College Basketball / Robyn Norwood : Temple Coach Gives Macon an A+

Much of the nation might have taken its first look at Mark Macon, Temple’s remarkable freshman, when the Owls were handed their first loss of the season by Nevada Las Vegas Sunday in a nationally televised game.

Macon scored 19 points, but there was nothing new about that. He has scored in double figures in each of Temple’s 15 games this season and had a season-high 27 against Southern University in December.

Against UNLV, it was more of the same. A shake of the shoulders here, a spin there, and more than once he left behind a defender.

More impressive than his scoring ability, though, is his poise. There were 19,000 fans in the Thomas & Mack Center, but Macon appeared unfazed. In 546 minutes this season, he has committed just 22 turnovers.

“Mark is a basketball player,” said John Chaney, Temple’s coach. “It has nothing to do with freshman or anything else. His character is just A+.”

Chaney had the same bold confidence in him before Macon ever had played a game for the Owls.

“Mark, without question, is the very best guard in America,” Chaney said before the season. “He is the type of player who can keep us dancing.”

Macon, a 6-foot 5-inch guard from Saginaw, Mich., was named the state’s Mr. Basketball last year. He met Chaney about two years ago and was so taken with the coach that he didn’t visit any school other than Temple.

Macon’s high school coach, Buena Vista High’s Norwaine Reed, did his part to ease the transition from high school to college. Last season, Buena Vista ran Temple’s offense.

Whither the Final Four? Of the four teams that reached the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. semifinals in New Orleans last year, only Nevada Las Vegas is thriving.

The Rebels (17-1) are ranked fourth in the Associated Press poll after upsetting previously undefeated Temple Sunday.

But Indiana, the NCAA champion, is 9-6, and just 1-4 in the Big Ten. Syracuse, which lost to the Hoosiers in the NCAA final, is 13-5, and 3-3 in the Big East. Providence, the miracle team is 8-8, 2-4 in the Big East.

While Providence struggles, the University of Rhode Island is thriving in only its second season under Tom Penders. In fact, Temple’s Chaney says he believes the team should be ranked in the top 20.

Penders was hired Oct. 3, 1986, and the Rams began practicing 12 days later. They finished 20-10 that season, and earned a bid to the National Invitation Tournament.

This season, Rhode Island is off to a 16-2 start and has won nine straight games. The only losses are to sixth-ranked Temple and to Fordham, the school at which Penders coached for eight years before moving to Rhode Island. Penders apparently likes to coach at schools whose teams are known as Rams, since that’s Fordham’s nickname, too.

Carlton Owens, the point guard, and Tom Garrick, the off-guard, are averaging more than 20 points each for Rhode Island, which had five straight losing seasons before last season.

Rhode Island has played in the NIT seven times, losing to Kentucky by a point in the 1946 final, and has played in the NCAA tournament twice, in 1966 and 1978.

Add Rhode Island: The nation’s smallest state by land area and one of the 10 least populous, Rhode Island is home to three Division I teams--Providence, Rhode Island and Brown. As might be expected, there is a dearth of home-grown talent.

Brown has one player on its roster from Rhode Island--Sean Moran, a 6-7 forward. The University of Rhode Island also has one--Garrick, who is among the Atlantic 10 conference scoring leaders. Providence has none.

Boyd Grant, who cited burnout when he left Fresno State two years ago after nine successful seasons, is making a much-ballyhooed return to coaching at Colorado State, his alma mater.

Saturday, Colorado State improved its record to 11-4 with a 54-49 upset of Wyoming.

“That wasn’t relief,” Grant told reporters after the game. “I believe that one was joy.”

Add Colorado State: The Rams--yes, they are the Rams, too--play their home games in 10,000-capacity Moby Gym at the Fort Collins, Colo., campus. The facility was given its name in 1968 by students, who objected to the name Auditorium-Arena. From a distance, the student claim was, the curved end of the facility appears whale-like. Moby Gym remains the official name.

Wyoming, once the media darling of the West Coast, is 13-4 and has dropped out of the top 20 after being beaten four times in the Western Athletic Conference. A particularly difficult test for first-year Coach Benny Dees is coming up Thursday, when the Cowboys play San Diego State at the San Diego Sports Arena.

Jim Brandenburg, the first-year San Diego State coach, built this Wyoming team before leaving to take over the Aztecs. Should Brandenburg’s 7-10 team give the Cowboys a difficult game, Dees’ reputation in Laramie certainly would suffer.

Brandenburg is not without troubles of his own. Poor shooting and long scoreless stretches have put the Aztecs into some insurmountable holes in recent games, and it seems to be getting worse.

“We were using shovels,” Brandenburg said recently. “Now we’re using front-end loaders.”

Dale Brown, the ever-rambunctious Louisiana State coach, was called for two technical fouls in 37 seconds during a 76-61 loss to Kentucky Saturday.

The technicals were not yet out of his mind when he spoke with reporters after the game.

“Whatever you do, don’t call a technical on me,” he said. “I’ll get ejected from the press conference.”

The 64 berths in the NCAA tournament are being contested by 287 of the 290 Division I teams.

Marist, South Carolina and Virginia Tech are the only schools currently on the kind of probation that keeps a program from participating in the tournament.