Ellis Feels the Heat as Kentucky Goes Cold

At the tender age of 19, sophomore LeRon Ellis has been asked to carry a Kentucky basketball program heavy with tradition and now inexperience, with alleged National Collegiate Athletic Assn. rule violations, with defections and pressure. Always pressure.

Of course, you don’t need a kid center from Mater Dei who still wears braces on his teeth for this. You need a forklift.

But Ellis, only a season or so removed from safe, comfortable Mater Dei, will have to do. By fate, he has become this team’s heavy lifter, the guy who must lug the Kentucky offense up and down the court. It is a tiring load.

A few nights ago, in a game against favored Georgia, Ellis scored 18 points and Kentucky won, 76-65. Four days earlier, against Louisville, Ellis scored just 7 points in a 22-point loss. Afterward, he was singled out by Kentucky Coach Eddie Sutton for his inconsistent play.

And so it goes for Ellis, the current “whipping post,” he said, for whatever ails the Wildcats, a team, at least by Kentucky standards, in trouble.

At one point, angry callers to a local radio talk show suggested that Ellis not be placed at the end of the Kentucky bench, but under it. A Lexington sports columnist wondered in print if Ellis was “a tabby cat interested only in his numbers.” Another writer, in his annual wish list, wanted Ellis to become a more dependable offensive and defensive player. And a new hair style wouldn’t hurt, either, he wrote.

As you might expect, Ellis, young enough to consider “Alf” a television classic, has been stung by the criticism. At 19, you don’t exactly expect an entire city to turn on you. But that’s what has happened on occasion as Ellis displays the inevitable growing pains. Kentucky fans want the reincarnation of Dan Issel. All Ellis can give them is a 6-foot 10-inch sophomore who tries his best.

“You’re expected to produce and do a lot more things than when you were a freshman,” Ellis said shortly before a recent UK practice. “You’re expected not to make so many mistakes. And there’s a lot more pressure on you to do better. The freshman year was kind of a learning year. It was a fun year and everything.”

This season hasn’t been so fun for the Kentucky program. There have been accusations of NCAA rules violations, ranging from $1,000 recruiting payoffs, to cheating on standardized achievement tests, to improper conduct by representatives of the university.

Ellis’ name even has been mentioned in the allegations. According to the NCAA, Ellis was provided with improper transportation during the summer of 1987 to look for a job. He also was granted extra time by UK to pay a lodging bill. In addition, the NCAA contends that Ellis lived in the school’s basketball dormitory before actually enrolling at the university.

Of the charge of improper transportation, Ellis called it “really kind of stupid. I had no car. I had just gotten here. They drove me over (to a job).”

As for the remainder of the charges, Ellis said, “That stuff is real petty. That doesn’t really affect me too much.”

Ellis is vague about his intentions should the NCAA impose severe penalties on the Kentucky program. When asked if he would leave UK, Ellis becomes noncommittal.

“I think that if I was going to have any reason to transfer, it would have to have something to do with myself being just basically unhappy with where I was,” he said. “Life’s too short to spend 4 years at a college where you’re just going to be miserable, no matter what the circumstances. It would have to be a little more than the NCAA investigation.”

How about a UK season that could provide more losses than wins, something that hasn’t happened since the 1926-27 season? It’s possible, what with this baby-faced lineup and the specter of an NCAA investigation hanging overhead.

Kentucky’s problems--thus, Ellis’--have come in bunches.

Guard Rex Chapman, UK’s leading scorer in 1986 and 1987, forfeited his junior and senior seasons to join the NBA. Sophomore Eric Manuel, a member of the conference’s all-freshmen team last year, has been suspended from UK basketball until charges of test cheating are resolved. And Sutton, out of necessity, has had to start four sophomores and one freshman.

Not surprisingly, Kentucky is 6-7 thus far, with losses to such lightweights as Bowling Green and Northwestern (La.) State. Someone has to take the blame. So far, it has been Ellis, the supposed cornerstone, who has received much of the criticism.

“I guess I’ve been dubbed (the leader),” Ellis said. “I’ve always said, though, that if (only) one of us has a good game, we’re not going to win. It has to be a team effort. It can’t be a 1-man show.”

According to Sutton, the Wildcats don’t have much of a choice. This isn’t the way his coaching staff planned things, either. How were they to know that prized freshman recruit Shawn Kemp would become embroiled in controversy and later transfer? Or that Manuel would get the boot? Or that Chapman would leave so soon?

“Maybe we ask too much of (Ellis) at times,” Sutton said. “He’s just a sophomore.

“I think LeRon, for a sophomore, has played very well offensively. The thing that probably concerns me more than anything is (for Ellis) to try to become a better defensive player, a better rebounder and maybe try to be more consistent offensively. But I don’t think anybody can get down on him. He’s certainly not going to be my whipping boy. Everybody has a tendency--they’re on him right now. But we’re not on him. We’re just trying to help him realize how important he is to this basketball team.”

For all his difficulties, Ellis remains the team’s leading scorer with a 19.2 average and is second in rebounds, behind the celebrated (and controversial) Chris Mills, who is at the center of the alleged $1,000 payoff scheme. Ellis also remains the team leader by default, not choice.

These are trying times for Ellis. He has been thrust prematurely into the spotlight that is Kentucky basketball. So far, he isn’t crazy about the glare.