COLLEGE BASKETBALL
THE LONG GOODBYE
For a lame-duck coach, Vanderbilt's C.M. Newton is getting an extraordinary effort out of his 32nd—and probably final—college team. A rather astonishing 108-74 home-court victory over LSU and freshman phenom Chris Jackson last Saturday gave the Commodores a 10-4 Southeastern Conference record and pulled them into a three-way tie with LSU and Florida for the league lead. Said guard Barry Booker, "This is the game we've been waiting for...now we've just got to take care of business and we could be league champs."
The Commodore players were dismayed in late January after the 59-year-old Newton, now in his eighth season at Vanderbilt, announced that he was resigning, effective April 1, to become athletic director at Kentucky, his alma mater. Only a few weeks earlier, after all, Newton had told his team that he wasn't interested in the Kentucky job. After he changed his mind, the Commodores weren't the only ones in Nashville who were disappointed. Veteran columnist John Bibb of The Tennessean wrote that Newton should resign immediately to avoid a conflict of interest.
But after Vanderbilt beat Kentucky by 30 points on Feb. 8—the Commodores' biggest win ever over the Wildcats—Bibb leaned out of the press box near the top of Memorial Gymnasium, waved a white handkerchief at Newton down on the floor, and bellowed, "I surrender!" The players also were quick to forgive their coach, whose honesty and integrity are the very reasons Kentucky decided he was the man to clean up the Wildcats' basketball program when a highly publicized NCAA investigation is finally complete. "Nobody on the team wanted coach Newton to resign," said Barry Goheen, the Commodores' clutch-shooting senior guard. "All that stuff did was make us more determined to win."
The Commodores can make Newton's swan song even sweeter by beating Florida in Gainesville on Saturday. In the teams' first game in Nashville, Vandy had a 72-70 lead and possession of the ball with only two seconds remaining. Incredibly, the Commodores ended up with an 81-78 overtime loss, thanks to fans who pelted Gator star Dwayne Schintzius with tennis balls, an incident that led the refs to call a technical foul on Vanderbilt. Two Schintzius free throws tied the game in regulation. Said Newton, "That was the most bitter loss I've ever been associated with."
ZEBRA BAITING
February Fever is a malady that reaches epidemic levels among college basketball coaches every year as tournament time nears. The most obvious symptoms are climbing blood pressure and hyperactive vocal cords. In extreme cases coaches have been known to rip off articles of clothing in public, stomp and kick violently and whine incessantly about the lamentable state of officiating.
The disease is mainly caused by the intense competition for berths in the 64-team NCAA tournament. Under pressure, coaches usually take out their frustrations on the officials. Last week, for example, TCU coach Moe Iba was reprimanded by the Southwest Conference for getting into a shouting match with referee Bob Vetkoetter as Iba left the floor at halftime of the game with Arkansas, which the Horned Frogs lost 100-60.
Hank Nichols, the outstanding referee who works part-time for the NCAA as coordinator of officials, understands the pressure, but he feels that if the coaches really want better officiating, they must get off the refs' backs. "The officials have to deal with the bench too much instead of concentrating on refereeing the games," says Nichols. "It becomes ludicrous. Indeed, coaches should take the responsibility of living with the officials' mistakes, which are as much a part of basketball as a missed layup or a bad coaching move. This is especially true with young, new officials. Coaches need to let them make their mistakes and survive. When the day comes that the officials don't have to worry about extraneous pressure from the bench and the stands, the officiating will automatically improve."
Good heavens! Coaches concentrating on coaching instead of posturing for the crowds and the TV cameras? Somebody take this man's temperature immediately. It could be a new strain of February Fever.
FICKLE FINGERS
Virginia's streak-shooting Richard Morgan had to play the second half against Clemson last Saturday with two fingers on his shooting hand taped together, the result of an injury from a first-half collision with the Tigers' Tim Kincaid. Without the tape, Morgan had missed all six of his first-half shots, extending a three-game shooting slump to 13 hoops in 61 shots. With the tape, he rediscovered his stroke early in the second half and scored 15 points as the Cavaliers came from behind for an 85-83 victory.
Since both teams were left with 15-8 overall records, the victory gave the Cavs a momentary edge over Clemson in what might be a dogfight for an NCAA tournament bid. According to Virginia coach Terry Holland and Clemson coach Cliff Ellis, four ACC teams have already locked up spots in the tournament: North Carolina, Duke, N.C. State and Georgia Tech. "That leaves us and Virginia battling for one spot," said Ellis, who also points out that three of the Tigers' four remaining league games will be played at home. Virginia, on the other hand, has three of its four on the road, where the Cavs are only 1-3 in league play.
TWO-WAY PLAYER
San Jose State's Johnny Johnson, who last season became the first football player in NCAA history to rush for more than 1,200 yards and catch at least 60 passes in the same season, is impressing Spartan fans in a new arena. He's the second-leading scorer for the ragamuffin basketball team that coach Bill Berry recruited to replace the 10 players who quit in January to protest what they characterized as Berry's "physical abuse and mental cruelty."
When Berry called the 6'3" junior tailback, who was second only to Oklahoma State's Barry Sanders with 2,202 all-purpose yards, Johnson thought he was joking. After all, he hadn't played basketball since he was a high school senior. But through last week Johnson has averaged 10.1 points and 6.5 rebounds while hitting 52.7% of his shots. Says Berry, "He has proven that he could play with us even at full strength."
The substitute team—a hodgepodge of two varsity basketball players, two football players, five student walk-ons and the team manager—has gone 0-8, losing by an average of 16 points a game. But Johnson has been impressive at times, most notably with a 23-point, 12-rebound performance in a 95-66 shellacking by Nevada-Las Vegas.
His pro football prospects notwithstanding, Johnson says he would like to play basketball next season if he's healthy. Berry says that's fine with him, assuming that he's still the coach.
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PHOTO
JOHN BIEVER
Newton will be the next AD at Kentucky, but till then he'll steer the Commodores' ship.
PHOTO
JOHN BIEVER
Tale of the tape: An injury to his hand helped Virginia's Morgan end his scoring slump.
PLAYER OF THE WEEK
SCOTT HAFFNER
Evansville 's 6'4" senior guard scored 130 points in three victories. In the Purple Aces' 109-83 win over Dayton, Haffner converted 23 of 29 shots, including 11 three-pointers, while scoring 65 points.