during the 2006-07 season. The two developed a relationship while Joyce was playing at Northeastern Junior College (Sterling, Colo.) in the early 1990s.

“If you just look at those paths, all those things when you put them together over time, it seems like a bunch of coincidences,” Joyce said. “I just think God has a plan, and you just really see it play out. When you start writing it down and see all that had to happen to work out, it’s really unbelievable.”

Joyce was a gritty and vocal star guard for La Cueva, where he helped the Bears to three state tournaments from 1989-91, winning it all during Joyce’s sophomore season in 1989.

“He was the ultimate floor leader,” says Brian O’Neill, then an assistant at La Cueva and who was later head coach at Cibola and an assistant at UNM and Baylor. “He was super competitive, but I just never visualized him as being a coach. Looking back at all the characteristics he had as a player, he fit that coaching mold to a tee.

” … He had a fuse when he was younger, but now he’s very mild-mannered, and a heckuva tactician when it comes to coaching.”

Joyce first played college ball at Northeastern Junior College, where he made all-region before transferring to Idaho State as a junior. After helping the Bengals reach the Big Sky title game, he transferred to Oklahoma Christian for his senior season, and was named all-conference.

Joyce received a masters degree from Central Oklahoma in 1997 (criminal justice with an emphasis in sociology) before becoming a coach at the school.

He was an assistant in junior college for six seasons at three schools before becoming head coach at Northeastern Junior College from 2002-06. After his one year as an assistant at CSU, Joyce returned to the juco level as head coach of Western Nebraska for two years. He has a stellar 138-59 record as a head coach.

Joyce and his wife, Tina, have been married 17 years and have two children; son Dalton (14) and daughter Regan Tate (9). He has 12 hours towards his Ph. D. in education.

Are his aspirations to become a Division I head coach?

“I think that stuff kind of takes care of itself over time,” he says. “I feel really blessed. Who knows what the future has in store, but I’ve got a good job. I just figure if you continue to work and persevere, over time God gives you opportunities and you need to make the most of those opportunities.”
Joyce is assistant coach of FlamesJOYCE: Was a star guard at La Cueva in the 1990s.See JOYCE on PAGE D3

New Mexican in tournament
— This article appeared on page D1 of the Albuquerque Journal