It’s Parity Time Across the Land : National Preview: There are plenty of possible powerhouses this season, including defending NCAA champion Michigan.

From now until the first week of April, you can look upon this experience as not just some vertical leap, but more of a question-and-answer session on the subject of college basketball. The answers? Well, they’ll probably just sort of dribble in.

So who’s going to win it all when they subtract to a Final Four and crown a Winning One in Denver?

Hey, it seems has a chance, except possibly Seton Hall, last year’s runner-up, which lost to NCAA champion Michigan, 80-79, in overtime and then lost all five starters. In all, the Pirates are missing eight players, 2,510 points, 1,010 rebounds and 551 assists--more than 82% of their offense and almost 70% of their rebounding.

“It’s difficult to figure out how good we’ll be,” said P.J. Carlesimo, Seton Hall’s coach.

Actually, it’s probably pretty simple.

It’s also not very difficult to predict that Michigan will be strong again. The question before the Wolverines of the Big Ten is whether or not they can repeat, but at least they’ve got one-time fill-in Coach Steve Fisher at the start of the season this time.

When Bo Schembechler, Michigan’s athletic director, reset departing Coach Bill Frieder’s watch to Tempe time just before the tournament began, Fisher moved over from his assistant’s spot and took the Wolverines to a 6-0 tournament record. When Michigan defeated Seton Hall in overtime in the title game, Fisher was asked how he felt.

“Undefeated,” he said.

Will he be able to answer the same way in April?

Unlikely.

As good as Michigan figures to be with four starters back, it’s possible that Fisher won’t even get to Denver. It’s rough out there in the college ranks, where parity is the attrition of champions. It’s a lot different from when crafty old John Wooden was winning 10 titles in 12 years at UCLA, right?

“Some writer called me and said ‘There was no parity when you coached,’ ” Wooden said. “I said, ‘You must be out of your mind.’ We won 10 championships in 12 years and we played a different team every time. So that means there must have been pretty good parity.”

Pretenders to Michigan’s throne are already gathering. Chief among them is Syracuse, which may be able to squeeze out a title with a lineup so tall that it’s measured in stories, instead of feet and inches; and Nevada Las Vegas, the Runnin’ Rebels, whose race is always a sprint to the hoop.

Before any of that bears out, the hero of last year’s championship game, Michigan guard Rumeal Robinson, will enjoy a reunion of sorts. Mike Jarvis, his former coach at Rindge & Latin High School in Cambridge, Mass., is coaching at Boston University now and the Wolverines will play the Terriers next Monday at Boston Garden.

Robinson acknowledged the benefits of such a homecoming.

“Once I step off the court, I can go over to Mr. Jarvis’ house and have dinner,” Robinson said.

Retorted Jarvis, a fan of Robinson: “He’s a champion eater as well.”

But even if there is no meal for Robinson, Fisher and Michigan next spring in Denver, there will be places set for others.

SYRACUSE

Jim Boeheim could make another appearance at the Final Four, where his Orangemen lost the NCAA title by a point to Indiana in New Orleans in 1987 on a game-winning shot by Keith Smart. But getting back through the tournament to the Final Four will be more difficult this time, Boeheim said.

“It used to be that you could win a couple fairly easily, then your third or fourth game, those would be the hard games,” he said. “But now, every team you play is as good as yours, or better. You’ve got to be a little lucky to get back to the Final Four.”

You’ve also got to be a little good, which Syracuse certainly is. With 6-foot-9 Derrick Coleman at forward and 6-10 Kentucky transfer LeRon Ellis at center, the front line is solid.

The backcourt is loaded, too, but with starters whose experience is elsewhere. Stevie Thompson and Billy Owens, forwards last year, have been moved to guard by Boeheim, who lost playmaker Sherman Douglas to graduation and zone-buster Matt Roe, who transferred to Maryland.

In fact, none of Boeheim’s starters is playing the same position he played last year.

“I just thought of that the other day,” Boeheim said. “I wish I hadn’t thought of it.”

Coleman moved from center to forward, Ellis to center, 6-5 David Johnson from shooting guard to small forward, 6-4 Thompson from small forward to point guard and 6-9 Owens from power forward to shooting guard. Got that?

“We might struggle a little bit early, but I think our lineup is the way for us to be the best we can be,” Boeheim said. “As for what’s going to happen this year, I’d be surprised if a lot of unexpected things don’t happen. That would be the real surprise.

“Anything could happen, especially with our team because we’ve got so much size and athletic ability, but not real proven chemistry between the five guys, and a lack of backcourt leadership is always something to be concerned about.”

Syracuse finished last season by losing to Illinois in the Midwest Regional final.

NEVADA LAS VEGAS

In Las Vegas, thousands of red buttons are showing up, proclaiming: “The Big Year is Here.”

Jerry Tarkanian may be putting his best UNLV team ever on the floor. But he is cautious, even though he has four starters returning from a team that came within a game of the Final Four last season--losing to Seton Hall in the West Regional final.

“We’re not better than everybody,” Tarkanian said. “This is not a team that is going to go out and destroy anybody. But on a given night, we can play anybody.”

Even with junior college standout Larry Johnson added to the lineup, the questions the Rebels must answer are about people who are missing and what the NCAA may find in its investigation of Tarkanian as well as its probe into the school’s 1986 recruitment of Lloyd Daniels.

It’s possible even newcomer Johnson may find himself under a microscope because of the Scholastic Aptitute Test (SAT) he took as a Dallas prep star attempting to enroll at SMU.

