Albeck Shoots From Lip

Bradley Coach Stan Albeck, promising that his Braves will be running and gunning in today’s game against Auburn in the NCAA Southeast Regional, said: “We will shoot the basketball probably as quickly as any team in the country.”

That would come as a surprise to Loyola Marymount followers. The Lions averaged 5.7 seconds per possession in their last game.

“Seven is the outside number,” said Coach Paul Westhead. “The inside number is 1 1/2. We play that way all the time.”

Said Westhead in Salt Lake City where the Lions meet Wyoming today in the West Regional: “We’ve brought our circus act to town and we have to find out if we’re the Great Wallendas or the clown that gets shot out of the cannon at the end.”

Idle Thought: Wonder if Notre Dame, facing Southern Methodist in the NCAA East Regional, will have the same kind of luck it did 15 years ago on St. Patrick’s Day when it beat USC, 69-65, in a first round NIT game at Madison Square Garden?

The Irish made 23 of 33 free throws. The Trojans made 1 of 2.

USC Coach Bob Boyd didn’t exactly charge robbery, but he did note that the name of the official who called most of the fouls against the Trojans was Tom Casey.

Trivia Time: North Carolina Charlotte, making its first NCAA tournament appearance since Cedric Maxwell led the 1976-77 team to the Final Four, lost in the semifinals that year on a last-second shot by what player? (Answer below.)

Now-it-can-be-told dept.: In a story on Indiana’s 1968 Rose Bowl team, which lost to USC, 14-3, Stan Sutton of the Louisville Courier-Journal wrote of tailback John Isenbarger, now a Chicago business executive: “Isenbarger got shot down twice in California, once when the Hoosiers lost in the Rose Bowl and once off the field.

“While in Pasadena he became acquainted with pert Kelly Harmon. Her father is former football star Tommy Harmon, her brother actor Mark Harmon and her brother-in-law the late Rick Nelson.

“Isenbarger went back to Pasadena a few more times to see Kelly. A short time later, she married auto magnate John DeLorean.”

Would-you-believe-it dept.: From George Kiseda of Los Angeles: “Carrie Garritson, the 11-year-old girl who led the women for almost half of the L.A. Marathon and finished in 2:49, averaged 6 1/2 minutes a mile for 26 miles 385 yards. That’s three minutes faster than Benoit Benjamin could run one mile when the Clippers reported to camp.”

From Houston Rockets Coach Bill Fitch: “Coaching is like riding a motorcycle. The longer you do it, the more apt you are to get killed.”

Toronto pitcher Mike Flanagan, formerly of Baltimore, on the difference between spring training at Dunedin, Fla. and his old site of Miami: “No armed guards in the parking lot.”

Trivia Answer: Jerome Whitehead of Marquette sank a layup at the buzzer to beat North Carolina Charlotte, 51-49. After Maxwell tied the game at 49-49 with three seconds left, Marquette’s Butch Lee took the ball out out of bounds and threw it the length of the court. The ball went through the hands of both Maxwell and Marquette’s Bo Ellis before Whitehead grabbed it and made the winning shot.

In the final, Marquette beat North Carolina, 67-59, in Al McGuire’s last hurrah.

Quotebook

John Feinstein of the Washington Post, on Loyola Marymount’s run and gun offense: “Gun and gun would be more like it.”