Sloan Is Up to Ears in Italians

Norm Sloan, the Florida basketball coach, has watched a lot of basketball on television this season, and apparently he’s had his fill of Jim Valvano and Dick Vitale.

Sloan is a former coach at North Carolina State, where his 1973-74 team won the NCAA title. In the first round of this year’s playoffs, his Gators knocked off the Wolfpack, now coached by the highly visible Valvano.

Sloan doesn’t think Florida gets enough recognition, but he’s not going to change his act.

“I’m not going to start grabbing sweaty bodies and kissing everybody,” he said, apparently referring to Valvano. “You don’t have to be a Michelangelo to have a good basketball program, or do silly little things like having a three-minute stage show on the sideline.”

Then, apparently referring to Vitale, he said: “I’m getting tired of these Italian analysts promoting Italian coaches. I’m not anti-Italian. I love Italian food. I have garlic coming out of all my pores I eat so much of it.”

Jerry Tarkanian, whose Nevada Las Vegas team faces Wyoming Friday night, told John Feinstein of the Washington Post: “We haven’t rebounded all season. That bothers me. We don’t have any big guys. We never get 7-footers or anything. All my centers are little.

“We’ve recruited one kid who was a star in high school in the last eight years. We don’t get players the way North Carolina does. We have to depend on junior colleges.”

Said Wyoming Coach Jim Brandenburg: “Jerry Tarkanian is the biggest moaner, crier and sniveler on the face of the earth. You’d think his guys were choirboys and they couldn’t beat the Sisters of the Poor.”

Add Wyoming: Denver Nugget Coach Doug Moe, on 6-11 Cowboy center Eric Leckner: “I’ll tell you what, I saw him in a game earlier this year against Louisville, and I couldn’t believe how good he was. I didn’t even know who he was before that. He’s as good as any center in college ball.”

Trivia Time: Who was Graig Nettles of the New York Yankees referring to in 1978 when he said, “From Cy Young to Sayonara.”? (Answer in column two.)

How strong was Wilt Chamberlain? Clem Haskins, basketball coach at the University of Minnesota and a former guard with the Chicago Bulls, recalled a time he was ordered into the game to “take” a foul against Wilt.

Haskins told Patrick Reusse of the St. Paul Pioneer Press: “Wilt gets the ball and I jump on his back. This is eight feet from the basket. I’m a big man, 205 pounds. Doesn’t bother Wilt. He goes up and dunks the ball with me hanging on his back. Three-point play.”

From Abe Lemons, basketball coach at Oklahoma City, an NAIA school: “We’re like a big-time team. They take out a 6-8 guy and put in a 6-8 guy. We take out a 5-8 guy and put in a 5-8 guy. You learn a lot from those big-time teams.”

Trivia Answer: Teammate Sparky Lyle, who went from 26 saves in 1977 when he won the Cy Young Award to 9 saves in 1978.

Quotebook

Michigan’s Garde Thompson, after scoring a career-high 33 points against Navy and then struggling to supply a specimen for the NCAA drug test: “I couldn’t go. It was the only thing I couldn’t fill up all night.”