Johnson Takes Augmon’s Place as UNLV Headliner : College Basketball: Former junior college player of the year has opponents stretching for superlatives and Rebels’ athletic department enthralled because of low-key approach to success.

This is a town where order of billing means something, and Jerry Tarkanian follows protocol when he talks about his team.

Johnson and Augmon, he says.

Stacey Augmon was only the premier player on a team that upset Arizona in the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. tournament last season, then fell one victory short of the Final Four. He is only an Olympian, and was only the player of the year in the Big West Conference last season as a sophomore.

Now he is only an opening act.

Larry Johnson is not the college player of the year yet, though there are those who insist that it is a formality, picking him over Louisiana State’s Chris Jackson.

A transfer from Odessa Junior College in Texas where he was the national junior college player of the year the past two seasons, Johnson has played two games of Division I ball, scoring in the 20s in both.

Coaches and professional scouts say that if he comes out after this season, which Johnson admits is a possibility, he is a near-certain lottery pick in the National Basketball Assn. draft, possibly in the top three.

He is a power forward with finesse and agility to play outside.

He is a dominating rebounder, averaging 17 a game last season, along with 28 points.

He can run--if not at the pace of Loyola Marymount, which left him huffing in last Wednesday night’s game, then at least with California, as he did last Friday night, finishing off the Rebels’ break.

“He’s got to get in a little better shape to run with us thinner guys,” said Augmon, his close friend.

Johnson can shoot, making 63% of his shots from the field last season. And he can shoot free throws--at least in comparison to the Rebels, who struggle at the line. Johnson hit 75% last season. UNLV shot 63%.

Some say Johnson looks like Karl Malone. Tarkanian compares him to Armon Gilliam. Purdue’s Gene Keady, who coached Johnson in the World University Games this summer, has called him the best player he has coached since Sidney Moncrief, when Keady was an assistant at Arkansas.

But before the NBA gets its next Johnson, there is at least one season to be played. Tarkanian says this UNLV team, ranked No. 1 by the Associated Press, has better players than the 1987 team that made it to the Final Four, although he holds that the 1987 team had “perfect chemistry.”

Most of the team that made it to the final eight last season is back, although center David Butler is academically ineligible until the semester break and forward Moses Scurry has yet to complete course work to become eligible. The Rebels are without forward George Ackles, who broke his wrist.

Anderson Hunt and Greg Anthony are back at the guard spots, and of course there is Augmon.

Still, for now, expectations are heaped upon Johnson, a 20-year-old whose build is part tight end, part Mike Tyson--6-foot-7, 250 pounds.

Johnson hardly seems to notice. In fact, the only thing that seems to be as universally agreed upon as his prospects for success is that a lot of people would like to see him do well.

Said Oklahoma Coach Billy Tubbs, who finished second in a recruiting battle for Johnson that wasn’t very close: “He’s not only a great player, but you’re going to be for him unless you’re playing against him.”

Oklahoma will play UNLV Dec. 9.

People in the athletic department at UNLV like Johnson because he is open and friendly, confident but not haughty.

Johnson will walk into an office, and tap his finger at a photo of himself and Augmon with admiration: “That’s a pretty good poster.”

He has arrived in Las Vegas from a rough neighborhood in South Dallas by way of Odessa and proclaims his life unchanged. “They have McDonald’s here just like back in Texas,” he said.

There wasn’t much to do in Odessa.

“Rent some movies, grab something to eat,” Johnson said. “I don’t like to party much.”

In Las Vegas, there is plenty to do. Johnson says he still prefers renting a John Wayne movie or hanging out at a convenience store.

Johnson has been among the best players in the country the past two seasons, but he has been in Odessa, stashed away from television audiences. But for a question over the validity of his Scholastic Aptitude Test scores out of high school, he would have begun his career at Southern Methodist.

Instead, Johnson played at Odessa, and in the second recruiting battle, UNLV won, although not without a mini-scandal when Tarkanian was photographed with Johnson at summer league game, implying that the two spoke in a breech of NCAA rules. As it turned out, the photograph was a routine camp photograph, and the two have said there was no illegal contact.

UNLV got Johnson thanks largely to a recruiting effort by Augmon, who met him on a junior international team coached by Larry Brown after the players finished high school. The two became close at the 1988 Olympic trials, where Johnson was the only junior college player invited.

“I’ve been around him and I know his capabilities,” Augmon said. “He’s unstoppable. He’s so strong and agile, he can do a lot of things.”

Johnson chose UNLV in spite of the acknowledged possibility of NCAA probation.

“I made my choice to come to Vegas,” Johnson said. “If I went somewhere else, no telling what I might miss. I never heard anyone say Vegas will go on probation. I heard people say they might . That’s been going on for years. I made my commitment.”

The first recruiting battle for Johnson was not close, either. A first-team McDonald’s All-American at Skyline High School in Dallas, he signed with Southern Methodist, then coached by Dave Bliss, who is now at New Mexico. Johnson had taken the Scholastic Aptitude Test as a high school junior, but had failed to score 700, the requirement for freshman eligibility under Proposition 48.

Johnson took the test again and says he scored 800. But the testing service questioned the score because of the dramatic improvement, and asked him to take the test a third time. Johnson said no, and SMU told him he would have to sit out his freshman season on the basis of the first score. Johnson enrolled at Odessa instead.

Johnson said the dramatic improvement in his score was the result of two preparatory courses he took, and that he decided not to retake the test partly because of the influence of his high school coach, J.D. Mayo.

“Originally, it was no big deal to me, but my high school coach said they are talking about your honesty,” Johnson said. “I didn’t have to take it over. I know I took my test (and not a stand-in for him).”

He chose Odessa to play right away.

“I was peaking as far as basketball,” Johnson said. “I didn’t want to sit out . . . The route I took, basically I think I’m doing pretty good.”

Johnson seemed likely to join Brown at Kansas before Brown left for the NBA. After that, the choices narrowed to Oklahoma and UNLV, and Johnson settled on UNLV last September.

Johnson began his athletic career as a boxer in the Police Athletic League of South Dallas. “I’m from the baddest part of town you ever saw,” he said.

He was well-known by police, who picked him up three times for such offenses as stealing fruit and bicycles, he said.

The Police Athletic League program was designed to keep youngsters out of trouble through sports. Johnson was a boxer, then a quarterback who outgrew his offensive line.

Then came basketball, and Johnson said he’s been on the straight and narrow since. He said he neither drinks nor does drugs.

“When I discovered sports, it wasn’t hard at all,” he said.

By high school, his mind was on basketball. His senior year, he averaged 28 points a game and 18 rebounds. Junior college was no harder to master. Now, with more eyes watching than ever, it’s time to try the big-time.