Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 26, 1994 TAG: 9403260120
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: KNOXVILLE, TENN. LENGTH: Long
Do you begin on the baseline, where the Purdue basketball star whirls and shoots? Do you start at the 3-point arc, where a 6-foot-8 post player often cheats for some of his nation-leading 30.8 points per game? Do you try to paint him down low?
How about his jumping to conclusions - alias finishing? Is this player of the year a player for the ages? Can we talk numerically or physically of this junior who probably won't become a senior? He scores, he rebounds, he dominates, he wins. He also speaks softly, and carries a big stick-to-itiveness with 225 pounds.
If you're wondering who else lives in Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood in college hoops these days, don't even look in the same area code as the Big Dog's house.
Since Robinson moved from the crime-curbed streets of Gary, Ind., to Purdue, the only thing stopping him has been Proposition 48 during his freshman year. "I knew he would be good when we signed him," said Boilermakers coach Gene Keady. "I didn't know he'd be this good."
How good is that? On the afternoon before the NCAA Southeast Regional championship game between Purdue and Duke, three names were mentioned in the same sentence with Robinson's.
One - Len Bias - is dead. Another was Magic. The other was a rookie outfielder and former Bull shooter named Michael.
Two days earlier, Kansas coach Roy Williams called Robinson not just the best college player of 1993-94, "but the best we've seen in three or four years. Anybody who knows basketball or can even spell the word knows Robinson plays bigger than 6-8, too."
Mike Krzyzewski is in his 14th season as Duke's coach. In those years, there's no question the best players he's coached against in the ACC have been Michael Jordan of North Carolina and Bias, the late Maryland star.
This season, Michigan State coach Jud Heathcote compared Robinson - "as good a player as the Big Ten has ever had" - to the player that pushed the Spartans to the 1979 NCAA title, Magic Johnson.
Krzyzewski agrees that Robinson is magical - but he's no Magic or Michael.
"Nobody will ever compare to Jordan or Magic," Coach K said. "There never were players like them before, and there won't be players like them after.
"Robinson is right there with anybody else. He reminds me a lot of Bias. He kind of overpowers you, but he has a touch, too. You don't often find players with that power who still play with that finesse and touch.
"He's just different. He's special. To say he's like Len Bias as a player, to me that's a big-time compliment."
Robinson scored 30 points in the first half of the Boilermakers' regional semifinal victory over Kansas. That wasn't even his best half of the season. He had 32 in the second half of a 49-point game against Illinois two weeks ago, the effort that clinched the Big Ten title for Purdue.
He's averaging 37.1 points in his past nine games, scoring more than 30 in each. He's averaging 10 rebounds. He's made almost 40 percent of his 3-point shots.
Someone wrote that the NCAA hasn't seen a scorer like Robinson since the late LSU shooter, Pete Maravich. There's a problem with that. Maravich never played in the NCAA Tournament. Notre Dame's Austin Carr had better scoring numbers than Robinson, but we're talking different eras and different depth of contribution.
Keady has never coached in the Final Four, and he knows Robinson is likely to leave school for the NBA after the Boilermakers' next loss. "I know I'll never coach a player like Glenn again," said the Purdue coach.
He's just being honest, as he was when asked what was going through his mind as he watched Robinson put up 30 points in 20 minutes against the Jayhawks.
"It was kind of like, `Man, that was a great shot,' then `I don't see how he does it,' then `I'm sure glad he's playing for us,' " Keady said among laughs. "Really, I'm not sure what you can say.
"The reason it's fun is he's very unselfish. He does a great job getting his teammates included. I've never been around a player as good as Glenn, except for Sidney Moncrief [when Keady was an assistant coach at Arkansas]. They've both been great players and good people."
Keady said there's "no way" he'd try to talk Robinson into staying at Purdue, although "I'd love him here, but he's got a lot to consider. Playing-wise, I think he's ready to move on."
Robinson, who was Indiana's "Mr. Basketball" at Roosevelt High in Gary, wants to become the first national scoring leader to play for an NCAA champion since Clyde Lovellette of Kansas averaged 28.4 points in 1952.
"That year I sat out, that's been the toughest thing for me in college," Robinson said. "I wasn't allowed to do something I'd been doing since elementary school. I didn't admit it then, but it really hurt.
"I thought about going home. I asked myself why I hadn't gone to a junior college or prep school. I got fat, too. But it all worked out for the best."
The best . . . Robinson is the first Big Ten player to lead the nation in scoring since another Purdue star, Dave Schellhase, averaged 32.5 points in 1965-66.
He will be Purdue's first national player of the year since three-time All-America guard John Wooden was honored in 1932.
Yes, that John Wooden. Robinson truly is a wizard, too.
by CNB