College Basketball Notes : Sun Belt Conference Wants Instant Replay on Last-Second Shots

The Sun Belt Conference will ask the NCAA men’s basketball rules committee to approve the use of instant replay on half- and game-ending shots only, beginning next season, according to Commissioner Vic Bubas.

He said that if the committee will not implement use of replay as a national rules change, he hopes his conference will be allowed to use it on an experimental basis. With the rules committee being chaired by Gene Bartow, coach at Sun Belt member Alabama-Birmingham, Bubas may get his wish.

“I think it’s got merit, and I’m sure the rules committee will discuss it very carefully in Seattle,” Bartow said last week, referring to the rules committee’s meeting following the Final Four.

“It would be my opinion that it should be looked at very carefully and probably put in. But I have only one vote.”

Bubas’ desire for replay arose out of what became a double-overtime loss for Western Kentucky after it clearly had defeated Jacksonville on a tip-in at the end of the first overtime.

“I happened to be watching the game on television,” Bubas said, “and the camera work was real good. The picture included the clock and the red light (mounted on the basket support and activated when time expires).

It was a tough call at full speed, but the replay clearly showed the game should have been over (i.e., the tie-breaking Western Kentucky goal should have been allowed).”

Bubas said he understood the arguments of people who say that limited use of instant replay would put college basketball on the road to extensive use of instant replay, but he added, “I think this is so clear, I would be willing to never go beyond this if they let us do it.”

Bubas headed off other potential problems, such as a game not being televised or a picture not including the clock, the shot and the red light, by proposing that under these circumstances, the use of replay would be prohibited--just as it is now.

They may not be household names unless you live in the house of a coach or scout, but guards Gary Payton of Oregon State, Steve Henson of Kansas State, forwards Jeff Martin of Murray State and Randy White of Louisiana Tech and center Luc Longley of New Mexico would form a starting lineup most teams wouldn’t mind having.

Payton, a 6-foot-3 junior, averages 19 points, 8.5 assists, 4.4 rebounds, 3.4 steals and 38 minutes per game. He recently had a 159-minute stretch during which he committed one turnover. Los Angeles Lakers scout Ronnie Lester calls him “one of the best players in his class.”

Henson, a 6-1 junior, averages 17 points, five assists and 36 minutes. He is shooting 94 percent from the free throw line. Said one NBA scout: “He could be the next John Stockton.”

Martin, a 6-7 senior swingman, averages 25 points per game and is making around 50 percent of his three-point field goal tries. “I don’t know if there’s a better outside shooter in this year’s draft,” said Orlando Magic scout John Gabriel.

White, a 6-8, 240-pound senior who will be a forward in the NBA, averages 20 points and 10 rebounds while shooting nearly 60 percent from the field. He has exceeded the career scoring and rebounding totals of another Louisiana Tech player--Karl (The Mailman) Malone. White will be “a high first-round pick,” one NBA scout said.

Longley is a 7-2 sophomore from Australia whose statistics are relatively modest now (about 11 points, seven rebounds, two blocked shots per game). But Gabriel said, “He is as far along if not further than Rik Smits was at the same time in his career.”

Other lesser-knowns worth keeping in mind:

South Alabama senior guard Jeff Hodge, Wisconsin senior guard Trent Jackson, Air Force junior guard Ray Dudley, Mississippi junior forward Gerald “World Class” Glass, East Carolina senior swingman Blue Edwards and Clemson 6-10 junior center Elden Campbell.

One of the nation’s more unheralded coaches, Princeton’s Pete Carril, keeps rolling along.

Now in his 22nd season at the school, he recently coached his 600th career game and once again has the Tigers (16-5 overall, 8-1 and first in the Ivy League) in position for an automatic NCAA tournament bid.

Winning its sixth in a row last Saturday night, Princeton defeated Brown, 57-33. No Brown player scored more than four points.

Ohio State forward Treg Lee is named for his father’s four best friends: Tony, Ronnie, Eddie and Greg.

Prior to Thursday night’s games, Arizona was at 20-3, Stanford at 20-5, Oregon State at 18-5, California at 17-9 and UCLA at 16-7. The Pacific-10 Conference could end up with five 20-win teams for the first time since 1938-39.

Ticket scalping is illegal in Seattle, site of the Final Four.

But it is legal across Lake Washington in Bellevue, Wash., and Tore Kragerud, manager of That’s The Ticket in Bellevue, was reported to say that within two weeks premium tickets would go for between $1,200 and $1,500 each.

Rashard Griffith, a 6-10 eighth-grader in Chicago, already has received recruiting questionnaires from more than 50 colleges.

Quote: Xavier Coach Pete Gillen on his role in society: “I’m just a caraway seed in the bakery of life.”