Fearless Predictions For New Year
UK To Win Hoop Title, FB 'Cats Struggle
Our best crystal ball has been polished and the nicks from last year have been removed. We have, therefore, donned our swami robe with the moon and stars inscribed thereon, place the pointed hat on our head with its mysterious symbols of wisdom, rabbits' feet, horseshoes and crossed fingers in order to see the future and predict 1987. A puff of smoke and here we go:
PREDICTION: There will be a terrific race for second place in the 1987-88 basketball season with Vanderbilt, Florida and LSU the favorites. There will be no race at all for first place. Kentucky can order their championship rings in the fall so they can be
	
	Stan Torgerson Cats' Pause Columnist
	
presented to the players between halves of the season's final game.
PREDICTION: While the Wildcat basketball team celebrates perhaps its greatest recruiting year ever, football coach Jerry Claiborne will continue his relatively fruitless search for Kentucky athletes who realize it's as much fun to play a game with a pointed ball as it is a round one.
PREDICTION: New Southeastern Conference commissioner Harvey W. Schiller will realize he won't be a serious candidated for the NCAA's top job as long as he says silly things such as his recent statement that there's no cheating in the SEC.
PREDICTION: LSU's Dale Brown will continue to be the SEC's
best recruiter of talented basketball players with problems, and Kentucky's Eddie Sutton will continue to be the league's best recruiter, period.
PREDICTION: The loss of 10 scholarships through NCAA sanctions will not bother the Ole Miss well stockpiled football program at all. while the loss of TV and bowl revenue will cause the Rebels much hurt. Mississippi's athletic department may be the first in the country forced to consider bankruptcy.
PREDICTION: Auburn supporters will take up a collection in 1987 to buy a private telephone line to the school's academic office for coach Pat Dye so that he will know whether or not his players are going to class. When it was recently disclosed that star running back Brent Fullwood stopped attending school in October, Dye said that it was news to him.
PREDICTION: With quarterback Don Smith gone, Rocky Felker will wonder why he took the coaching job at Mississippi State.
PREDICTION: With other SEC teams loading up on talented basketball players, Richard Williams and Ed Murphy will wonder why they took the basketball jobs at Mississippi State and Ole Miss.
PREDICTION: The new commissioner's interest in promoting minor and women's sports will result in a host of new publicity from the conference office which will get as far as the wastebaskets of sports editors in SEC states.
PREDICTION: Playing this year's SEC basketball tournament in Atlanta will be the best thing that ever happened to Birmingham's hope of getting the tournament back on a regular basis.
PREDICTION: While the vast majority of the press, fans and officials would agree that Joe Dean would be LSU's most sensible choice for the AD's job, he won't get it because very little that's sensible has happened in the Tiger athletic department for a number of years.
PREDICTION: The NCAA will leave the lane only 12 feet wide, thus not harming the big man and will move the three-point line farther back, thus hurting the heck out of the little one.
PREDICTION: The issue of whether to make freshmen ineligible for varsity play will be bitterly fought at this year's NCAA convention, but in the end the rule will be left as it is, thus encouraging schools to continue courses in Basketweaving, Proper Evaluation of Female Cheerleaders, along with Fast Food I and II, in order that athletes won't flunk out their first year in school.
PREDICTION: Schools will schedule games at 8 a.m. or 12 midnight if the TV networks request it and claim they're doing so more of their fans will get to see the games. At that point those who have been buying tickets will stop writing checks for same and join those watching the tube, thus making SEC stadiums the biggest outdoor empty television studios in the country.
PREDICTION: The demand for sure wins in basketball will be so great that the Armstrong States, Stetsons, Illinois Wesleyans, Mississippi Colleges, Augusta Colleges, Appalachian States and others can have full SEC schedules if they wish. The real conference schools will consider scheduling girls' teams for preseason games, but not the Tennessee, Ole Miss or Georgia girls, because they'd be too hard to beat.
