Of tears and jeers, athletes and attitudes, crashing bodies and boys being boys . . .
– Crash! Bam! The pick, the tougher-than-a-cheap-cut-of-beef pick, is a major weapon in Indiana`s offensive arsenal, and that should make the paint as rough a place as the goalie`s crease when the Hoosiers meet Seton Hall Thursday in a West Regional semifinal. For the Pirates are solid bodies hardened by the Big East, and-most significantly here-blessed with a pair of well-traveled foreigners.
The one is Andrew Gaze, a 6-foot-6-inch swingman from Australia who shoots a proficient three. He is regarded as the canny and unflappable vet who steadies The Hall. The other is Ramon Ramos, a 6-8 center from Puerto Rico who is as solid as an oak desk. He is described by New York Knicks scout Dick McGuire as being ”built like a Coke machine.”
Both played for their country`s Olympic teams in Seoul, and both are well versed in the international style of play that regards picks barely-if at all. Here in the States, you see, most players switch off or go around picks. But there, across the seas, players just go through them.
It should be no surprise, then, if Brian Sloan and Todd Jadlow and others of the Indiana picket line end their meeting with The Hall with first-degree floor burns. Or if-depending on the style of officiating-Ramos spends the evening in some foul trouble.
– Don`t cry for me, P.J.: Seton Hall coach P.J. Carlesimo is widely (and rightly) regarded as one of college basketball`s true nice guys, but that didn`t keep him from being strafed by his own school`s students just 13 months ago. They were unhappy with their team`s record and demanding his ouster, yet he rallied his Pirates so well that he was rewarded with a new five-year contract and named Big East Coach of the Year. (He won that honor again this season.) When he accepted his award last March in front of the cameras and notebooks of the assembled Big East press corps, he was so touched, he broke down and cried.
– I repeat. This is not a repeat: Illinois, and its fans, are most certainly familiar with the early-season charge leveled at Louisville, whom the Illini meet Friday in a Midwest Regional semifinal. The Cardinals`
weakness, cried the doubting chorus, is their lack of a ball-handling guard.
Kendall Gill was Illinois` answer to that indictment. Here is how Louisville assistant Jerry Jones responded: ”What we remembered was that our best teams-our Final Four and NCAA championship teams-were composed of very versatile performers. We always had guards who could play inside, and forwards who could handle it around the perimeter. We decided to move back in that direction.”
– You go your way, and I go mine: Bridge is the only known off-court passion of Illinois coach Lou Henson, but Louisville`s Denny Crum is a bit more eclectic. He hunts and last off-season bagged an 8-foot-8-inch Alaskan brown bear. He golfs to a 14 handicap and last off-season aced the 155-yard eighth hole at the Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville. And he lives on a 75-acre spread, where he also oversees a horse-breeding farm.
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– For the record: This is Henson`s 27th season as a college coach, and he entered it with 504 victories and a winning percentage of .674. This is Crum`s 18th, and he entered it with 412 victories and a winning percentage of .748.
– New image: ”Never Nervous” is the familiar nickname of Louisville center Pervis Ellison, but he once got so tired of talking about himself and his team, he turned himself instead into ”Never To Be Interviewed.” ”I like to get away from that,” he explains. ”I like to watch sports on television. I love music. And I can have a good time just going fishing with the janitor who works on the floor in our dorm.”
– Speaking of images: It is conventionally portrayed as an inhuman team, an unsmiling team bereft of joy and happiness, and so this may be a difficult request. But try to imagine Georgetown coach John Thompson seated aside Hoyas Charles Smith and Bobby Winston; and then imagine Thompson talking animatedly about wearing an Australian cowboy hat to practice; and finally imagine all of Thompson`s considerable body breaking up in laughter as he reaches out and smacks Smith on the back.
That all did happen, and was merely a prelude to Thompson`s going on to say: ”It`s a big team joke. `Are you happy?` We`re probably happier than 99 percent of the teams in the country. You should see me dance in practice. I can probably outdance these two chumps. But we have a saying, and now it`s written on our T-shirts. `This is strictly business.`
”I would hate to see the surgeon operating on me laughing. I`d hate to see the attorney representing me in court laughing. But, remember, if you come out of the operation healthy, then you`re very happy.”
– Rekindled: North Carolina State was a team ablaze at midseason, which was also the time everyone was buzzing about a book called ”Personal Fouls.” It was, said a leaked book jacket, going to enumerate illegalities in the State program and trash coach Jim Valvano along the way, and that prompted his players to circle the wagons and play, as they say, above their heads.
But then came the announcement that the book would not be published, and suddenly that blaze was extinguished and the Wolfpack entered the NCAA tourney as an eminently beatable team. ”We got emotionally tired from the battle, and I don`t know if we`ve got it back,” Valvano admitted before its tourney opener with South Carolina, but then the nervous Gamecocks let the Pack off the hook. State took advantage of that largesse by not only winning that afternoon, but also in a scintillating double-overtime affair against Iowa to move into an East Regional semifinal against Georgetown.
”We did a job getting through a period of time when there was a lot of adversity, but then came a lull,” State guard Chris Corchiani later explained. ”We didn`t have the fire behind us, and we suffered some bad losses. But then we saw we had a second chance, and we came together again. I feel something brewing again. Coach calls us a family. Now we all want to see how far this family can go.”
– Notes of all sorts: The Big 10 is represented not only by four of the 16 teams remaining in the NCAA, but also by two of the eight remaining in the NIT. . . . Of those 16 teams in the NCAA, De Paul faced six during the regular season: Georgetown, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Louisville, Seton Hall and Nevada-Las Vegas. The Blue Demons defeated only N.C. State. . .
Ken Lofton, a senior guard for Arizona, was raised in East Chicago by his blind grandmother, who listens to her grandson`s games whenever they`re available in this area. Lofton is also a fine baseball player who has been drafted by the Astros. . . .
And finally: Bill Frieder, the will-o`-the-wisp who abandoned Michigan for Arizona State, claimed often during the year that Wolverine star Glen Rice was lightly recruited out of high school. Nonsense, says De Paul coach Joey Meyer, who adds that he went after him hard. So hard, in fact, that Blue Demon assistant Jim Molinari was at Rice`s Flint (Mich.) Northwestern High the day the player announced his university of choice.