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Irish may be running now, but just wait 'til March
Maybe SEC detractors are right this year
?You can rest easy, friends, because despite the incan-tations ol Dick Vitale there's no dangei thai Notre Dame's new. uptempo look will cause anyone to mistake the Irish lor, oh, say, Oklahoma or Nevada-Las Vegas.
Larry Donald
Cats' Pause Columnist
\nd sure as Dinner Phelps has this team trying to play at a laster pace in December, come the month of March he'll have that tempo back down to a waltz. Coaches, see. just cannot live outside their personality and Phelps has had a tremendous career by controlling tempo and playing high-percentage offensive basketball. If the change n \    Dame's pace didn't occur in the David Ri\ers era. 1 really doubt it will happen now...
?Each year Dayton resident Gordon Wise, a pro-lessor of economics a! Wright State University, produces .1 rating of major college schedules for Basketball Times. This year I'm going to ask him to take a new twist on the feature and rate the non-conference schedules of major college teams. I predict the results will be very revealing...
?And along this line, the next time you hear Michigan's Hill Frieder defend his absolutely deplorable December schedule on the basis of his team needing time to work on and take final examinations, ask yourself this: Is Michigan the only school in America which forces its basketball players to take final exams? . . Vid the same must be true at Georgetown. North Carolina State and Duke.
Maybe it's unfair to expect every game to be a major tug-of-war event, but when these powerful programs start trotting out Division II schools and even the woefully OWN matched smaller Division I teams it sa\s to me cither they have no regard for their season ticket holders 01 the> are being permitted to play tcxi many games...
?On the other side of this argument we can find Temple and Missouri, both of whom have taken to the pavement in hopes of developing their teams The Tigers played in the NTT, visited Charlotte for the Diet Pepsi Tournament ot Champions and in addition to the Big Eight schedule will also play at Tulsa, at Virginia Tech, at Maryland and against Illinois in St. Louis. Says coach Norm Stewart: "If you didn't know I had a hand in this schedule you'd sa\ it looked like the athletic director was trying to get the coach fia-d. Scheduling is like referee-ing You can be pleasant about it in July."
Temple's John Chancy, who saw the Owls lose their first two games of the year for the first lime since 1939. also has some lough road tests. Charlotte. Kansas in Atlantic City, Las Vegas. Notre Dame. Villanova. "It is the best experience we could have." says Chancy. "You w-ant to see how you measure up."...
?Mentioning Stewart, he had a Charlotte banquet of about 1,000 howling with laughter when he spoke while wearing a women's black wig. The joke stemmed from a Charlotte Observer gaffe several weeks ago. The newspaper, doing a story on the Diet Pepsi Tournament of Champions, ran pictures of the four coaches of North Carolina. Temple, Arizona and Missouri. And Dean Smith. Chancy and I>ute Olson were all very recognizable, but above Stewart's cutlinc was the picture of a woman...
?Sure, it is still early, but those who fretted about the prospect for having even one outstanding SEC team now see their concern was not unwarranted. None of the 10 teams has yet given its fans much cause to cheer... ?If you think about it, there's probably never been a
Al McGuire. here with broadcasting partner Marv Albert, feels like he's a voice in the wilderness when it concerns NBA stars playing in the Olympics
program which, despite continuing adversity of all sorts over a five year period, has carried on more successfully than Memphis State. Through probations and premature player departures, the Tigers keep on winning. Larry Finch has done a tremendous job, I'd say...
?Al McGuire says he feels like a voice in the wilderness with all the discussion about using NBA players in the next Olympic Games. McGuire points out there's no way it can happen because the United States team must go through zone qualification games several months before the Summer Games and the NBA regular-season schedule will still be in progress. How. he asks, can that problem be solved?
For one, I have no idea, although. I can't believe Al's the only guy to recognize the problem. They do have. I presume, calendars at both the ABA/USA offices and in the NBA headquarters.
The best reason to doubt the pros will ever line up and play for their country, though, has to do more with internal politics. I don't foresee the NBA getting involved, even informally, in something over which it has no control (and can't market) and. at the same time. I doubt very much the ABA/USA people are going to surrender their turf. What it means is that business will be conducted as usual and that, on occasion, our teams will be good enough to win while, at other times, the gold medals will go to another nation's team. The important thing to understand is that none of us ought to need a team to win a basketball game to underscore faith that our way of life is unrivaled...
?I'm pleased to say I've come so far down the road in that regard. I actually found myself getting annoyed with the Russian team in the late going of their win over the United States this fall. The Soviets had outplayed John Thompson's team from the opening tip and clearly had superior manpower, but they were gagging it away. I wanted the best team to win becuase it was, after all, just a game...
?Prep sleuth \an Coleman rates the tall recruiting classes as follows: 1. Georgia Tech. 2. Indiana. 3. Duke. 4. UCLA. 5. Michigan 6. Villanova.
7. Oklahoma. 8. North Carolina State. 9. Ohio State. 10. Missouri.
What that gives you is an evaluation of the quality which these particular schools harvested, but what I'd like to see is someone take a shot at figuring out who did best in terms of matching playing talent with coaching philosophy. Basketball is the ultimate team game, so it follows that the pieces need to fit. Maybe that's too tough an assisgnment. but it would certainly be interesting...
?Cincinnati's Tony Yates has an unusual contractual situation with his school. If the Bearcats win 18 games this winter the school is obligated to extend his pact by one year. As you might have guessed. UC's schedule this year isn't as demanding as it has been in the past...
?Ralph Miller, outgoing coach at Oregon State, has a philosophy about his business. Change jobs about every eight years, he said, and you can coach as long as you want. Miller has made stops at Wichita State. Iowa and Oregon State, largely following his own advice...
?Arizona strikes me as a team which could make a major improvement between now and tournament time. The Wildcats are trying to regroup after some major losses, but coach Lute Olson has some nice talent and it is really just a matter of making the pieces fit. All-American Sean Elliott, obviously, is a key player here, but if Arizona is to reach its potential Olson needs more consistent guard play from Kenny Lofton and an improved reliability from big Sean Rooks on the inside...
?An interesting question being asked about North Carolina these days is how much better will the Tar Heels be when J.R. Reid gets back after the first of the year? Obviously, a player of Reid's stature has to be missed, but without the 6-K) junior UNC has played very well. Scott Williams has more room to operate inside and, frankly, does some of the dirty work which Reid tends to eschew. In addition without Reid. coach Dean Smith moves Jeff Lebo to a shooting guard and Kevin Madden to the small forward slot, both more natural positions. Reid's return certainly can't hurt, but it is fair to ask just how much it will help..