College Basketball : Bruin Stars, Past and Present, Help Woo Prize Recruit

J.R. Fever: In Pauley Pavilion, where the full-court press was popularized, UCLA recently massed its stars, past and present, around J.R. Reid, a visiting high school senior from Virginia Beach, Va., to whom they’d like to entrust their future.

John Wooden sat next to him. Marques Johnson just happened to stop by and found a seat right behind him. David Greenwood, who was Reid’s boyhood idol, called. Bill Cosby, a Temple Owl but one close to Walt Hazzard, called. The UCLA student body broke out banners, chanted “J.R.! J.R.!” and proffered hands to be slapped as he walked past after the game.

Reid had said he’d like to wear Greenwood’s No. 34. Would Hazzard mind?

“Come into my locker room,” Hazzard said, suggesting that Reid had already been shown a UCLA No. 34.

However, 34s are also being prepared at Virginia, reportedly the choice of Reid’s mother, though she denies it; Maryland, rumored to be J.R.’s front-runner, though he denies it, North Carolina and Iowa.

He has also received calls from Michael Jordan and James Worthy, on behalf of guess whom; from an ex-Cavalier named Ralph Sampson and a one-time Terrapin now in Harvard Law School, Len Elmore.

Another Laker-Tar Heel, Mitch Kupchak, called last summer, from the Boston Garden dressing room. The rest of Kupchak’s teammates were busy squirting champagne at each other, the Lakers having just won the NBA championship. When those Tar Heels want you, they want you.

A few days before visiting UCLA, Reid played his last regular-season high school game. Watching, although they aren’t allowed to talk to him, were Virginia’s Terry Holland and Iowa’s George Raveling. Raveling had left Iowa City by Learjet at 5 Eastern time for the 7:30 game.

Upon arriving, Raveling ran into a newspaperman he knew, Mike Littwin of the Baltimore Sun. The first thing Raveling said was:

“You seen Dean?”

Raveling then spent the next 15 minutes combing the gym for North Carolina’s Dean Smith without locating him. Maybe he was hiding in a trash can.

Reid is 6 feet 10 inches, 240 pounds and rated the best prospect in his class. He can play outside and inside. He has announced that he’s a power forward and won’t play center in college.

“He’s definitely a power forward,” Holland told Littwin, “ . . . unless he wants to play center.”

Reid once said: “What I’d really like is to play point guard.”

He could be university president, if that’s what it takes. Nevertheless, Reid is described as a pleasant young man with his head on straight. Both parents are teachers--his father was also his junior high coach--and he carries a 2.6 average in a college prep curriculum.

His parents invite visiting newspapermen back to the house. When one had to leave, Reid’s father got into his own car and drove part way to the local airport to show the way.

Reid has said that the Bruin students’ chanting was nice, better than the Virginia students, that he likes Lefty Driesell’s country style, that he loves “Mr. Raveling’s personality,” etc.

He plans to announce his choice around the time of his 18th birthday, March 31.

Everyone else, nice try.

Add recruiting: Basketball junkies eat this stuff up. It’s the trenches, where programs are built and ruined. Nevertheless, it should be taken advisedly.

A significant percentage of these “four-star thoroughbred blue-chipper franchise impact players” flatten out, stiffen out, flunk out, or whatever. More to the point, if we allow 17- and 18-year-old kids to be paraded through meat markets, we deserve what we get.

For what it’s worth, here are some of the leaders this year:

SYRACUSE--To the great embarrassment of everyone on the West Coast, the Orangemen landed two of the top-rated guards in Los Angeles, Crenshaw’s Stevie Thompson and St. Monica’s Earl Duncan.

NORTH CAROLINA--More embarrassment is that the Tar Heels got 6-10 1/2 Scott Williams of Hacienda Heights Wilson. He is rated No. 1 in the Long Beach Press-Telegram’s Best in the West poll of area college recruiters.

LOUISVILLE--The Cardinals’ first real big man, 7-1, 250-pound Felton Spencer of Eastern High in Louisville, is expected to move freshman Pervis Ellison to forward, although he’s said to have gained weight and had a slow senior season.

MICHIGAN--Terry Mills, a 6-10, 210-pound forward, thought by some to be superior to Reid at the start of this season.

And on the West Coast:

UCLA--In his first shot, Hazzard, with help from Andre McCarter, snatched Pooh Richardson out of Temple’s arms, although Hazzard lost all the big men they went after: Tito Horford, Tommy Hammonds, Jonathon Edwards. In this, his first full recruiting year, Hazzard landed 6-11 Kevin Walker of Brea-Olinda, 6-10 Greg Foster of Oakland Skyline and 6-7 Trevor Wilson of Reseda Cleveland, rated Nos. 3, 4 and 7, respectively, in Best of the West.

Foster is the physical type the Bruins have been waiting for to play the middle, though he may be a little raw. Whatever he is, he’ll get a chance to prove it. If they get Reid, the Bruins may have the best freshman class in the country.

The West Coast’s greatest remaining prize is 6-9 Chris Munk of San Francisco Riordan, a power forward type who wants to go to Stanford, but who will have to show the Cardinal a Stanford-size SAT. He also visited USC recently.

Washington has signed 6-8 Michael Hayward and Jeff Sanor, rated 10 and 14 in Best of the West. Arizona’s Lute Olson, who has rebuilt the Wildcats without having started a player taller than 6-7, hasn’t found his missing big man yet and is said to be checking out junior colleges.

News item: Michigan State’s Scott Skiles gets 30 days for violating his probation, reduceable to 15 for good behavior. He can serve them during spring break or the summer, so he won’t miss any games or classes.

Comment: At those prices, he should have robbed a bank.

This is not to take anything away from Skiles’ performance. He’s having a sensational season--26.5-point average, 56% from the floor--and was first team All-American on my ballot.

None of that, though, should count for anything before the judicial system. He had a prior conviction for marijuana possession and acknowledged buying liquor last November, a violation of his probation. He was arrested that night and charged with drunken driving, for which he hasn’t yet been tried.

For that, he gets 15 days, apparently to be served any time he doesn’t have anything better to do.

If the judge was trying to show that athletes are equally accountable before the law, he failed and thus became part of the problem, himself. Treating athletes as if their work has transcendent importance encourages them to think they can get away with anything.

Now, back to the game.

In Michigan State’s recent upset of Michigan, Skiles snarled at Antoine Joubert: “Shoot it, fat boy, show me something.”

Joubert, no shrinking violet himself, had guaranteed that the Wolverines would win. When they lost, Coach Bill Frieder banned all player interviews for the rest of the season.

A week later, after Michigan had rallied to beat Alabama Birmingham on national TV, Frieder said, “We’re going to win it (the Big Ten title). I guarantee it.”