College Basketball / Mark Heisler : Player-of-the-Year Voters May Like Mullin, but Pro Scouts Like Ewing

Player of the Year: If St. John’s stays first in the nation, it’s going to be a huge upset, Chris Mullin over Georgetown’s Pat Ewing. Even if the pro scouts laugh and tab Ewing as everyone’s No. 1 pick in the draft.

It will be a great triumph for Mullin, a slow, non-jumping 6-5 guard. What he has, besides his trusty jump shot, are fine hands, great anticipation and terrific instincts.

His scoring average is actually down this season, to 18.9 from 22.9, but he has trimmed his game back to bring in Walter Berry, the famous non-passing prodigy at forward. Mullin might have decided, as a lot of New York reporters did early, that Berry was a pain in the neck who’d have to learn his place but didn’t.

Mullin got a huge preseason buildup, largely because the media knew they wouldn’t be granted interviews with Ewing. Mullin’s house was finally declared off-limits to reporters who want to do the life-style angle on the kid from the neighborhood.

But the hype keeps happening. Mullin is being likened to Larry Bird. The Knicks are being pressured to work a deal to draft Mullin.

“Every day is Chris Mullin scrapbook day in the Big East,” said Dick Weiss of the Philadelphia Daily News. “You can’t pick up the New York Post without reading about Mullin.”

Isn’t the basketball great in the--take your pick--ACC, Big Ten, Big East?

The Big Ten is talking about getting seven teams into the NCAA tournament. Three of them are ranked in USA Today’s top 25, and three more are among the next 20 teams that got votes. The seventh is Ohio State, which is 16-7. Indiana (14-9 overall, 6-7 in the conference) may make it just because the NCAA selection committee dotes on Bob Knight.

The Big East has three teams in the top five, a fourth in the next 20 and a fifth in the next 20. Look for five of the Big East’s nine in the NCAA.

The ACC has a chance to get the entire conference in. The worst record in the league is Virginia’s 15-11 and 3-8. OK, maybe the Cavaliers will have to settle for the NIT.

Top independents include Texas San Antonio, Radford and Chicago State. Everyone is a contender but Dordt College.

Are you sure a 64-team tournament isn’t a little too large? Like about 32 teams too large?

Well, CBS likes it, so it must be OK.

Add Pac-10 woes: You think this season is bad? Wait till next season.

Here is what the top teams will lose:

USC--Three starters, Wayne Carlander, Ron Holmes and Clayton Olivier.

Arizona--Four starters, Pete Williams, Eddie Smith, Morgan Taylor and Brock Brunkhorst. Lute Olson has one of the league’s coming programs, but unless he gets two more prime junior college transfers, like Williams and Smith, he’ll be rebuilding again.

Oregon State--A.C. Green and Steve Woodside. Big trouble in Corvallis.

Washington--Detlef Schrempf and Coach Marv Harshman. With four starters back, the Huskies will be the overwhelming preseason pick--again. In this league, four decent returning starters make you a dynasty.

UCLA--Brad Wright, Nigel Miguel and Gary Maloncon. Walt Hazzard will probably start two freshmen, two sophomores and a junior, that grand old man of the program, the dean, Reggie Miller.

The early line on next season: 1. Washington; 2. Arizona State; 3. Washington State? 4. Cal?

On UCLA and the NIT: Sources as disparate as Digger Phelps and Walt Hazzard have called for UCLA’s debut, if asked. The UCLA administration is still reported skeptical.

The administration caught a lot of flak for last year’s decision not to go. Larry Farmer thought that it cost him recruits, including Craig McMillan. A Bay Area reporter said, however, that McMillan had long since decided against UCLA.

But really, what did the Bruins have to gain? If they had won the NIT, everyone would have said: “Imagine, UCLA having fallen to winning the NIT.”

If they had lost, a more likely prospect, everyone would have said: “Imagine, UCLA can’t even win the NIT.”

Last season’s team was not in line for any reward, anyway, after starting 9-2 and finishing 17-11.

As far as Phelps’ argument goes, that college basketball owes something to the NIT for providing the forerunner of the NCAA tournament, that’s ridiculous. The NIT has one aim, to make money for Madison Square Garden. That such an anachronism survives to pit the 65th-best team in America against the 80th is a mystery, an oversight or both.

Should the Bruins be asked again, however, they may consider going. Last season’s reasons for staying home no longer apply. Everyone knows they’re down. This team has gone through fire. If it finishes well, a reward wouldn’t be out of the question.

Hazzard could use the platform to suggest that UCLA is back on its way up. It would give him what he wants, a chance to wave the flag in New York and recruit the East Coast.

Notes And now, Son of Digger: UCLA football Coach Terry Donahue is recruiting Dick Phelps, a 6-2, 210-pound junior linebacker from St. Joseph’s High School in South Bend, Ind.

The Prophet--Said Oregon State assistant coach Lanny Van Eman to the Oregonian’s Nick Bertram when the Beavers had two league losses: “Not only does UCLA have every bit as much talent (as OSU), but Washington has inside power we’re envious of. Arizona State’s collection of athletes 1 through 10 might be the best in the league. Ralph (Miller, OSU coach) has said this team has no margin of error. We don’t have power inside. We don’t have depth. This is just an example of Ralph Miller finding some way to take a collection of players and make them a contender.” This was also Miller losing his margin of error by refusing to play some of his big underclassmen early. Instead he stuck to his two-forward, three-guard, no-sub lineup.

The Prophet II--Nine Pac-10 coaches picked Washington to win the conference title. Washington State’s Len Stevens picked USC.

The Prophet III--Stevens says he’s not only going to have one of the top three teams in the Pac-10 next season, but one of the top 20 in the nation. They’d better check the drinking water in Pullman.