NCAA MEN’S FINAL FOUR : AT KANSAS CITY : Valvano to Fly Here Today for UCLA Talks

Amid widespread speculation that he will be the next UCLA coach, North Carolina State Coach Jim Valvano arrived at the site of the Final Four and attempted to do a most uncharacteristic thing: He tried not to talk.

“I basically have really nothing to comment on,” Valvano said Thursday as he checked into his hotel. “It’s just inappropriate right now. I’m here for the Final Four.”

Valvano will appear as a paid analyst on “CBS This Morning” with Jim Lampley here this morning. Said Lampley: “He’s been hired to analyze the Final Four, but I plan to ask him about the UCLA situation and see what he says.”

Afterward, Valvano will board a plane that will take him to Los Angeles for talks with UCLA officials.

There seems to be little doubt that Valvano, at the least, is a strong candidate. In fact, several of his associates have said that Valvano said he has been offered the job.

There also seems to be a strong consensus among the coaches here that Valvano is the man. There are even reports that his contract will be for $2.5 million over five years.

The Raleigh (N.C.) News and Observer is reporting today that Valvano, quite the businessman, is seeking $3.5 million over five years and an unusual contract that would automatically renew itself after its second year and become a new five-year contract. It would continue to renew itself in the same fashion each year after that, according to the paper.

Meanwhile, Peter Dalis, athletic director at UCLA, said the job has not been offered to anyone, and there is no front-runner.

Kansas Coach Larry Brown and Arizona Coach Lute Olson, whose teams are playing in the Final Four, have also been mentioned as candidates for the UCLA job. However, neither is expected to have any comment until after the tournament.

Brown and Olson will be in Los Angeles next week, accompanying two of the top four Wooden Award candidates, Kansas’ Danny Manning and Arizona’s Sean Elliott. The players, along with Duke’s Danny Ferry and Bradley’s Hersey Hawkins, will be honored at halftime of the Laker-Seattle game Tuesday night at the Forum.

The Wooden Award winner will be announced at a noon press conference Wednesday. A dinner will be held that night at the Los Angeles Athletic Club.

Valvano has been the coach at North Carolina State since 1980 and guided the Wolfpack to the 1983 NCAA title.

Valvano’s renown since leaving Iona for N.C. State has come nearly as much from his garrulous nature as from the success of his Wolfpack teams, which are 169-93 and have also advanced to the NCAA regional finals in 1985 and 1986.

“Hey, I lost the last two games. What are you doing?” he asked Thursday as reporters crowded around him when he arrived.

“If there’s an appropriate time (to talk), you know me--I do like to talk,” Valvano said.

N.C. State was upset by Murray State in the first round of the NCAA tournament this season, after losing to Duke in the semifinals of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament.

Valvano created a stir when he entered the hotel lobby, a gathering place for coaches, who hold an annual convention in conjunction with the Final Four.

Jerry Tarkanian, Nevada Las Vegas coach, was among the first to reach him, saying, “I want to talk to you,” as he pulled him aside.

After coaching in an all-star game later Thursday, Tarkanian said: “I can’t say what Jimmy is going to do.” Tarkanian would not elaborate.

Dick Vitale, the ESPN basketball commentator, also met Valvano Thursday morning at the hotel and took him aside by the elbow after allowing him to check in.

Valvano, stepping past a crowd of reporters toward the elevators, jokingly spun around and away.

“The old drop-step,” Valvano said with a smile. “That’s the way to evade the press. I learned that from (Syracuse Coach) Jim Boeheim.”

Boeheim happened to be standing nearby.

With that, Valvano, apparently enjoying himself, ended his elaborate no-comment. He was not taking phone calls in his room.

Valvano has been a candidate for other jobs since arriving at N.C. State, and was considered for the New York Knicks coaching opening last year. Although he wasn’t talking--at least not much--speculation was rampant among other coaches and acquaintances.

Many expect his decision to include consideration of his daughter, Nicole, a freshman at N.C. State. But some speculation centers on whether Valvano, from the Northeast, is at home in North Carolina, and on how his so-called “Hollywood” manner would serve him in L.A.

Besides the business of deciding a national champion, there is other business here--some of it with lasting impact. The National Assn. of Basketball Coaches, which is holding meetings here, will discuss possible rules changes, letting its views be known to members of the NCAA basketball rules committee, which meets next week.

By all indications, fighting--and ways to control it--will be the chief topic. “This has to be the No. 1 item on our agenda,” said Edward Steitz, head of the rules committee. “We cannot tolerate one ugly scene.”

After numerous court scuffles this season, the Big East Conference adopted regulations calling for a one-game suspension if a player is ejected from a game, enforced after a review of the incident. A similar rule has been in effect during the NCAA tournament. Now, it appears likely that the NCAA will consider a similar rule for the regular season.

Kentucky Coach Eddie Sutton, president of the NABC, put part of the responsibility on officials to establish control in the game, but maintained the possibility of suspensions. “All of us are concerned about the fighting,” Sutton said. “There’s no place in the game of basketball for fighting.”

Although Sutton said he was uncertain whether the NCAA had the jurisdiction to impose a suspension rule, Steitz said there is a precedent in NCAA hockey and soccer, which both have suspension rules.

The other chief topic is expected to be whether to increase the distance of the three-point line, which is currently 19 feet 9 inches, to the international-rules distance of 20-6 inches.

Sutton, responding to a question about the job security in college coaching, said he advises players and former players against following in his footsteps.

“I encourage all young men who play for me to stay out of coaching,” he said. “Today it is much more difficult to coach than it was in 1959 when I started.”

Sutton cited job pressures created by the amount of money involved in the NCAA tournament as a reason he discourages his players from coaching.

Kansas City is taking to the celebration of the 50th Final Four with relish. Around town, one can visit an exhibit that covers all five decades of the tournament’s history, enjoy the lights of an office building that print “50” on the skyline at night, or attempt a basket from footprints set to recreate the shot Michael Jordan took to help win the 1982 NCAA title for North Carolina. There is no provision, however, for recreating the errant pass by Georgetown player Fred Brown that ended up in James Worthy’s hands and clinched the ’82 title.

Support for Kansas, practically a hometown team, is also evident. At least one downtown flagpole flew a University of Kansas flag just below the U.S. flag. The Kansas City Marriott Plaza hotel, which is housing the Kansas team, has renamed the club at the hotel “The Jayhawk Bar and Grill,” for the week.

Times staff writer Larry Stewart contributed to this story.