NCAA MEN’S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT : A CHANCE FOR Revenge : Louisiana Tech Plays Oklahoma in Grudge Game

Andy Russo says that Ruston, La., is not a sports-oriented community and recalls that there was a time when some folks there believed that the Louisiana Tech women’s basketball team could beat the men’s team.

That’s an unrealistic idea, but it does underscore the point that the Lady Techsters had a stronger program and were more visible nationally than their male counterparts.

No longer.

Russo, the men’s coach, is not clinging to the skirts of the women’s team nowadays.

His Bulldogs, known as the Dunkin’ Dogs in northern Louisiana, have emerged as a power in college basketball.

Louisiana Tech (29-2) is on a 13-game winning streak and would become even more prominent with a victory over Oklahoma (30-5) tonight in Reunion Arena in the semifinals of the NCAA Midwest Regional.

Russo is additionally motivated by a grudge against Billy Tubbs, Oklahoma’s coach, but more about that later.

Boston College (20-10) will play Memphis State (29-3) in the other semifinal game. The Eagles from the Big East Conference are a Cinderella team. It seems there has to be at least one such team in the NCAA tournament.

Some people put Louisiana Tech in the Cinderella category but that’s not quite appropriate. “We’re a Cinderella team only in the sense that people around the country may be surprised about how good we are,” Russo said.

Louisiana Tech, of the Southland Conference, got some attention last year by upsetting Fresno State in a first-round NCAA game.

Actually, attention was focused more on star center Karl (The Mailman) Malone than on Tech. Malone, a 6-foot 9-inch, 250-pound athlete who shatters glass backboards with his thunderous dunks, is still the centerpiece of the team.

But others, such as goggle-wearing Willie Simmons, a 6-l0 shot-blocking specialist, and slick point-guard Wayne Smith, are now gaining recognition for their skills.

“People know how good Karl is, but they were unaware of how good the other kids are,” Russo said.

Recognition is something Russo’s team struggled for while playing in the shadow of the Lady Techsters, who have won two national championships and have been among the Final Four six straight years.

When Russo arrived at Louisiana Tech in 1979, he watched in amazement as the school’s pep band packed up after a women’s game, not bothering to stay for the men’s game. Often, the crowd followed suit.

Now the men are outdrawing the women by about 1,500 fans a game at home. Moreover, sportswriters representing papers in New York, Philadelphia, Dallas and Chicago, as well as Sports Illustrated, are showing up at Ruston.

Is that a novelty? You bet.

“There was a time when we couldn’t get anybody over here from Monroe (a neighboring city),” Russo said.

Keith Prince, the school’s long-time sports information director, is working overtime these days to accommodate big city papers’ requests for interviews with Malone and Russo.

“Even with Terry Bradshaw, there hasn’t been anything of this magnitude, publicity-wise,” Prince said.

Bradshaw may not have put Ruston on the map, but at least he pinpointed it with his subsequent all-pro career with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Now, Louisiana Tech has thriving men’s and women’s basketball programs. The women, like the men, are still alive in the NCAA tournament. The Lady Techsters will play San Diego State Friday night in a Midwest Regional game at Monroe.

Russo said he was never uncomfortable operating alongside the successful women’s basketball program, even when his own team was moderately successful but generally unrecognized.

“They were making basketball fans out of people who weren’t previously fans,” he said. “I didn’t have any problem with the attention they got. What bothered me was the lack of attention we got.”

It isn’t coincidental that the maturing of Malone coincided with the Bulldogs’ ascendancy to the big time.

He’s a local product, having grown up in Summerfield, population 400, just 39 miles from Ruston. But even he didn’t know much about the Bulldogs.

“I used to come to Tech to watch the girls play,” Malone said.

But Russo knew all about Malone, who led his high school to three consecutive Class C state titles. So did Coach Eddie Sutton of Arkansas.

Malone visited Arkansas and liked the school, but his mother, Shirley Malone Turner, who operates a small grocery store in Summerfield, wanted her son to stay closer to home. Mother knows best, so Malone signed with Louisiana Tech.

