Ellison Won’t Let Criticism Bother Him

As the University of Louisville basketball team celebrated its National Collegiate Athletic Assn. championship three years ago, former Louisville center Charles Jones made his way from freshman to freshman in the locker room.

“Three more, man,” Jones called out excitedly. “You’ll almost have enough rings for one hand.”

And who could blame Jones for his optimism?

The leader of the group was (Never Nervous) Pervis Ellison, an unaffected, smooth-as-silk 6-foot-9 center from Savannah, Ga., who had dominated the championship game as no 18-year-old had before him.

After a 25-point, 11-rebound performance against Duke in a 72-69 Louisville victory, Ellison had been named as the Final Four’s outstanding player, the first freshman so honored in 42 years.

Why couldn’t Louisville win three more titles?

It hasn’t, of course, and Ellison, who will lead the Cardinals (17-4) against UCLA (15-5) in a nationally televised game today at Pauley Pavilion, has been viewed in some circles as less than successful because of it.

Is the criticism valid?

Not most of it.

Is Ellison bothered by it?

Not at all.

“I think I’ve gotten better each year, and that’s my major concern,” he said last week. “It’s good to think that the public appreciates what you’re trying to do on the court, but I’ll be satisfied if my teammates are confident in me.

“Who cares what anybody else thinks?”

Ellison hasn’t exactly disappeared since that April night in Dallas three years ago, although it might seem that way.

Statistically, he posted bigger numbers as a sophomore than he had as a freshman and bigger numbers as a junior than he had as a sophomore, averaging 17.6 points, 8.3 rebounds and 3.1 assists last season and making 60.1% of his shots in leading Louisville to the round of 16 in the NCAA tournament.

Last season, Ellison was the country’s only player to total more than 100 points, rebounds, assists and blocked shots.

This season, he leads the Cardinals with averages of 17.3 points and 7.9 rebounds and a .634 shooting percentage. He has 62 blocked shots, 20 more than all of Louisville’s opponents combined.

And he also leads the fourth-ranked Cardinals in steals and is third in assists.

Indiana Coach Bob Knight called Ellison the best all-around player in the country two months ago after Ellison led Louisville’s 101-79 dismantling of the Hoosiers. If he were starting a team, Knight said, Ellison would be the player around whom he would build.

Coach Jerry Tarkanian of Nevada Las Vegas had similar sentiments last month after Ellison led a 92-74 rout of the Rebels, making 10 of 11 shots and equaling a career high with 28 points.

Scouts fawn over the versatile Ellison, who plays with an effortlessness that belies his determination.

“It seems to be a very easy game for him to play,” said Jerry West, Laker general manager. “At that size, that’s very appealing because there are people that size who labor to play the game.

“He’s got real good hands for a big guy and he seems to have a real good grasp of what’s going on out there--he passes the ball, he’s alert. He doesn’t make a lot of mistakes. He’s a very attractive player.”

Marty Blake, director of scouting for the National Basketball Assn., said that Ellison may be the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft.

And yet, Ellison is not an All-American.

It has been suggested that Ellison should be more assertive and that a player of his skills should be more of a scorer.

But, in Coach Denny Crum’s 18 seasons at Louisville, only two players, Jim Price in 1971-72 and Darrell Griffith in 1979-80, have averaged 20 points or more in a season, and Ellison averages only about 11 shots a game.

Some say Ellison’s reputation was sullied not more than two months after his moment of glory at Dallas, when he was sent home early from tryouts for the U.S. team that competed in the 1986 world championships at Madrid.

Ellison said he missed practice because he was sick.

But Jerry Pimm of UC Santa Barbara, who assisted Arizona’s Lute Olson in coaching the U.S. team that competed in Spain, said Ellison was disinterested.

“He acted like it was a real big chore for him to be there,” Pimm said. “In my opinion, he did not want to be there. I observed him in the dining hall, and if he was sick, he sure was not eating like he was sick. He was eating two big plates of food every meal he took.

“I think it was a mental tiredness and just immaturity on his part.”

The perception that Ellison was aloof was enhanced the next season when he didn’t speak with reporters, or virtually anyone else, and Louisville lost 14 of 32 games.

In a 75-52 loss to Memphis State in the final Metro Conference tournament game, with an NCAA tournament berth on the line, Ellison scored only three points and took no shots in the second half. For the first time since 1965, the defending national champion did not play in a postseason tournament.

Was Ellison to blame?

Crum thinks not.

“I think most people expected so much that when our team wasn’t very good, it reflected on him,” Crum said. “But, under the circumstances, he had a great year.”

