College Basketball Notes : High-Tech Age Arrives at Missouri

The age when a college basketball coach goes to the chalkboard before games, draws a few X’s and O’s, then sends his team out on the floor hasn’t quite ended, but the high-tech hoop age has arrived.

At least in Columbia, Mo., where Missouri Coach Norm Stewart plugs information with different combinations of players into a computer and hopes it agrees with his gut feelings on the bench.

Stewart, whose eighth-ranked Tigers will be visiting College Park Tuesday night to play Maryland, has been working with a computer for “two or three years,” but has gotten more serious about it this season.

“It’s better that the players know what they’re doing in situations, why they’re going into a game at a certain point,” said Stewart, who believes other coaches are becoming hoop hacks as well. “We know who’s affecting the game.”

Senior Mike Sandbothe, who plays both small forward and big guard, has more effect on the Tigers’ defense than any of his teammates. And freshman guard Anthony Peeler, who comes off the bench, has made tremendous strides when factoring in his ability as a passer.

Stewart is also into another new-age study: measuring body-fat content. At the suggestion of Dean Brittenham, the director of the National Fitness Institute in Indianapolis, the Tigers started getting checked for fat last summer. Brittenham worked with the National Basketball Association’s Indiana Pacers because their former coach, Jack Ramsay, is a fitness freak.

Already, Stewart has seen progress. Senior center Gary Leonard has cut his body fat on his 7-foot-1 frame in half, down from a hefty 24 percent. Sophomore forward Doug Smith, at 6-10, measures in at a lean five percent.

It should be noted that both Leonard and Smith are having pretty good years, as are the Tigers, who are 15-3 going into Saturday’s game against Oklahoma State. Missouri’s three losses have been to Syracuse, Illinois and North Carolina. The Tigers also have beaten the Tar Heels.

“Today’s player doesn’t think much about rest and diet,” said Stewart. “It’s hard sometimes to get these kids to listen to some of this stuff, but when they see their performance level go up as their fat content goes down, it gets their attention pretty quick.”

The controversy surrounding North Carolina State and a forthcoming book alleging illegalities in Jim Valvano’s program seems to have had an interesting effect on the 15th-ranked Wolfpack (12-1): They have won their last 10 games, including four straight since the charges were made public.

But Valvano isn’t sure there has been a clear-cut relationship between the brouhaha off the floor and the success on it. “There’s always a tendency after the fact to look for the cause,” said Valvano, whose team’s winning streak will be put to the test in a nationally televised game Saturday against No. 13 North Carolina. “But if we weren’t playing well, people would say we’re distracted.” Valvano attributes it more to the personality of the team, and the fact that many of those following the Atlantic Coast Conference had written the Wolfpack off before the season began because of the loss of last year’s two senior stars, Charles Shackleford and Vinny Del Negro, both of whom are now in the NBA.

“They’ve responded well to the challenge,” said Valvano. “I’m very proud of the way they’ve reacted to this situation.”

When Rob Ferguson was in high school, only his closest friends and members of his family knew that he was the cousin of former NBA great Bob Lanier. After, he was only 6-feet-1, and didn’t have the same last name or the same large feet.

But when Ferguson went to St. Bonaventure, where his famous relative was an All-America, he wanted that connection. He legally changed his name to Rob Lanier.

After playing erratically as a freshman and sparingly last season, Lanier is living up to his namesake. He already has hit four game-winning shots for the Bonnies.

Before Sunday’s nationally televised game at Pittsburgh’s Fitzgerald Fieldhouse, Oklahoma Coach Billy Tubbs told CBS announcers Billy Packer and Jim Nantz that he didn’t want the antiquated gym showed during the broadcast.

“He said he didn’t want his recruits to know that they play in places like this,” recalled Packer.

Maybe word of Tubbs’ put-down reached the Panthers, who went on to upset the third-ranked Sooners.

Amid the ongoing Proposition 48-Proposal 42 controversy, the Big East Conference decided last week it would allow all first-year college players to be honored in its weekly rookie of the week. It used to be that only freshmen were considered.

So what happened? Its rookie of the week was Pitt sophomore Brian Shorter, who sat out last year. Shorter scored 37 points against Oklahoma. The Big East player of the week was Jayson Williams of St. John’s, who was among the first Proposition 48 casualties.

Williams, who had 23 points and 10 rebounds in his team’s 65-63 upset of Syracuse Saturday, isn’t short on confidence. Earlier this season, Williams said of himself, “I don’t think there’s anybody better at my position (big forward) in the Big East.”

Speaking of the Orangemen, they are off to a 1-4 start in the league. The last time Syracuse started so poorly was 1980-81, when they won the Big East tournament in that famous, triple-overtime game against Villanova.

The Northeast Conference (formerly the ECAC Metro) took the offensive last week. In 15 games played, there were nine individual performances over 26 points, and four over 30. Seven times teams scored 90 or more.

Indeed, Loyola’s Kevin Green held the conference season high of 36 in the Greyhounds’ victory over LIU for a total of six hours. Fernando Sanders of Monmouth wiped it out with a 41-point game against Robert Morris.

Is it loyalty or front-running? That’s the question put to the die-hard Kentucky fans, whose numbers started decreasing (to a paltry 20,000 a game) earlier in the season amid the swirl of an NCAA investigation and the beloved Wildcats’ horrendous start.

They’re baaaaaaaaaack. With Kentucky off to a surprising, 3-0 start in the Southeastern Conference, a Rupp Arena-record 24,288 watched the Cats lose to LSU Saturday. Kentucky is 8-8, but it must win nine of its remaining 16 games to avoid the first losing season in Lexington in 60 years.