Prep All-Stars Try to Stand Tall Against the Soviet Juniors Today

The Anderson Alacs, the local AAU team in central Indiana, threw one of the most formidable high school basketball lineups in the country at the Soviet Junior National team and were still pushed aside. Jay Edwards, Lyndon Jones, Rick Fox, Jerome Harmon and Sean Kemp, the first four heading to three of the biggest college powerhouses and the latter one of the top juniors in America, lost by 17 points.

A few nights earlier, Team Florida, with Livingston Chatman, David White and Chris Corchiani, was booed on two separate occasions by the hometown fans in Tallahassee for rough house play. No matter. They lost anyway, 87-81, after leading by 13 in the first half.

At least Alonzo Mourning, the outstanding junior from Virginia, was able to make a dent, with 17 points, 22 rebounds and 13 blocked shots. But beyond that, the May 13 game in Hampton, Va., also belonged to the visitors, who claimed a 71-62 victory despite having traveled 11 hours by plane and four more by bus the day before.

The trail of beaten teams left behind by the touring Soviet Junior Nationals is, indeed, impressive--the big and the fast, some of the best American players of the next decade. Teams all over the country have been lining up to get beat by the Russians, who have a 14-day, 9-city journey that has gone from the East Coast to the South to the Midwest.

Tonight at 6 at Cerritos College, they get to see Southern California up close. And the West gets to see the world.

How could a team that has LeRon Ellis (Santa Ana Mater Dei), Sean Higgins (Fairfax), David Whitmore (Playa del Rey St. Bernard), Mark Georgeson (Huntington Beach Marina) and Jason Matthews (Santa Monica St. Monica) be in the slightest bit of trouble? Add to that team Ronnie Coleman (Compton Dominguez), J.D. Green (Fairfax), Sean Rooks (Fontana), Kevin Franklin (Woodland Hills Taft) and Tank Collins (Pomona) and it still doesn’t guarantee victory?

Only in this game.

The last tour by the Soviet juniors, in 1983, included five players who are now on the national team. That team, which did not come to California, went 8-3, and the current group is said to be even better.

All they have this time is a starting lineup that averages 6-8, sometimes opening with three players at 6-10: Igor Pinchuk, Georgy Rezsov and Dmitry Minaev. Along with 6-4 guards Sergy Babkov and Gundars Vetra, all can hit the three-pointer (Babkov had five in Florida) or drive to the basket with equal success. This must be the sports version of a red scare.

“He (Minaev) would pump fake, and before you’d expect it, he’d go flying by you to the basket,” Fox of the Anderson team, heading to North Carolina, said after the Soviets’ 122-105 win May 19.

“We knew they’d be physical, but it took us some time to find out just how physical,” Fox said.

Anderson was able to keep things interesting despite playing most of the game without Kemp, who picked up two fouls in the first 90 seconds and his third before five minutes had expired. But every time Anderson got close, the Soviets, while shooting 60% from the field, would take control.

The win there was the fourth in the first five games, the Soviets only loss coming on May 14, as the Gauchos club team of New York City best them, 89-86, in a 1,200-seat gym in the Bronx.

Then, a group of Memphis, Tenn., 17-and-under all-stars beat the Soviets, 119-117, in overtime Thursday night. Whether the visitors will count that as a true loss is another matter.

Twice, Soviet Coach Vladimir Obukhov had to be talked into putting his team back on the court after conferring with game organizers. He pulled the Russians off with 2:54 left in regulation and the score tied at 101, presumably miffed with the referees, who had just fouled out Minaev. Later, the team went into the locker room after time had run out in a 108-108 game, with Obukhov saying an overtime period was not in the agreement.

So they took a 4-2 record into Friday night’s game at Searcy, Ark., the last stop before coming to California. They were scheduled to arrive Saturday afternoon and practice at Cerritos College, spend some time at a press conference and then watch the Angels play the New York Yankees.

That’s right, the Yankees. You were expecting maybe the Reds?

Notes The game, as has the entire Soviet tour, will be played with international rules. The most obvious changes are wider lanes, the ball can be touched on the rim except on a free throw attempt, the referee does not have to handle the ball in the backcourt after a turnover, there is no alternate possession so all jump balls will require a tip and only two timeouts per half are alloted, and those can only be called by the coach standing at the scorers’ table. . . . This is stop No. 8 on the tour for the Soviets. They finish up Tuesday in Yakima, Wash. . . . Three other games from the Slam-N-Jam summer league will also be played today as Cerritos, beginning at 1 p.m.