Not for Pat Flannery, though.


“Watching Memphis play last night, as a competitor, got me thinking about some things we could’ve done,’’ Flannery, the Bucknell coach, said Friday.


This was five days after Memphis, top-seeded and probably the Big Dance’s most impressive entry so far, had eliminated Flannery’s club from the NCAA tournament. It certainly looked, to most people, as though Bucknell had done all it could.


“When you play that Friday-Sunday [schedule], you only have a day [to prepare]. It’s tough to get ready for those kind of horses and that kind of depth, but ... .’’


Flannery was cruising toward southcentral Pennsylvania as he spoke, where he planned to reconnect with family and friends from the area.


Friends and otherwise will remember Flannery from his days at Lebanon Valley College, which he led to the NCAA Division III championship in 1994.


As Big Dance viewers now know, Flannery is a hyperactive sideline presence with the most expressive mug since Mickey Rooney.


He was even wilder at LVC. Flannery’s teams and his colorful, combative sideline style amped up LVC’s natural rivalry with Franklin & Marshall and made for something of an Al Davis-Pete Rozelle moment when F&M coach Glenn Robinson, a member of the tournament committee, had the duty/honor or presenting Flannery with the ’94 championship trophy.


It all led to Flannery becoming a coaching star “overnight’’ when his Bison upset Kansas in the first round of last year’s NCAA tournament. This year Bucknell went 27-5 and again won an NCAA game, beating Arkansas before the ride ended Sunday, in Dallas, against Memphis. Like many supposedly overnight stars, Flannery is anything but. He got the Bucknell job just weeks after winning it all at LVC. He then spent most of a decade keeping that program above water while most of its Patriot League brethren moved toward awarding basketball scholarships. Previously, the Patriot had been a no-scholarship Division I league, like the Ivy.


Flannery was caught in a Catch-22: By coaching the pants off his overmatched players, he kept his program just successful enough for the Bucknell suits to think scholarships weren’t necessary.


Three years ago, the Bucknell administration finally agreed to permit Flannery three full rides a year for four years and a constant 12 rides from there forward.


He started handing the scholarships out to the current junior class, meaning seniors Charles Lee and Gary Bettencourt have remained non-scholarship players. They are Bucknell’s two leading scorers, and Lee is the Patriot League Player of the Year.


“We had to sit down as a program three years ago and decide if we would grandfather the kids who were already here,’’ Flannery said.


“It’s worked out great because we didn’t lose anybody.’’ There are currently eight scholarship players, with the ninth a medical casualty.


“Typical us, though,’’ Flannery said. “That kid’s graduating a semester early.’’


The 10th, 11th and 12th rides are already earmarked to incoming freshmen from Virginia, California and Houston. The scholarships are why finally, the last couple years, Flannery’s Bucknell clubs have looked like a D-I version of his LVC teams.


“Back then, we always had some depth up to [the eighth or ninth man],’’ he said. “In the past [at Bucknell], we always had great kids, but we’d really have three or four players and fill in with basically JVs.


“That’s what the scholarships have meant. We’re able to go high-octane. I’ve told our kids they really do remind me of the kids we had at Lebanon. I talk about them all the time.’’


Bucknell is the only team in this year’s field that graduated 100 percent of its players in the most recent NCAA survey. Three of the five starters had grade-point averages of 3.4 or higher.


A Los Angeles Times story on the Bison last week carried the headline, “Check out the Big Brains on Bucknell.’’


The last non-scholarship member of the Patriot League, Lafayette, will start giving rides next year. It appears that the PL is getting kids the suddenly woebegone Ivy League used to.


“It used to be, we couldn’t touch [the Ivys] on financial aid, with the endowments they have,’’ Flannery said. “Now we can at least get in the home, get ’em on campus, offer them something the Ivy can’t.’’


Which brings us to schools that can give Flannery the one thing Bucknell probably can’t, a chance to compete for the national championship. Schools like Indiana and Temple and Missouri and Pepperdine, who are currently looking for a head basketball coach.


Flannery admitted he’s heard, in a very informal way, from some of them.


“It happened last year, too,’’ he said. He added that Bucknell re-did his contract last year, and that he would talk to the school’s administration this week before heading to Indianapolis for the Final Four.


“I’m pretty set in my ways, though,’’ he said. “I love Pennsylvania. I have two boys, 9 and 11, who are dug in here. My wife is a Bucknell grad.


“Do I want to move to a Pepperdine or a Missouri? When I left Lebanon Valley, I never really got the chance to enjoy everything that came with winning that national title. Last year, a few things came up, but I really just wanted to enjoy the summer. I don’t see anything out there right now, either.’’


But then:


“I don’t want Bucknell to take me for granted. One thing I’ve learned is you can never say never.’’


Mike Gross is a sports writer for the Sunday News. E-mail him at mgross@lnpnews.com.