Roanoke Times Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc. DATE: THURSDAY, March 22, 1990 TAG: 9003222697 SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: EVENING SOURCE: BILL BRILL EXECUTIVE SPORTS EDITOR DATELINE: EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. LENGTH: Long
The UCLA that once won 10 NCAA titles in 12 years.
The UCLA of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton and assorted other NBA all-stars.
Then recall that John Wooden is now 80 years old, and that the last time the Bruins made the Final Four (1980), Larry Brown was their coach.
Since then, Brown has tried a variety of jobs and the Bruins have tried three more coaches, making it a total of six since Wooden retired in 1975 after his final championship.
UCLA was young and talented this year, but presumed to be several light years behind Arizona in the Pacific 10 Conference.
In fact, that was accurate. The Bruins finished fourth in the Pac-10, also trailing Oregon State and California. But, while the other Pac-10 teams departed quietly from the NCAA Tournament - only Arizona won a game and the Wildcats then lost by 22 points to Alabama - UCLA has won twice.
The Bruins beat Alabama-Birmingham in a game rated even, then upset Kansas 71-70 Sunday in Atlanta.
Tonight at approximately 10 o'clock, UCLA (22-10) will play Duke (26-8) in an NCAA East semifinal. The 7:40 opener matches Big East champ Connecticut (30-5) and another ACC entry, Clemson (26-8).
Duke and UConn each are each favored by 6 1/2 points.
If the Blue Devils have an edge, it's their familiarity with Brendan Byrne Arena. They are 9-1 here overall and have gone to the Final Four out of the East in '86, '88 and '89.
Trevor Wilson, the only starting senior on a UCLA team that features three sophomores and two freshmen among its top six, understands.
What he hopes is that UCLA will respond the way it did in Atlanta.
"There was a feeling in the room last Saturday, the day in-between games, that we were just going through the motions," Wilson said.
"We were just one little obstacle before Kansas was going to the Meadowlands."
Then freshman Tracy Murray made two free throws with nine seconds left - calmed by Wilson's chatter while Kansas was calling back-to-back timeouts - and the last of the Big Eight teams was eliminated.
For the Bruins, the toughest part has been life on the road.
"We're in finals now," Wilson said.
Coach Jim Harrick said his team was taking exams, which had been faxed here. "We had seven guys taking a test today [Wednesday]. We have three-hour study halls every day."
That has been one of the criticisms of the 64-team, balanced NCAA format. It requires teams to travel, and neither UCLA nor Clemson, which played in Hartford, went home. The Tigers, however, were on spring break.
"We're on the quarter system and that makes it kind of tough," Wilson said.
Still, the Bruins don't present an underdog image.
Harrick, the second-year coach and a lifelong Wooden disciple, did mention Duke's advantages.
"It looks like there's no way we can win," he said. "Duke has Alaa Abdelnaby and [Bobby] Hurley returning home, and they've got seniors who have started in the Final Four."
He didn't talk about Duke's problem, which is discovering the lost shooting touch of forward Christian Laettner.
Laettner, as a 6-foot-11 freshman, scored 24 points on 9-of-10 shooting as Duke stunned Georgetown in last year's East Region final. But having slumped badly prior to the ACC Tournament this season, Laettner was 1-of-11 in two games in Atlanta.
Abdelnaby, a consistent scorer all year, has scored seven points in six games here over a span of 59 minutes. "I haven't handled playing here very well," he confessed.
Unless Duke gets good performances out of at least one of its two big men tonight, those underdog Bruins will be playing Saturday for the right to go to the Final Four.
As far as the Bruins are concerned, the image is great, but means little now.
"It's good to have tradition," Wilson said, "but it will have no bearing on the game. We had nothing to do with [building] it."
College basketball coaches Pete Gillen of Xavier and Tom Penders of Texas used to be teammates on a semipro baseball team. They're both East Coast guys who enjoy a good laugh. They coach an up-tempo style.
And they're both hot commodities. Real hot.
In Gillen and Penders, the NCAA Midwest Regional has two of the most highly regarded young coaches in the game. Penders' name already has been linked to the vacancy at the University of Florida, and hardly a basketball season goes by that Gillen's name isn't mentioned as a leading candidate for one opening or another.
"I don't have much money because I send checks periodically out to 210 writers to mention my name every three weeks," Gillen, 42, said Wednesday on the eve of his team's regional semifinal against Texas tonight at approximately 10:30.
In the other semifinal, fourth-seeded and seventh-ranked Arkansas (28-4) plays eighth-seeded North Carolina (21-12) at 8:10. The winners will play Saturday for the right to go to the Final Four in Denver.
Gillen's and Penders' names continue to pop up for a simple reason: They're successful.
Gillen was an assistant at Notre Dame for five seasons before getting the Xavier job in 1985. He has failed to win 20 games only once, in 1986-87, and that year the Musketeers still won the Midwestern Collegiate Conference Tournament and played two games in the NCAA Tournament.
This year, the Musketeers spent 10 straight weeks in The Associated Press rankings, something no Xavier team had done. The Musketeers (28-5) have set a school record for victories.
Penders, 44, is in his 19th season as a head coach, with previous stops at Tufts, Columbia, Fordham and Rhode Island. He has had only five losing seasons.
He took Fordham to the NIT five times and took Rhode Island to the NIT in his first year there. The following year, 1987-88, he gained national fame when Rhode Island upset Missouri and Syracuse before losing to Duke by a point in the NCAA regional semifinals. Then he left for Texas.
The Associated Press provided some information for this story.
by CNB