PREDICTION: Southeastern Conference referee Don Rutledge will continue working games until he's 85-years-old, at which point when he's hobbling up and down the court with his cane he'll still be better than most of the young ones running.
PREDICTION: The number of student athletes attending various schools for board, room, books and tuition will continue to be slightly higher than those student athletes attending school for board, room, books, tuition and a new carseven-foot centers or 4.3 running backs not included.
PREDICTION: The academic records of Georgia's athletes will continue to get better while the won-lost records of the school's football and basketball team will continue to get worse and worse.
PREDICTION: Tennessee's often-delayed new basketball arena will certainly be ready in time for this year's high school sophomores to plan playing a full season in it by the time they are college seniors.
PREDICTION: Vanderbilt will be the surprise team of this basketball season and CM. Newton will be Coach of the Year. Tennessee and Georgia will be the disappointments of the year. Don DeVoe
CM. Newton
will wonder why he didn't take the Ohio State job and Hugh Durham will find a way, under Georgia's new entrance requirements, to recruit seven-foot high school valedictorians.
PREDICTION: WTBS will broadcast SEC football again and every game will be described as a great game and every player will be described as a potential Ail-American.
PREDICTION: Dick Vitale will broadcast a few SEC basketball game and, as usual, will be so full of horse feathers he will look like an American Bald Eagle.
PREDICTION: As Mark Twain once said about the weather, everyone will continue to criticize artificial turf, but no one will do anything about it.
PREDICTION: The SEC football championship will be determined Sept. 19 when Florida plays Alabama. The league's Player of the Year will be determined that same day depending on who has the best gameKerwin Bell, quarterback of Florida, or Bob-
[Continued On Page 22]
UGA's Mack, Hamilton Out For Year; Injured Dunn To Miss 2 Weeks
Georgia's Hugh Durham was on top of the world after his team pulled a big 69-65 upset of Kentucky in Freedom Hall in late December, but things have been all downhill for the veteran coach since then.
Following the win at Kentucky, the Bulldogs lost their second SEC game at home, dropping an 87-80 decision to Norm Sloan's Florida Gators.
Now Georgia is having trouble off the court. Durham announced on Jan. 6 that leading scorer Toney Mack, who had 24 points against Kentucky, has been ruled academically ineligible and will miss the rest of the season. The sophomore forward from Brandon, Fla., was averaging 17.6 points and 4.4 rebounds per game.
Reserve Patrick Hamilton, a 6-2 guard from Gainesville, Ga., was also ruled academically ineligible.
And to compound Durham's problems, starting center David Dunn will be out of action for at least two weeks with a foot injury. The 6-8 senior was averaging in double figures in scoring and leading the team in rebounds with almost seven per game.
VIEWPOINT
Utltn To Th Editor
I'll Take 'Cats Any Day
Dear Sir:
Mr. Oscar Combs is a "supposed" Kentucky fan but you could have fooled me by his column in The Cats' Pause on Dec. 27. 1986.
In his column he stated Kentucky had no
business being on the same floor with that of Louisville's talent. What talent is he talking about? I will admit Louisville did play poorly, but the 'Cats clearly were the winners that day.
UK may not have the "talent" you speak of, but they showed something possibly much more importantdesire and dedication.
When you defined "talent" you must have forgotten the freshman sensationsRex Chapman, who tied his season high point total and Derrick Miller, who once again put them in from three-point range. Or the con-sistant play of James Blackmon and Ed Davender. Or what about the front line which totally dominated the boards. A special pat on the back goes out to Rob Lock, who didn't put a lot of points in the books, but made Per-vis Ellison invisible. And Ellison is considered "one of the best centers in the country."
If the 'Cats must play with the "little talent" they had on Saturday, I will put my money on the 'Cats any day.
Next time, Mr. Combs, please, think before you write a statement like that again, because the last thing an inexperienced team needs is that kind of criticism!
Go Big Blue!!
Donna Call Jackson, Ohio
(Editors note: What can I say?)