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A Bright, Bright Future For UK Freshmen
Point one.
If there are two finer freshman guards than Rex Chapman and Derrick Miller, I'd like to meet them.
Point two.
I wonder if Bobby Knight is prepared to challenge this pair of phenoms for the next four years.
Despite risking the possibility of speaking far too early after such a short period of judging, these two youngsters figure to play mighty big roles at the University of Kentucky for the next four years.
And that's only the beginning.
Chapman and Miller alone could win a few games, practically single-handed. But they won't be without tremendous help.
And this is not discounting this current season. To the contrary. By season's end, this Kentucky team could develop into something special if, if Cedric Jenkins should return healthy and if Mike Scott decides to cast his lot with the Big Blue.
Kentucky is no pushover right now. Bobby Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers can attest to that. Ranked No. 1 in the nation last week by The Sporting News, Indiana had to fight for its life at home in Bloomington just to eke out a 71-66 victory in a game in which Kentucky had an opportunity to tie with less than 40 seconds remaining in the contest.
Several good omens surfaced for Kentucky Saturday.
Irving Thomas blossomed like never before. The sophomore from Miami, Fla., hauled down a career-high 10 rebounds and pumped home 10 points against as an aggressive man-to-man defense as UK will ever face.
As a team, Kentucky won a critical rebounding battle (33-29) on the road and forced the home-standing Hoosiers into 15 turnovers while committing only seven on the UK end of the floor.
UK's youngest talent, rookies Chapman and Miller and sophomore Thomas, combined for a torrid 19 of 31 from the field.
In many people's book, a loss is a loss, but the Cats' valiant effort in Hoosierland certainly made several basketball experts take notice Saturday afternoon.
Practically no one gave the younger Wildcats a shot of keeping the margin under double digits, let alone taking the game down to the wire.
While Eddie Sutton would have preferred a victory, it wasn't too hard to understand why the second-year Kentucky coach could squeeze a smile or two when he was asked time and time again about his freshman guards.
The shootout between Rex Chapman and Steve Alford was something else. Each finished the game with 26 points. Each scored ten field goals although Alford needed one more attempt.
Thomas, UK's leading rebounder with 10, logged his number in 28 minutes of action. Rob Lock grabbed five missed shots in just 14 minutes of action and Indiana's Dean Garrett was the game's top rebounder with 12 in 39 minutes.
The one glaring statistic which turned the
tide in the game was the free throw department where IU canned 18 of 23 attempts while the Wildcats were good on only five of 15. Kentucky actually outscored IU six points from the field.
Kentucky Coach Eddie Sutton will be coaching the South squad in the U.S. Sports Festival this summer in Chapel Hill, N.C.
Among the other coaches will be Andy Russo of Washington who will coach the West team and former Maryland coach Lefty Driesell who will coach the East squad. Sutton will coach the South stars.
The basketball games will be held at the Dean Dome on the campus of the University of North Carolina.
Sutton, who has been very active in the National Association of Basketball Coaches, will become president of the group at next March's Final Four.
As his career continues to blossom, you can bet Sutton will be one of the top candidates to become the U. S. Olympic coach in 1992. Next summer could be the first step toward that goal.
In four statistical coaching categories rated by the Southeastern Conference in its annual media guide, Sutton leads his colleagues in three of them and only years in action keeps him from leading in the fourth category.
Sutton has the best winning percentage against SEC opposition. In his only season within the SEC, his team posted a .913 percentage on a record of 21-2. His closest competitor is Alabama's Wimp Sanderson who stands at .590.
His overall record while at an SEC school is tops, that being an .889 clip on 32-4. Sanderson is second at .676 in six seasons.
Career-wise, Sutton is tops again with a .744 clip in 17 years. His overall mark is 374-129. Second is Sanderson again at .676 on a record of 127-61.
In the all-time victory category, Sutton is fourth with 374. Ahead of him is Florida's Norm Sloan with 560 in 34 years, Vander-bilt's C. M. Newton with 452 in 29 years and Georgia's Hugh Durham with 376 in 20 years.
Eddie Sutton once said he couldn't remember the last time that son Sean hadn't sat on his bench at home.
The comment was made this past summer when the recruiting season was just heating up and the Sutton son was preparing to select the college he would attend and play college ball. ,
Well, he picked Kentucky and he's been at every home game, sitting right there at the end of his father's bench just like he did last season and the years before at Arkansas and Creighton.
He won't be there Saturday night when the Cats host Lamar. He'll be on the same bench when the basketball is tipped off the first time next season, but between now and then, well, he'll be somewhere in the seats reserved for the paying customers.
The NCAA has ruled that son Sean can no longer occupy a place on the Kentucky bench, his father said last week.
Any comment, coach? "No, not at all."
Sutton knows when to speak and when to listen. When the NCAA speaks, the elder Sutton is smart enough to keep the lips tight and ears wide open.
