ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 31, 1997 TAG: 9703310162
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: INDIANAPOLIS
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK THE ROANOKE TIMES
Tonight's winner of the national championship will be a group of Wildcats who are young, quick and talented.
If the 59th NCAA Tournament championship is played as expected, the only thing in slow motion will be the CBS replays.
"It's going to be like watching a tennis match, probably,'' Arizona coach Lute Olson said of tonight's 9:18 basketball tipoff at the RCA Dome. "People had better do some neck exercises before they come in, I think.''
The first NCAA title game for Olson and his Wildcats (24-9) comes against fifth-ranked and defending national champion Kentucky (35-4), which offers the Pacific 10 Conference's fifth-place team an opportunity at distinction.
Never before has a team beaten three No. 1 seeds in a tournament. In this battle of Wildcats - the first NCAA final between nickname sharers since Kentucky beat Kansas State in a 'Cat fight in 1951 - Arizona has a chance to follow up its knockoffs of Kansas and North Carolina.
Only, however, if Olson's club can do what only one other club has this season. Playing against Kentucky's pressure is one thing. Coping with it is another.
Beating it is still another. South Carolina managed it twice during the Southeastern Conference regular season.
"Our guys like a fast-paced game,'' Olson said. "If they have a choice of what kind of game they'd like to play, it would be fullcourt pressure and get up and down the floor.''
Arizona has the quickness to beat Kentucky, but it will be up to guards Miles Simon and Mike Bibby, a freshman with the conscience of a Watergate burgler, to get through the SEC champions' pressure and trapping.
"We're not scared of them,'' Simon said. "If we beat their pressure, it gives us more easy shots at the other end. South Carolina did it with B.J. McKie, Larry Davis and Melvin Watson - three guards. We think we can do the same thing.''
The third guard, Simon didn't name, although 6-foot-5 forward Michael Dickerson is primarily a perimeter player. The health of backup guard Jason Terry may be crucial for Arizona. He fainted late in the semifinal game and spent part of Saturday night in a hospital being treated for dehydration.
"No two people can beat [the press of] Kentucky,'' said UK senior guard Anthony Epps. "South Carolina had three, and hopefully those two losses showed us what to do, what not to do.''
If Arizona displays the sort of interior quickness and shot-blocking that lifted the Wildcats past UNC in Saturday's brick-laying semifinal, the other 'Cats will have to rely on shooting 3-pointers.
Until the tournament, it might be said the arc-ing shots were UK's primary offensive weapon. In the postseason, however, sophomore point guard Wayne Turner - a starter for only eight games - has changed coach Rick Pitino's attack by driving and dishing, as well as dumping.
"Arizona has incredible quickness and speed,'' said Pitino, whose team is trying to match the program's back-to-back titles - the earliest of its six - in 1948 and '49. "Their win over Kansas wasn't a fluke. It was outstanding basketball.
"But our guys are very good runners, and good players when the game's on the line.''
Asked about the lack of preparation time - Easter Sunday - for the championship game, Pitino said practice likely wouldn't be a factor because of the style of play.
"This game, this team [Arizona] it's about quickness and reaction more so than it is preparation.''
Arizona averages 27 shots from behind the arc per game, so when these Wildcats and Wildcats aren't running, they're likely to be firing.
Defensively, Arizona must find a way to play Kentucky's Ron Mercer, the sophomore forward who will be playing his last college game before turning pro. It's likely that 6-8 Bennett Davison, in foul trouble early against the Tar Heels, will primarily draw the assignment on Mercer.
Although Arizona, a No. 4 seed, was only 11-7 in Pac-10 play, the Wildcats were toughened by playing close games. Of their nine losses, two were in overtime, and only one other was by more than seven points.
While Kentucky is playing without the title-starved expectations it lugged into the tournament last year, Arizona and Olson are thrilled to have finally reached the final.
"It's new, but it's a nice feeling,'' said Olson, who is coaching in his fourth Final Four, the first in 1980 at Iowa before three in the last decade at the Tucson campus. "It's especially nice this year in that I don't think a whole lot of people thought we'd be here.
"It was something that seemed like a stretch for it to happen. We have guys who are tough and competitive, and I'm glad they've given me the opportunity to see what it's like to coach on Monday night.''
Bibby, who admitted to being "really scared'' when Arizona opened the season with him as a starter in a Hall of Fame Tipoff victory over the Tar Heels, said he isn't fazed by the glamour of the season-ender.
"There's no pressure on us,'' Bibby said. "We really weren't supposed to be this far. All the pressure is on Kentucky. They're the defending national champs.''
On the RCA Dome floor, the pressure will be going both ways, however.
"I don't see either one of us holding the ball,'' Olson said.
Whoever holds onto it, however, is likely to be holding a trophy.
LENGTH: Long : 103 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS. 1. Arizona guard Miles Simon doesn'tby CNBseem too concerned about tonight's matchup with Kentucky for the
NCAA men's basketball championship. 2. Kentucky coach Rick Pitino
and the Wildcats will be gunning for a second straight national
title tonight against Arizona.