Lafayatte guard playing 'Bieg'

There's nothing big about Lafayette senior point guard Tim Bieg -- except the pronunciation of his last name. His 5'11", 185-pound frame does not strike fear into any of his opponents. His baby face and black curly hair give him an appearance that is far from that of the prototypical basketball player. But Bieg has been the starting point guard for the Leopards for four straight years and has led his team to the last two Patriot League championships. There's no denying the fact that he's a basketball player -- and a very good one at that. "Timmy moves the basketball very well and hits the open shot," said Lafayette coach Fran O'Hanlon, a former Penn assistant. "He's our floor general." A floor general is exactly what he is. Bieg never wanted to be Lafayette's go-to-guy and has flourished in his role of getting the ball into the hands of the team's top scorers. This season, he is fourth on the team in scoring, averaging 11.6 points per game, but has already dished out a team-high 52 assists. Bieg's pass-first mentality, coupled with his excellent ball handling skills and sweet stroke from downtown -- he is 27-for-73 on the season -- make him the perfect point guard and a perfect fit for the Lafayette team. "We had a need for a point guard, and Timmy stepped in and filled that need," O'Hanlon explained. With these credentials, one might think that Bieg could have run the point for quite a few colleges. In actuality, O'Hanlon was the only Division I coach to actively recruit Bieg. That's not to say Bieg wasn't a top commodity coming out of high school. It's just that he was recruited more for another sport he could play pretty well -- baseball. "I got a couple of letters from Penn, Princeton and Dartmouth for baseball," Bieg said, who batted .463 with six home runs as a junior for Camden Catholic High School. "I really wasn't sure what I wanted to do -- play baseball, basketball, maybe both. I knew going to Penn, it would be tough to play basketball, though." Coming to Penn might have been the ideal situation for Bieg. Born in Philadelphia and growing up in nearby Haddonfield, N.J., Bieg became a huge fan of Big 5 basketball and, like many, grew to love the Palestra. "I've played in some pretty big arenas, but the Palestra is the best place to play," he said. "It's just a great atmosphere." Penn, however, recruited Bieg more for baseball than basketball. When he missed his entire senior baseball season due to a broken hand, many of the Ivy League schools, including Penn, dropped out of the Tim Bieg sweepstakes. Now Bieg just has to settle for trying to defeat the Quakers. That's why on the Lafayette Web site, Bieg lists his ideal SportsCenter highlight to simply be "beating Penn." "Well, it's really not just Penn," Bieg explains. "It's any of the Big 5 schools, really. I grew up watching La Salle and Penn. Beating a Big 5 school is a dream of mine." Unfortunately, the Philly native has never been able to realize this goal. He's played in the Palestra twice, but has fallen victim to the Quakers both times. Last year, Bieg and his team tried to pull off a monster upset over No. 2 seeded Temple in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, but the Owls were simply too much for the Patriot League champs. And this year, the Leopards fell to La Salle. Still, Bieg thoroughly enjoyed the national exposure that comes with March Madness. "It's really exciting -- the national attention that you get," Bieg said. "Being able to play in front of large crowds, nice arenas, it was very exciting for my team." Bieg will look to lead his team back to the NCAA Tournament this season, but with the loss of Brian Ehlers and Stefan Ciosci -- who combined to win the last three Patriot League Player of the Year honors -- to graduation, the task will not be easy. Lafayette has dropped its first three conference games thus far this season, and it looks as if they have fallen off their Patriot League pedestal. But the season is far from over, and the senior captain will look to turn things around before his tenure at Lafayette comes to a close. And with a big heart and a big game, Bieg might just have a little more magic left.

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