A junior now, Malone is averaging 16.4 points and 8.8 rebounds. He exudes power but still isn’t a complete player, Russo says.

“Karl was always a good defensive player. He’s aggressive and plays hard,” Russo said. “You have to understand that he came from a school that graduated a class of 20 kids. It was that small.

“There just wasn’t anyone near his size. He was never crowded and played outside. Now he’s playing inside and it’s hard for him to make decisions on what to do in a crowd. His instincts aren’t real good.

“Although he has progressed very far, he needs to think instead of bulling his way to the basket. He has a good shooting range, but I’m uncomfortable with him from anywhere past 12 feet. However, if I let him go, he’d probably be pretty good from outside.”

Russo can only hope that The Mailman will deliver tonight against Oklahoma, which beat Louisiana Tech last December in Oklahoma City, 84-72.

Malone had 22 points and 15 rebounds in that game while limiting Wayman Tisdale, the Sooners’ three-time All-American center, to 12 points.

But Louisiana Tech committed 18 turnovers in the first half, fell behind by 17 points and couldn’t catch Oklahoma.

“I think we match up pretty well with them,” Russo said. “We’re just as physical as they are and probably just as quick. We just have to play smarter than we did in the first game.”

Russo isn’t sure whether he’ll assign Malone to the powerful Tisdale again, but he doubts it.

Oklahoma’s concept of defense is to simply outscore the opposition, and the Sooners have been adept at it. They were the nation’s highest scoring team during the regular season with a 91-point average.

“They figure the more shots there are in a game, the better off they are--and they’re probably right,” Russo said. “They’re just an extremely talented offensive basketball team.”

Tubbs, the outspoken coach of the Sooners, explained his theory of basketball to Sports Illustrated recently:

“I don’t even like defense. Defense is no fun. We want to destroy teams. Shot clock? We wouldn’t mind a 10-second clock. I like to see the ball fly. I want to hear the nets pop.”

Russo doesn’t want to hear anything from Tubbs, though. He is still seething because, he says, Tubbs reneged on a contract for the game that was to have opened Louisiana Tech’s new arena three years ago.

“Oklahoma was supposed to play us and Tubbs swore up and down that he would honor the contract,” Russo said. “Then, five months before the game, he backed out and has been unspoken to by me ever since.

“Billy coached in our league, at Lamar, and we were good friends. I said, ‘You’re coming, aren’t you?’ He said, ‘Definitely.’ Then I said, ‘Tell me if you aren’t because I have to get somebody good to open this place.’ He said, ‘No problem.’

“Then, at the end of May, they (Oklahoma) sent us a check of $4,000 to pay off the guarantee. Not playing us really bothered me, but to keep telling me all along he was going to come and then deciding he wasn’t is something else.”

Russo, 36, grew up in Wilmette, Ill., near Chicago. He was an assistant high school coach before he became a graduate assistant to Don Haskins at Texas El Paso. He then went on to become a successful coach at Panola Junior College in Carthage, Tex., where he had a 45-19 record from 1977 through 1979.

He said his coaching style has been influenced by Haskins, Hank Iba, Eddie Sutton and Frenso State’s Boyd Grant.

“I went to Boyd’s summer camp last June,” Russo said. “My main purpose was to learn about their defense--match up zones and man-to-man. I did and we’re now playing Fresno’s defense.”

When Russo got to Ruston, a city with a population of 21,000, he discovered that recruiting was difficult.

“There are 14 Division I schools in Louisiana and five are within 70 miles of us,” he said. “We were on the low end, in terms of local following and tradition. We had to bide our time until we proved ourselves. Getting the new arena was a big boost.”

Russo also had another element to fight while recruiting. Rival schools told recruits that Louisiana Tech was known only for its women’s basketball program.

“Our biggest rival, Northeast Louisiana, had a picture album with articles about that very thing,” Russo said. “There were pictures of the men’s crowds versus the women’s crowds.

“Now their women’s team has captured the fancy of their fans and they’re probably in a worse position than we were in.

“What goes around, comes around. That leads me to our game with Oklahoma.”

Then, Russo chuckled and said, “Sooner or later, we’ll get him.”

He meant Tubbs, of course.