
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 2, 1990                   TAG: 9003023540
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B7   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BIRMINGHAM, ALA.                                 LENGTH: Medium

SUN BELT AT CROSSROADS IN ITS 14-YEAR HISTORY

The Sun Belt Conference, which burst to prominence with its innovative use of television and experimental rules - not to mention good basketball - is facing a crossroads in its 14-year history, league officials say.

"We can't continue to operate the way we've been operating," said Dick Sander, the athletic director at Virginia Commonwealth. "We're going to have to do some things to draw attention to ourselves."

VCU and regular season champion Alabama-Birmingham, which will play host to this weekend's Sun Belt Conference tournament, were the only schools in the eight-team league which drew more fans this season than the year before.

UAB (21-7) was the only team to win at least 20 games, and the league's overall record was a mediocre 109-102.

Blazers coach Gene Bartow admits the Sun Belt has lost some of its luster since the 1986, when four teams went to the NCAA Tournament and eight players were drafted by the NBA.

"I definitely thought we were going to make it," Bartow said. "I thought we were turning the corner in the mid-'80s to being a league looked at with a national stature like the Metro Conference.

"We'll never be the [Southeastern Conference] or the Big Ten: old, established leagues with football teams. But something happened in the mid-80s."

Until that time, the Sun Belt had been at the cutting edge of college basketball, becoming the first league to experiment with the 45-second clock and sign a cable television deal with ESPN.

"I think we got a little bit spoiled," said Sun Belt commissioner Vic Bubas, who is retiring July 1 from the league he has led since it was founded in 1976.

Only four teams total have reached the last three NCAA tournaments, and barring an upset this weekend, UAB likely will be the lone entrant this year.

And, in perhaps the most damaging development, the rest of the college basketball world has jumped on the television bandwagon, pushing the Sun Belt from the forefront toward the back of the bus.

"The Sun Belt was the forerunner on cable TV," said former assistant commissioner Bray Cary, who helped negotiate those early ESPN deals. "The rest of the country has caught up."

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