Some other time Sutton might have fought such a ridiculous directive, but with all the cry babies moaning this and that about Kentucky, Sutton is well aware he will get little sympathy from the outside.
The NCAA decision is about as absurd as the one which prevents coaches from attending all-star games during non-recruiting periods, even if they have a son or daughter playing.
Such was the situation when Clem Haskins' daughter played in the Kentucky-Indiana All-Star games back a few years ago. Both the boys and girls played in the doubleheader.
Haskins, then coach at Western Kentucky, was spotted at Market Square Arena by a Lexington Herald-Leader who asked him if he knew he had violated a recruiting rule.
Haskins replied that the NCAA was crazy if it thought he wasn't going to watch his daughter play in one of the biggest games of her life.
Three cheers for Clem Haskins.
HITS AND MISSES  ... The
Southeastern Conference sent its best official, Paul Galvan. to Bloomington as its one-third of the officiating crew for the Kentucky-Indiana game Saturday, but Eddie Sutton was a little miffed that Galvan worked a late night game in Memphis. Tenn., the night before. Galvan also called the Memphis State-UNLV game which was televised over ESPN. It started at 10 p.m. which meant Galvan was blowing a whistle right at midnight, got a few hours sleep, caught a very early morning flight to Indianapolis and then hurried over to Bloomington for the 2 p.m. tip-off. There has been a great deal of concern of officials working games two nights in a row and doing a day game after a regular night game. And when the night games begins at 10 p.m., well. . .Fatigue can hit anyone when they're trying to keep up with 20-year-old racehorses . . . Before you get the wrong impression, Galvan worked his usual game, which is the best any coach can expect. There is none better than Galvan. By the way, this figures to be Paul's final season of officiating according to his friends. He is now supervisor of officials in the Southwest Conference and he has already cut his schedule back this season. College basketball and the SEC in particular will miss this one . . . With all the ink devoted to Bobby Knight and his new book about the alleged abuse in the Kentucky program, it was interesting to note how much time Knight took to "sweet talk" Sutton during Kentucky's workout Friday evening at Assembly Hall. Knight spent about 45 minutes with Sutton, trying to explain what he didn't do a good job of explaining in the book. At one point, he grabbed Richard Madison and proceeded to put on a coaching clinic for Sutton. The UK coach said Knight told him nothing was directed at him . . . Lamar University, Kentucky's opponent Saturday, announced last week that it is leav-
ing the Southland Conference to form a new conference  with  Arkansas  State, New Orleans,   Southwestern  Louisiana, Pan American and Louisiana Tech. The teams will not compete as a football conference. The new basketball league will be known as the American South Athletic Conference . . . In a recent poll of sports publications around the Southeastern Conference, Alabama was voted the preseason favorite, but by a narrow 94-84 margin over Kentucky. Auburn was third and Florida fourth with LSU fifth followed by Georgia, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Mississippi and Mississippi State. Alabama's Derrick  McKey and LSU's Nikita Wilson were voted preseason co-MVPs with 10 votes each. UK's Ed Davender received six votes to finish on the second five while Winston Bennett got three votes which had been cast before his injury. James Blackmon got the nod from two vote casters. UK's Rex Chapman was the runaway choice for top newcomer with seven votes with Florida Dwane Schintzius getting two votes and LSU's Fess Irvin received one vote. Which will be the big games this winter? Voters believe the big rivalry to watch will be theKentucky-Alabama series . . . Thanks to a pair of upsets, Florida State is probably the surprise team in the nation at this early stage an.d the victims of the surprise are a pair of SEC clubs which expected to contend for high national rankings. State first thumped arch-rival Florida 80-76 as a state-record crowd of 0,303 looked on as new coach Pat Kennedy won his coaching debut. The second victim was Alabama which was upset by the same State team one week later in Tallahassee by a score of 72-71 . . . Officials of the preseason National Invitation Tournament are considering a proposal to take the Final Four away from New York's Madison Square Garden because of poor attendance. If the NTT put the Final Four on a college campus, it certainly will attracted a huge crowd, but then again, some schools may not want to participate. Right now, schools know they will have a chance to perform on a neutral court in the final two games, rather than playing on someone's home court . . . Rumors are running rampant that the Lexington Herald-Leader will hire Louisville Courier-Journal sports editor Billy Reed as a part-time sports columnist within days. Reed is at odds with his bosses at the Louisville newpaper and he has reported been on paid leave since early last week. Reed's problems began several weeks ago when the newspapers changed sports editors and it became apparent that Reed would no have total freedom, answering only to the managing editor as he had done for several years. Then last week, the newspaper reportedly did not run a column Reed had written praising Bobby Knight. At the same time, Reed was told that another columnist, Rick Bozich, was being assigned to the Kentucky-Indiana game instead of Reed. A couple days later, Reed was quoted by several news sources as saying that the" newspaper had suffered badly since the Gannett Corporation took over from the Barry Bingham family. He also accused the newspaper management of naming a sports
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