Pacific 10 Basketball : Raveling Picks Arizona to Finish No. 1--and 2

By the time USC Coach George Raveling was asked to pick his favorites in the Pacific 10 Conference basketball race, he had heard almost every other coach at Thursday’s preseason meetings pick Arizona and had time to read a column projecting, rather facetiously, that Arizona would average about 114 points a game.

So, how did Raveling pick it?

“I’m going to say Arizona’s starters to finish in first place; Arizona’s second team to place second; UCLA third; Stanford fourth and Arizona’s third team to place fifth. . . .

“I’m going to have to write to (Olympic Coach) John Thompson and tell him that we’ll have to invite all 15 Arizona players to the Olympic Trials. . . .

“I’d like to take a sabbatical this year and just watch this unfold. I’ve never seen a team that could average 114 points a game.”

Not that Arizona is promising to do that.

Arizona Coach Lute Olson is calling this team “potentially” his best since he arrived in Tucson four years ago, and one of those, the 1985-86 team, won the conference title.

Last season, the Wildcats fought for it right to the end but finished second to UCLA.

Olson said Thursday: “It will be an interesting season again. It usually goes to the final week or the final game. UCLA will be tough with an excellent backcourt and a front line that is very talented, although young. I think a lot will depend on how those youngsters develop.”

Arizona is being favored by most of the Pac-10 coaches over defending champion UCLA because, while UCLA has lost its star player, Reggie Miller, who took his near 40-point average to the Indiana Pacers, Arizona is getting its star player back from the injured list.

Counting Steve Kerr as one of them gives the Wildcats six returning starters--and a lot of potential points to work into the lineup.

Kerr injured his right knee during the summer of 1986 while playing for the U.S. team at the World Championships. He’s back at full strength now, a fifth-year senior point guard, all set to be the team’s leader on the floor and put up a lot of three-point shots.

The five starters back from last season’s team are led by 6-8 junior forward Sean Elliott, who averaged 19.3 points and 6 rebounds a game.

Asked if he thought that the Arizona team could live up to the high expectations of its fans--who have already bought every available season ticket--Kerr skipped right over the conference consideration and starting talking about getting through the first few rounds of the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. tournament.

“We’ve been getting a little bit too much hype,” Kerr said. “We’re all very confident . . . but we haven’t won an NCAA game in three years, so I think we should make it a goal to get into the tournament before we start talking about the Final Four.”

Good point. That goes for everyone in the conference.

Although the Pac-10 has had some impressive first-round draft picks recently, Pac-10 teams haven’t been real impressive in tournament competition.

So the image of the conference has been sliding.

Both Arizona and UCLA, the teams that should dominate the conference this season, will play tough nonconference competition that should give some indication as to where the conference stands.

UCLA Coach Walt Hazzard is calling the Pac-10 “a very balanced conference” and saying that he, too, thinks that Arizona is the team to beat. But he’s not counting out his Bruins as the guys to step forward and do just that.

Last season’s Pac-10 tournament was held at Pauley Pavilion and was won by the Bruins. It will be held this season at the University of Arizona. “That’s a great advantage for the Arizona team, and they don’t need much help,” Hazzard said. “But it also means they’re at home and they’re expected to win, as we were a year ago. That puts more pressure on the home team and the home coach.”

Especially when some folks are looking for 114 points a game.

Pac-10 Notes

Tom Hansen, commissioner of the Pac-10, on the conference’s TV package: “Next to the ACC and the Big East . . . we rate better than any other conference. Of 180 total games, 69 will be televised, and our tournament championship will be carried by ABC and Raycom. So we really do get good exposure.” . . . The only new coach in the conference is Kelvin Sampson, a former Washington State assistant who became the head coach of the Cougars last April when Len Stevens left to coach Nevada Reno. . . . UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion will be one of the first-round sites of the West Regional tournament. The Final Four will be played in the Tacoma Dome. . . . Cal already has lost 6-8 forward Leonard Taylor to an injury, only this time it’s not his neck, it’s his foot. Taylor, one of the premier forwards in the league, missed Cal’s last 21 games last season with a neck injury. He’s out now, and maybe until Christmas, with a broken bone in his foot. . . . Observation of the day goes to Oregon State Coach Ralph Miller: “I think preseason predictions are ridiculous.”