ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 30, 1997 TAG: 9703310158
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: FINAL FOUR NOTES
DATELINE: INDIANAPOLIS
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK THE ROANOKE TIMES
The newest face on Virginia Tech's basketball staff will be an old one.
New Hokies head coach Bobby Hussey will name Dean Keener, a former Tech assistant, to his staff. An announcement from the Blacksburg campus is expected Monday or Tuesday.
A coaching source at the NABC All-Star game Friday night said Keener would return to Tech from Southern Methodist. Two other coaches with close ties to Hussey at the coaches' Final Four party said Keener is the choice, and he and Hussey huddled at the party for more than a few minutes.
When someone walked up to Keener at the party and said, "Congratulations,'' Keener replied, grinning, "For what?''
Keener was a part-time assistant on retiring Tech coach Bill Foster's staff until two seasons ago, when he took a full-time post at SMU. That's when former UNC Greensboro coach Mike Dement was named the Mustangs' head coach.
Keener played for Hussey when he was head coach at Davidson. Chris Ferguson is Tech's other full-time aide, and Scott Davis is the part-timer.
Asked about his return, Keener, still trying not to usurp Tech's impending announcement, said, "It would be quite an adjustment from the night life in Dallas back to Blacksburg.''
THE CANDIDATE: A piece of coaching speculation at the Final Four involves Ricky Stokes, a Wake Forest assistant and former Virginia guard .
Stokes, who interviewed but didn't get the JMU and American jobs and took himself out of the running for the vacant Furman post, is said to be considering a move to Virginia Commonwealth as an assistant coach.
At the Richmond school, it is said Stokes would be a coach in waiting - promised the head coaching job next year when Sonny Smith is expected to retire.
SMART GUYS: The Indianapolis Star analyzed college hoops in a story in Saturday's edition, using graduation rates, standardized test percentages and the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) used to select and seed the NCAA Tournament.
There was good news for Virginia. The school is the only one in the top 25 of all three polls. The Cavaliers were 25th in the RPI, tied for seventh in men's basketball graduation rate and 23rd in SAT/ACT percentage.
The NCAA graduation rate was taken from players with grants-in-aid from 1986 through '90. There were 25 schools with a graduation rate of at least 80 percent, including UVa (92 percent), Radford (83) and William and Mary (81).
Only five schools in the top 25 in graduation rate reached the NCAA's 64-team field - Virginia, Providence, College of Charleston, Stanford and North Carolina.
ACE HIGH: One NBA scout at Friday's coaches' All-Star Game said the two players who helped their NBA stock the most in the game were Virginia Tech forward Ace Custis and 6-foot-8 Thaddeous Delaney of College of Charleston.
Meanwhile, NBA scouting director Marty Blake said it was obvious that Duke guard Jeff Capel is the son of a coach (Jeff, of Old Dominion).
"Jeff Capel really knows the game of basketball, which puts him ahead of about three-fourths of the players in the NBA now,'' Blake said.
THE DEAN: Arizona coach Lute Olson said his sideline opponent in Saturday's Final Four opener deserves to be called the greatest coach in college hoops history. And not just because Dean Smith grabbed Adolph Rupp's career victories record earlier in the NCAA Tournament.
"When you take a look at the innovations Coach Smith has originated, I think it's unbelievable,'' Olson said. "I think the shot clock is a result of his four-corners offense. Teams huddling at the free-throw line, that started with Coach Smith.
"Multiple defenses, Carolina was the first team I can remember that all of a sudden they're in zone, then man, then full-court pressure. When he's referred to as the Michelangelo of coaching, I really think that's a very appropriate term because so much started with him.
"The great thing is the humility of the man. I think he's friendly and open to everybody, whether you're a somebody of whether you're a no one. I think that's the true measure of the man, his greatness and yet the humility he shows.''
NO PRESSURE: Minnesota's first trip to the Final Four didn't fluster the Golden Gophers, coach Clem Haskins said.
"We're not in awe of being here,'' Haskins said. "We're excited, but not the type of excitement that is from a first time.''
Courtney James played in the RCA Dome in front of 40,000 people in the Indiana state tournament. Charles Thomas, of Harlan, Ky., played for two state champions in front of 25,000 people at Rupp Arena in Lexington and Freedom Hall in Louisville.
"Believe me, there's no more pressure here than in high school championships in Indiana and Kentucky,'' Haskins said. ``Quincy Lewis was on two state champions in Little Rock, Ark. These guys have been in big games.
"Pressure is just a word. We wrap it up and put it into our hip pocket and go play.''
RECALL: On the eve of his 11th coaching Final Four, Smith was reminiscing about the '50s, when he played on Kansas' NCAA title team (1952), starring Clyde Lovellette, in Seattle.
"Maybe some of you weren't born then,'' Smith said to the media. "We had a nice time. There was no media press conference to talk to you people.''
Smith also talked about teaching KU football players the basketball offense, after they joined the team following football season.
"There were 23 men on our '52 championship team, and we had 11 lettermen,'' Smith said. ``I was 10th, so I lettered. The football guys would come out and had to be taught the offense.
"Doc [Phog] Allen [the Jayhawks' head coach] and [assistant] Dick Harp, the greatest coaches ever in my mind, told me to go down and teach the football guys the offense, to save the coaches the time.
"I did it, then I stayed around a year as a graduate assistant, and those [1953] players, as seniors, ended up getting beat by North Carolina [in three overtimes] for the 1957 NCAA championship.
"So, in 1957, guess who I was cheering for?''
It wasn't North Carolina.
BATTING .250: It's almost baseball season, and the coaches and the writers went 1-for-4 this basketball season.
In their preseason polls, the only one of the national semifinalists predicted to be here this weekend was Kentucky.
The writers' (AP) preseason top four were Cincinnati, Kansas, Kentucky and Wake Forest. The coaches (CNN/USA Today) had Kansas, Cincy, Wake and UK.
LENGTH: Long : 117 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS. Gregory Moore of the RCA Domeby CNBhousekeeping crew cleans a backboard Saturday afternoon before the
North Carolina-Arizona game.