Tarkanian waged a 12-year battle with the NCAA that culminated in a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision last December. Nevada Las Vegas had been placed on two years probation in 1977 for a series of violations, and the NCAA had also ordered Tarkanian suspended for two years. But Tarkanian went to court and kept his job while UNLV served the two years probation.

When the high court ruled that the NCAA has the right to order a coach suspended without providing him due process, the same ruling also said a state agency--such as a university--cannot suspend a coach without affording the coach due process.

Since then, Tarkanian has gotten a state court order that prevents his firing, but the NCAA could order his suspension again in light of the high court decision, then impose additional penalties on Nevada Las Vegas if it failed to do so.

As far as the Daniels investigation, it is generally believed that NCAA sanctions--if any--would not take effect during the current season. On the court, Tarkanian has some smaller but taller problems to solve.

Two of his big men from last year’s team, 6-10 center David Butler and 6-7 forward Moses Scurry, are out with academic problems, but both are expected to be back by the first of the year. George Ackles, a 6-10 forward, gets the cast removed this week from the wrist he broke in July. He could be playing in a month.

Johnson and Stacey Augmon, each 6-7, may be the best pair of forwards in the country. Purdue Coach Gene Keady coached Johnson with the U.S. gold-medal team at the World University Games last summer and said the Odessa (Tex.) junior college transfer can play on any level.

“Personally, I think he can play in the pros right now,” Keady said.

But the Rebels’ talent pool is not very deep in the backcourt. Guards Greg Anthony and Anderson Hunt are returning starters, but backup guard Stacey Cvijanovich is slowed by a knee sprain. Tarkanian expected Dedan Thomas as a third guard, but Thomas’ grades weren’t high enough for him to be admitted to school.

“I think if we had our third guard, this would have been our best team ever,” said Tarkanian. “Now, we’ll have to wait and see. We have to be lucky. We have no third guard. If anything goes wrong, we’re wiped out.”

GEORGETOWN

At Georgetown, the Hoyas may be the ones doing the wiping out. The big question they may have to answer: What will be their margins of victory?

John Thompson’s team may be on the level of those of the Patrick Ewing era. Super sophomore Alonzo Mourning, a 6-10 center, averaged 13.2 points and blocked 169 shots last year. Thompson is planning to start Mourning and 7-2 Dikembe Mutombo at the same time, which is bad news for anyone planning on taking a shot inside. Mutombo blocked 75 shots last season.

With forwards Anthony Bell, Milton Allen and Sam Jefferson teaming with the swarming backcourt of Dwayne Bryant and Mark Tillmon, Georgetown may get farther than last year’s loss, to Duke, in the East Regional final. Like Syracuse and Nevada Las Vegas, Georgetown was one victory away from the Final Four. This year, the Hoyas are collecting a lot of new fans, including one from their own Big East conference.

Said Boeheim: “They’re my No. 1 team. I think they’re going to kill some people.”

In fact, the mayhem department is likely to expand this year in the Big East . . . and the Southeastern and the Trans-America, too. Those three conferences petitioned the NCAA and will be allowed to play games in which six fouls will be allowed each player. The six-foul rule is only an experiment, however, and will not be used in nonconference or tournament games.

New rules that are in effect for everyone this season call for two free throws after each technical foul, and timeouts lengthened from 60 seconds to 75 seconds. Also, bicycle tights worn underneath uniform shorts must now be the same color as the shorts.

LOUISIANA STATE

Power-packed LSU of the SEC will probably benefit from the six-foul rule, too, as if the Tigers needed much more help. But there is a greater chance that high-scoring Chris Jackson will remain in the game with the experimental rule, unless of course there is a blowout occurring, which is altogether likely.

Dale Brown’s team is one of the best in the nation, although it may be a year away from a Final Four appearance. The question Brown must answer is how much his team’s youth will hold it back. “We’d really like to be the dominant team of the ‘90s,” he said.

If so, his foundation is in place. Prominent newcomers are 7-1, 286-pound, 17-year-old freshman Shaquille O’Neal and 7-foot, 288-pound Stanley Roberts, who sat out last year as a Proposition 48 signee. O’Neal won’t be 18 until March 6, two days before the SEC tournament.

But Jackson is the star of the show. After he scored 10 of his 40 points in the final 2 1/2 minutes when LSU beat the Soviet Union in an exhibition game, he earned international acclaim.

“Chris Jackson is the best guard I’ve seen in college, and the pros, too,” said Alexander Gomelsky, president of the Soviet Basketball Federation, who coached the USSR national team to a gold medal in Seoul.

The Soviets also played--and lost--to Nevada Las Vegas, so current Coach Vladas Garastas was asked which team was better, LSU or UNLV.

“In terms of shot selection and individual talent, (LSU) was stronger than Las Vegas,” he said. “The quality of the play was better. LSU, in a word, was better.”

ARIZONA

And in Tucson, Lute Olson has put together a team that may be only a few steps behind UNLV as the best in the West. Gone is Sean Elliott, last year’s all-everything, but 6-11 center Brian Williams is eligible after sitting out a year after transferring from Maryland.

Olson’s hopes were set back when the NCAA ruled Kentucky transfer Chris Mills ineligible to play until next fall. But with Williams in the middle, it’s possible to believe that the player who may be the best center in the nation will carry the team a long way.

To Denver? Maybe not, but then only four teams are going to get there anyway. And there’s simply no question about that.