MIRROR IMAGE : Pepperdine, New Mexico Ready to Run and Shoot in NIT Game

The careers of Jim Harrick, Pepperdine’s basketball coach, and Gary Colson, New Mexico’s coach, have long been intertwined.

Harrick succeeded Colson at Pepperdine after Colson resigned near the end of a successful season in February 1979. When he submitted his resignation, Colson, who had had a heart attack in 1977 while playing racquetball, was quoted as saying that he wasn’t sure he wanted to coach all his life.

He was out of coaching for one year, then took over at New Mexico for the 1980-81 season. Since then, his Lobos have had a 144-105 record and will be making their fifth straight appearance in the National Invitation Tournament when they play tonight in Albuquerque.

Harrick and Colson have both had strong Pepperdine teams. From 1968 through 1979, Colson’s Pepperdine teams were 154-136 overall, won a West Coast Athletic Conference championship in 1976 and made National Collegiate Athletic Assn. tournament appearances in 1976 and 1979.

In the last nine seasons, Harrick’s Waves are 167-96, have won four WCAC titles outright, shared another with the University of San Francisco, and have gone on to postseason play five times, four in the NCAA tournament and once in the NIT.

Last spring Harrick and Colson were roommates in Colorado Springs for five days. Both were on the staff of Louisville Coach Denny Crum, who was in charge of trials for the U.S. national team for the 1987 Pan-American Games.

Neither probably envisioned getting together again so soon.

Pepperdine (17-12) will play New Mexico (20-13) in a first-round game of the NIT at 6:30 tonight at New Mexico’s 18,100-seat University Arena, known as the Pit because of its inhospitable crowds.

Like their coaches, the Waves and the Lobos have some things in common.

In the regular season, New Mexico had an 8-8 record in the Western Athletic Conference, and Pepperdine was 8-6 in the WCAC.

Each team is led by a pair of 6-foot 7-inch forwards. The Lobos have senior Hunter Greene, who averaged 16.8 points and 6.8 rebounds a game this season, and junior Charlie Thomas, 17.1 points and 7.6 rebounds. The Waves have all-conference sophomore Tom Lewis, who averaged 22.7 points, 5 rebounds and 3.1 assists, and senior Levy Middlebrooks, who averaged 20 points and 10.7 rebounds, and was named the WCAC player of the year.

Said Harrick: “New Mexico is kind of a mirror image of our team. They’re up-tempo and like to run.”

One thing in New Mexico’s favor is the Pit, which has the reputation of being one of the toughest arenas in the nation for visiting teams and where second-ranked Arizona (31-2) lost to the Lobos last January. New Mexico is 17-1 this season at home, where the only loss was in conference play to BYU (25-5).