DATE: Wednesday, March 12, 1997             TAG: 9703120651

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Tom Robinson 

                                            LENGTH:   65 lines

TICKLIN' THE TWINE MIGHTY FINE AT TOURNEY TIME

Basketball players can't shoot anymore. You've heard it, you've seen it. The college game is a mess of wayward 3-point shots, errant free throws, thunder dunks performed for that great god of TV highlights.

Uh, can Willie Young say something?

Swish. Forty-two percent from the field.

Swish. Forty-three percent from 3-point range.

Swish. Seventy-eight percent from the foul line.

Willie Young is an All-Southern Conference player for the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, formerly an All-Tidewater player for Norfolk's Norview High School.

Willie Young can shoot it.

Perhaps not shot-for-shot with every elite marksman in the NCAA. Still, the line forms to the left for coaches who lust for shooting guards with such solid numbers.

Maybe you saw Young recently on those TV highlights, scoring a few of his team-high 16 points that helped the Mocs beat Marshall in overtime for the Southern Conference title and an automatic NCAA tournament berth.

When it ended, Young was on the fringe of a roiling pack of teammates, jumping up and down in ecstasy when, woooooop, down went Willie in a funny sort of a Nestea plunge, without the pool.

``Everybody asked me later what was happening,'' Young said. ``I don't know what happened myself. I didn't faint. But I know I hit the ground at one point. I was just so much into the hoopla.''

If the excitement gave Young a touch of the vapors, it's understandable. A 23-year-old senior, Young said the championship was his first as a basketball player, including his pre-Norview rec-league days, two years at Brevard (Fla.) Community College and two at Chattanooga.

Young made the title happen as much as anybody. He scored 63 points in the three tournament games to make the all-tourney team and pump up his per-game average to 13.8, second among the Mocs behind forward Johnny Taylor's 16.4.

What that performance did, too, was continue a personal hot streak that Young hopes to stoke in Friday's first-round NCAA tournament game against third-seeded Georgia - the Mocs (22-10) are seeded 14th - in Charlotte.

After starting the season making just seven of his first 31 3-point attempts, Young has hit 50 of 103, impressive in any league. Which is not to say he's merely a one-trick Moc.

A slick ballhandler, Young is his team's first option in a one-on-one situation. He also averages nearly four assists and two steals, cementing an all-around reputation that Mocs coach Mack McCarthy thinks should be more heralded.

``Willie Young is a really good player,'' McCarthy said. ``Nobody mentions Willie's name when they bring up the best guards to ever play for UTC, but he deserves to be listed among them. He doesn't get enough respect.''

What name he has on offense Young figures comes from his constant efforts to perfect his jumper rather than the swooping, sweeping dunk. In fact, if Young, at 6-2, dunks on Georgia it will be his first this season.

``Guys don't practice shooting the outside jumper as much,'' said Young, whose brother, ``Toot'' Young, is Lake Taylor High School's top player.

``I've got a shooting drill I do where I have to make 10 3-pointers before I miss three. I do it quite easily now. It's probably time for me to be looking for another drill.''

When Young finds it, he'd do the game a favor if he passed it around. ILLUSTRATION: [Photo]

Willie Young

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