The NCAA adopted a three-point shot that season, but Louisville, slow to react to the new rule, had no outside threats, Crum said.

“Everybody zoned us and they double- and triple-teamed Pervis all year long,” Crum said. “Despite that, he was better, statistically, in every single category.

“To improve in every category when you don’t have a supporting cast and you’re being double- and triple-teamed, that’s pretty amazing.”

As well as he might have played as a sophomore, Ellison was even better last season, when he competed through the pain of tendinitis in his left knee, sharing conference player of the year honors with Bimbo Coles of Virginia Tech and leading Louisville to a 24-11 season.

He did not try out for the U.S. Olympic team last summer, he said, because of the pain in his knee.

It was not an easy decision.

“All athletes thrive on competition and everybody wants to play against the Russians,” said Ellison, who was the No. 2 rebounder on the U.S. team that was upset by Brazil in the Pan-American Games final in 1987.

Ellison, though, believed it would be better to rest his knee last summer, and he started the season stronger than ever.

All had gone well, too, until Ellison injured his left knee two weeks ago in a game against Ohio State.

Louisville, which opened the season with two upset losses, had won 14 consecutive games and, if it beat Ohio State, figured to move to the top of the polls after No. 1 Illinois and No. 2 Georgetown had both been defeated.

Ellison was enjoying a “fantastic” season, Crum said.

And UCLA Coach Jim Harrick, looking ahead with trepidation to today’s game, called Ellison a unique talent.

“I don’t know of any player, David Robinson included, that has been above the rim more consistently than Pervis Ellison,” Harrick said. “Most rebounds, pro and college, are taken below the rim at about the nine-foot level. Pervis Ellison is the only guy I’ve ever been around that consistently gets his rebounds well above the rim.”

But, on the afternoon of Jan. 29, only 44 seconds before halftime, Ellison lay silent on the floor at Louisville’s Freedom Hall.

Having chased down a loose ball, Ellison had planted his right foot, only to have it slip out from under him, causing him to do the splits.

Crum described the scene as frightening.

“It happened right in front of our bench and it really was a depressing moment,” Crum said. “There were more than 19,600 people in Freedom Hall and you could’ve heard a pin drop. Everyone was just dumbfounded.”

Ellison, who was dumbstruck himself, later told reporters: “I could just see dollar bills flying away. I guess that’s why I couldn’t say anything.”

Ohio State went on to an 85-79 victory, overcoming a 10-point second-half deficit in Ellison’s absence, and 24 anxious hours followed for Louisville and its fans before it was determined that Ellison’s injury was not as serious as was first feared.

His left knee was bruised, but internal damage was minimal--a sprained ligament.

Ellison missed two games, but in two games since his return last Monday, he has 36 points, 13 rebounds, six blocked shots and five steals.

And he is talking again about going out the way he came in.

On top.

The national championship game, April 3 in the Kingdome at Seattle, will be played on Ellison’s 22nd birthday.

“We’ve got a shot,” Ellison said. “We just have to play sound basketball and smart basketball. All the tools are there. We’ve got good rebounders, good shooters. We’ve got good defensive players.

“We’ve got talent, but it takes more than talent to win the championship.”

Nobody knows that, it seems, as well as Pervis Ellison.

Bruin Notes

Today’s game will be televised nationally by ABC at 11:30 a.m. . . . UCLA leads the series against Louisville, 7-4, and is 3-0 against the Cardinals at Pauley Pavilion. . . . Said Marty Blake, director of scouting for the National Basketball Assn.: “Louisville has as much talent as anybody in the country. When they play (7-foot junior) Felton Spencer at center and Pervis Ellison at forward, they’re awesome.”

Louisville Coach Denny Crum is in the sixth season of a 10-year agreement calling for a $1 million bonus if he completes the contract unencumbered by National Collegiate Athletic Assn. probation. . . . Larry Williams, whose career at Louisville ended in 1979, is the only four-year Cardinal during Crum’s tenure that has not played in at least one Final Four.

In UCLA’s last four games, Pooh Richardson averaged 18.5 points and 7.5 assists, shot .614 from the floor and had 10 steals and only nine turnovers. He had only one turnover in UCLA’s last two games. . . . In two games against USC, Don MacLean averaged only 10.5 points and 3.5 rebounds and shot .318. Overall, the freshman forward is averaging 19.3 points and 7.6 rebounds and shooting .554.

USC’s .372 shooting percentage last Wednesday night was the worst by a UCLA opponent this season. . . . UCLA is 9-1 in Pauley Pavilion.