College Basketball / Mike Downey : Kentucky’s Loss Still Hard to Take

How could the same Kentucky team that won at Louisville, 85-51, lose seven games later at home to Louisiana State, 76-41?

The mere thought of Kentucky losing a basketball game to LSU by 35 points on its own floor is like imagining Hulk Hogan losing a cage match to Pee-wee Herman.

Wildcat Coach Eddie Sutton is still trying to get over it. “I’ve coached for 30 years, and this is the most embarrassing game I’ve ever been a part of,” he said.

The wild Wildcat fans probably are having a difficult time coping with this revoltin’ development, too, although some of them undoubtedly blame the whole thing on the Lexington Herald-Leader for having the nerve to publish the final score.

LSU’s conference record going into the game was a sparkling 1-5, and the Tigers came back three days later and were routed by Florida, 75-51.

It was one thing for Kentucky to get saddled with its worst home-court defeat in 60 years, but at least it might have gone down a little more easily had this woodshed whipping been at the hands of North Carolina or Nevada Las Vegas or some such nationally ranked team.

Losing like that to Dale Brown, coach of the LSU Tigers and the Mars Olympic team, was pretty hard to take. So hard that Sutton called a practice for his team for two hours after the game.

Kentucky will play at home on Super Bowl Sunday for the first time since the LSU humiliation. The visiting team will be nationally ranked Navy and midcourt-shipman David Robinson, so it won’t be easy for the Wildcats to impress their fans that everything is all right again.

Then again, Navy is not exactly America’s surest thing. On Jan. 12, the Midshipmen won by two points over George Mason, who is not a player but a college, and Wednesday night, despite 44 points by Robinson, they lost by three to a 6-7 team from Drexel, wherever that is.

Bob Knight, coach of the Indiana Flying Chairs, is not enjoying a winter of content.

Although he already has his hands full in a league that has had four teams ranked among the nation’s top 10, Knight has had to deal with the controversies caused by a best-selling book, and now has been called a “flagrant” offender in, well, the offending of student-athletes.

The Bloomington (Ind.) Faculty Council drew up a “statement of rights” and approved it the other night, a writ claiming that Indiana University athletes have been abused in various forms by their coaches, Knight included. One economics professor claimed that Knight subjected athletes to “humiliation of the worst kind,” and said the time had come to monitor his behavior.

Although only verbal abuse was mentioned with regard to Knight, a sociology professor, Whitney Pope, suggested that Indiana athletes have been “hit, pushed, shoved and . . . molested” in various ways in recent years, prompting him to vote to safeguard these athletes’ rights.

So far, it really hasn’t been Knight’s year. “A Season on the Brink,” a book he is not recommending to friends, was No. 12 on the most recent New York Times list of best-sellers, and three Indiana transfers are producing for their new teams. Marty Simmons is leading Evansville in scoring, Delray Brooks is averaging close to 18 points a game for Providence, and Mike Giomi is starting for North Carolina State.

One cannot imagine Knight losing much sleep over any of it, though.

Big Ten coaches recently were polled--Knight abstained--about freshman eligibility, and most of them were dead set against it. They doubted anything would be done about it, though.

“I’ll be surprised if they make freshmen ineligible,” said Michigan Coach Bill Frieder. “We’ve got too many presidents and ADs that are two-faced. They talk academics, but when the time comes, they want to compete against the Michigans and Notre Dames.”

Speaking of competing, some coaches remain so impressed with Western Kentucky that they think the Hilltoppers could play in any company. USC Coach George Raveling recently rated Western as having three NBA prospects, and said: “If they were in the Big Ten, they would compete with Indiana, Purdue and Iowa for the championship.”

Poor old Eddie Sutton of Kentucky, meantime, with Western on one flank and defending NCAA champion Louisville on another, says: “People ask me how it feels to be the third basketball program in the state. I say I’d rather be the third-best program in a great basketball state than the No. 1 program in a state that couldn’t care less.”

Coach Bill Bibb of Mercer said he wasn’t sure how serious Sutton was, but added: “I don’t have a doubt in my mind that they (Western Kentucky) are the best team in Kentucky. Maybe they’re as good a rebounding team as I’ve ever seen.”

Basketball Notes UNLV is still the No. 1 team in the country in this writer’s notebook, despite the loss at Oklahoma and the efforts of third referee Brent Musburger. The Rebels have another big one Feb. 1 at Auburn. . . . Led by the unstoppable and unpronounceable Rony Seikaly, Syracuse got off to a 15-0 start before falling at Michigan. . . . Providence Coach Rick Pitino says of Wake Forest’s 5-3 Tyrone (Mugsy) Bogues: “There isn’t a guard in the NBA with the quickness to defend him.” Nor the legs short enough to keep him from dribbling under. . . . Here comes Tito: 21 points and 10 boards for travelin’ man Tito Horford in Miami’s 85-82 win over St. Francis of Pennsylvania. . . . Game of the week: Sunday, DePaul at Georgetown. . . . Name of the week: Sam Hill, center, Iowa State. You can just call him What In The.