Tip-ins

And Hold the Veggies. Now that 240-pound Kentucky center Rodney Dent is out for the season, coach Rick Pitino fears that his team is too skinny. He has ordered Walter McCarty, a 6'9", 210-pound sophomore, to beef up. Here's a sample of his daily intake. Breakfast: Three sausage biscuits, three pancakes, four ounces of syrup and 20 ounces of fruit juice. Midmorning snack: Two 425-calorie diet supplement drinks. Lunch: Five pieces of fried chicken and 32 ounces of Gatorade. Prepractice snack: Two more 425-calorie drinks. Dinner: One 12-inch and one six-inch meatball sub, and 20 ounces of juice. Study hall snack: Another high-calorie drink and 20 ounces of juice. Prebedtime snack: Six slices of pizza and a 16-ounce ginger ale. Total Calories: 10,000-plus. Ironically, legend has it that the same diet undid center Mel Turpin's career at Kentucky.

Grave Mistake. Kansas coach Roy Williams feels strongly that the elimination of the five-second penetrate-or-pass rule has taken away the reward for good defense. He's so peeved, he sent a fax to The NCAA News that reads in part: "James Naismith is buried here in Lawrence. I went by his grave, and he had actually rolled over when he saw that team play was being eliminated by all of this dribbling." Apparently, that's not the kind of turnover Williams wants to see.

Reekin' Rebels. The true measure of how malodorous the UNLV program has become in the post-Jerry Tarkanian era may have been the Rebs' 59-39 home loss to Virginia on Jan. 3. By shooting 22.4%, UNLV set a school record for fewest points scored in a game and a Thomas & Mack Center mark for largest margin of defeat for the Rebels. Coach Rollie Massimino added to the stench by threatening to go after three students who made thumbs-down signs behind the UNLV bench; he then got into a shouting match with a relative of the Macks, the family that donated money for the construction of the 18,500-seat arena. The 6,944 fans in attendance saved their most enthusiastic reaction for university president Robert Maxson, the man who forced Tark's resignation. When Maxson's name was mentioned during a halftime ceremony, the crowd delivered a standing boo.

The Fab One. All-Name candidate Fabulous Flournoy, a 6'5" forward for McNeese State, comes from a family of immodest modifiers. Fabulous, who averages 8.0 points and 6.7 rebounds, has a sister whose given name is Precious and an older brother, christened James, who is known as Divine. But what's with younger brother Calvin, who goes by...Edward?