College Basketball : This Isn’t Everybody’s All-American Team It’s Got One Surprise

The regular season ends this weekend, which means it’s time for my first annual, eagerly awaited All-American team.

Four picks are going to be no surprise. They’ll be almost unanimous on All-American teams everywhere:

Center--Pat Ewing, Georgetown. The greatest defender at the position since Bill Russell. SMU’s Jon Koncak guesses he’s a shade under his listed 7-0, though.

Big forward--Wayman Tisdale, Oklahoma, 6-8. Doesn’t have one of the great all-around games, but he’s a tremendous post-up scorer and rebounder. Great charm and enthusiasm. He says he’s really 6-7. Strength and jumping ability make him bigger.

Small forward--Keith Lee, Memphis State, 6-10. A finesse player, cut from the Pan-Am team in 1982 and was in danger of losing his big name. But the emergence of 7-0 teammate William Bedford allowed him to move to forward, where his outside shooting and passing ability meant something. As a pro, who knows?

Big guard--Chris Mullin, St. John’s, 6-5. Great shooter, surprising defender and passer, and a coach on the floor. The Larry Bird comparison is very overdrawn, but you get the idea. He’s one of those physically limited players who is so good, and so smart, he makes his teammates better.

And the pick that won’t be unanimous:

Point guard--Sam Vincent, Michigan State, 6-2. Good ball handler and scorer. Very slick. Already a pro-type. The brother of the Dallas Mavericks’ Jay.

Coach of the year--Bill Frieder, Michigan. Narrowly over Lou Carnesecca, St. John’s, whose job was made so much easier by Mullin.

And the second team:

Center--Benoit Benjamin, Creighton, 7-0. A late bloomer who wasn’t even invited to the Olympic camp. Some coaches are now even comparing his potential to Ewing’s. Beats out Koncak of SMU, who has made huge strides in two years.

Forwards--Karl Malone, Louisiana Tech, and Len Bias, Maryland.

Guards--Johnny Dawkins, Duke, and Mark Price, Georgia Tech. Price is like Jon Sundvold and Kyle Macy, great college guards who became only fair pros. This is a college team, though, and Price ranks ahead of Syracuse’s Pearl Washington, who is going to be by far the better pro.

And my All-Pacific 10 team:

Center--Brad Wright, UCLA. No kidding here. In conference games, he’s the leading rebounder and shot blocker. He’s fourth in shooting percentage and 16th in scoring. A narrow pick over Arizona’s 6-7 captain of the all-heart team, Pete Williams.

Forward--A.C. Green, Oregon State. Averaged 19 points a game, shot 59%, led the conference in rebounding in all games. Can shoot outside, too. No. 1 draft choice and a good pro prospect.

Forward--Wayne Carlander, USC. If it had been close, which it wasn’t, his 38 points against UCLA would have clinched it. Even on bad nights, like his first game against the Bruins, he makes plays his team needs.

He beats out Detlef Schrempf, a fine player who’ll be a No. 1 draft choice, but who had a mediocre season.

Guard--Kevin Johnson, California. Marginally out of control, but this sophomore has more ability than any point guard in the conference. Beats out Arizona’s Brock Brunkhorst, who is more solid, but more limited.

Guard--Keith Morrison, Washington State. Led the Cougars in rebounding, steals, assists and was their second-leading scorer. Hard worker and makes the big play, too.

Defensive player of the year--Nigel Miguel, UCLA. Easily. Miguel is 6-6, but Walt Hazzard put him in mismatches all season, like the ones against Carlander and Notre Dame’s 6-10 Ken Barlow.

Top freshman--Leonard Taylor, Cal. Over Chris Sandle of Arizona State, who was impressive, but erratic.

Most underrated--Larry Friend, USC. Everyone was sneering at him early because he’s so small--that listed 5-11 is kind of optimistic. But he’s one big reason the Trojans won so many close games. Makes pressure free throws and doesn’t mind having the ball at the end.

Coach of the year--Stan Morrison, USC. Liked by all, but there was some lingering question whether he was too wedded to his controlled system. After a series of big-player transfers--Ken Johnson, Gerry Wright--and last season’s 11-20, he was thought to be in some trouble. Picked to finish seventh this season, he showed ‘em.

Busts:

--Illinois and DePaul, who were supposed to make their state the basketball center of the nation. The Illini, picked No. 1 by Basketball Weekly, lost eight games. At DePaul, Joey Meyer had a can’t-win situation and he didn’t. The Demons lost to every good team on their schedule.

--Indiana freshman Delray Brooks. Not that he won’t be a good player, but what made him one of two high school players, with Danny Manning, worthy of an invitation to the Olympic camp? A lot of freshman guards--Notre Dame’s David Rivers, Michigan’s Gary Grant, Purdue’s Troy Lewis--have since had better seasons.

--UCLA’s new fight song. Nobody learned the words, except the band, which was ordered to.

How helpful was UCLA’s volunteer assistant, Sidney Wicks?

Under Larry Farmer, the big men had no individual coach. Brad Wright, asked about his improvement and about Stuart Gray’s problems at UCLA, said: “One thing Stuart didn’t have was Sidney Wicks.”

Wicks, on young people:

“Kids now are more pampered. They’re second-generation-educated ethnics. They’re just a little bit pampered. Not just in basketball, in general. There are not as many as hungry as we were coming up.

“I think it’s safe to say they got away from some of the attitude and the mental frame of mind they’d had here. I don’t know if it was the coaches or the kids, if it was too many kids without drive. I just know when we got here, these kids had no clue how much hard work it takes to be a championship team.”

Excuse of the ages: Sports Illustrated reports that after Bob Knight had thrown the chair, he explained it to friends this way: He had gone to the game without his trademark red plaid jacket. “When he became angered by the officials, he instinctively wanted to tear his jacket off. ‘But I wasn’t wearing a jacket,’ he said, ‘so I grabbed a chair, instead.’ ”