Good Programs Field Good Teams : Stars Come and Go, While Winning Remains a Constant

For Memphis State, Oklahoma, St. John’s and Georgetown, it wasn’t the end after all.

After losing superstars, none was picked to win their conference basketball titles in preseason coaches’ polls, yet all are ranked in the Top Ten.

Memphis State, playing without Keith Lee, is quicker and shares the scoring wealth.

St. John’s, minus Chris Mullin, has a flashier leading scorer in Walter Berry.

Oklahoma, which lost Wayman Tisdale, just gets the points from different people.

And Georgetown, which may never be able to replace Patrick Ewing in the middle, moved outside and plays with a four-headed center.

“The reason they’re still up there is we’re talking about programs, not teams, “ said CBS sportscaster Billy Packer. “They always have someone else coming along.”

“I’m really surprised we won our first 20 games,” said Memphis State Coach Dana Kirk, whose fourth-ranked Tigers have shown they can get along quite well without Lee, the leading scorer and rebounder in their history.

“We’re not as big, but we’re quicker,” Kirk said.

Lee, 6-foot-10, lacked stamina and frequently got into foul trouble late last season, but he was an outstanding half-court player because of his size, good hands, shooting and rebounding ability.

“I’d say the biggest difference is that we’re a longer defensive team. We play 94 feet of the court instead of 64 feet. I can’t say anything but good things about Keith. We got to the Final Four with him. This is just a different team.”

Memphis State, led by 7-foot center William Bedford and point guard Andre Turner, is leading the Metro Conference and had a 22-2 record through Monday’s games.

When Tisdale, a three-time All-America and the leading scorer in Big Eight history, left a year early for the National Basketball Association, many predicted it would send Oklahoma into a tailspin. But the Sooners, 22-2, are ranked No. 8 and are battling Kansas for the conference crown.

“We went to Wayman a lot,” said Oklahoma Coach Billy Tubbs, “but with or without him, we have a lot of good players. The key fact is that we have the same system. We never change anything offensively and defensively. We recruit to fit the scheme of things so we don’t have a big dropoff when someone leaves.”

The Sooners play run and shoot and are one of the nation’s highest scoring teams with a 91.3 average. Four players, Darryl Kennedy, Tim McCalister, David Johnson and Anthony Bowie, all are hitting double figures.

St. John’s Coach Lou Carnesecca lamented the loss of Mullin’s intelligent play and scoring punch, which made him the leading scorer in Redmen history. “Players like Mullin come along once in a lifetime,” he said before the season. Also gone in the first round of the NBA draft was 7-foot Bill Wennington.

Unranked in the preseason Top Twenty, St. John’s currently is No. 7 with a 22-3 record behind the 6-8 Berry, an outstanding shooter and rebounder, and four role players who are producing beyond expectations from their reserve chores a year ago.

Junior point guard Mark Jackson has been leading the nation in assists and senior guard Ron Rowan, the other guard who saw little action behind Mullin last season, is deadly from the outside and free-throw line and is the Redmen’s No. 2 scorer.

“He’s meant more to this team than anyone can understand through scoring, timely scoring, passing and defense,” Carnesecca said.

As for Carnesecca, in his 18th season with the Redmen, many feel he’s doing his best job ever.

“He’s turned his team into the atypical Lou Carnesecca-St. John’s mold,” Villanova Coach Rollie Massimino said. “In the beginning of the year, they were running up and down a lot more than they normally do. But now they’re walking it up more and getting to the people who have to get the ball.”

No. 9 Georgetown, which made the Final Four three times during the Ewing era, is contending, along with St. John’s and Syracuse, for the Big East title. The Hoyas are 19-4.

Filling the 7-foot Ewing’s big shoes has been the toughest test of all. Coach John Thompson can’t find one player to do it, so he’s doing it by shuttling Ralph Dalton, Ronnie Highsmith, Grady Mateen and Johnathan Edwards.

They haven’t provided much offensive punch, so the perimeter players -- Reggie Williams, David Wingate and Michael Jackson -- have carried the brunt of the Georgetown offense.

Defensively, the Hoyas still play with pressure defense, but it’s not the same when Ewing isn’t there to clog the middle and swat away shots.