COLLEGE BASKETBALL : With Ellis Back, Digger Nears 400th Win

An undertaker’s son from Beacon, N.Y., Richard Frederick (Digger) Phelps got his nickname when he was 13 while working part-time for his father. On his own in another profession, 58-year-old Digger Phelps has done pretty well.

In his 19th season as basketball coach at Notre Dame, Phelps is nearing another plateau--his 400th coaching victory. Phelps, who is 398-171 in his career at Notre Dame and his first year of coaching at Fordham, could reach the 400-victory level if Notre Dame (7-4) wins at La Salle tonight and again at Rutgers Tuesday.

Beyond that? Phelps said the Irish are going to be back in the NCAA tournament, just as was last year’s 20-6 team that lost to Georgetown in the second round.

Leading the way on the floor is 6-foot-9 sophomore La Phonso Ellis, whose absence from the lineup because of academic problems didn’t help the team much.

“Not having Ellis the first seven games set us back,” Phelps said. “If we get back to where we were in the (NCAA) tournament last year, well, we played very well against (first-round opponent) Vanderbilt and we played very, very well against Georgetown.

“We know that’s how good we can be,” he said. “We’ve just been struggling to get to that.”

In last year’s NCAA tournament, Ellis had 17 points and 18 rebounds in a 16-point victory over Vanderbilt, and 18 points and 10 rebounds in a matchup against Alonzo Mourning of Georgetown during a seven-point loss to the Hoyas.

Now back in Notre Dame’s good graces by maintaining a C average, Ellis had 20 rebounds against Creighton in his second game since returning and 27 points and 14 rebounds against USC in the next game. But Phelps isn’t convinced that Ellis is all the way back.

“You can tell, he’s not there yet,” he said. “He’s not scoring the way he likes to score; you can see him get tired. But we’ve just got to play him, get him in shape, so we get it going.”

Less Digger: After coaching for nearly two decades, Phelps said he realizes that the key to success is to avoid getting down on his players so much that they lose confidence.

Digger’s own key to success?

“I jog my 50 minutes four days a week and ride the Stairmaster for another 15 minutes, so I get my hour workout,” said Phelps, who lost 15 pounds before the season started. “That’s my stress management.”

Quote of the week: Anthony Tucker of Wake Forest, after Georgia Tech’s Dennis Scott scored 36 points in a 12-point victory: “He has no conscience.”

Statistic of the week: Formerly No. 1-ranked Syracuse shot just 28% against Villanova and lost its only game of the season, prompting Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim to say: “Shooting is our weakness.”

Counting heads: USC Coach George Raveling noted that sitting beside Arizona State Coach Bill Frieder are two assistant coaches who were head coaches last year--Lynn Archibald, formerly of Utah, and George McQuarn, formerly of Cal State Fullerton.

“That’s living proof that three heads are better than one,” Raveling said.

Paying Bill: In order to attract Frieder to Tempe, Arizona State Athletic Director Charles Harris included a clause in the contract that would pay Frieder $20,000 if the school’s recruiting class is judged to be in the top 10 in the nation.

Harris, who called such contract clauses “designer items,” said he believes Frieder’s contract to be unique, but expects such clauses to become fairly routine in the future.

Harris strongly defended the clause, saying it is a one-time-only provision and that it would not tempt a coach to bend the NCAA rules to attract star recruits.

“In fact, we think it sets a standard because that same clause also requires a caveat that the players be admissible by ASU standards and eligible by NCAA standards,” Harris said. “So in our case, we feel that clause gives us something of a win-win situation. “It gives us good kids, a base to start the program, whose athletic ability is judged by a third party and whose athletic ability also satisfies university and NCAA standards.”

Besides, Harris said, any major NCAA violations by coaches at ASU mandate immediate dismissal.

“You cheat, you’re fired, goodby,” Harris said.

More Frieder: He is outspoken on the subject of Pacific 10 basketball coaches doing a better job in promoting their conference.

“If UCLA and Arizona want to keep the other eight down and resent them having good programs, this will always be a second-rate conference,” Frieder said. “But if they’re happy having five or six teams in the NCAA tournament, it can become a prominent conference. If (Ed) O’Bannon (of Artesia High School) doesn’t go to Arizona State, then we’d better keep him at UCLA or get him to Arizona. Don’t let him go to Syracuse or Vegas.”

Frieder said that this is the type of attitude his Pac-10 peers must have with each recruit.

“As much as I hate Bobby Knight, if a situation came down to Indiana, Michigan and Notre Dame and I knew I was losing the kid, I’d sell Indiana to that kid--because I sold the Big Ten,” Frieder said. “That’s why it was a great conference, and that’s what this conference had better get going.”

Lawrence of Lexington?: Former Indiana freshman star Lawrence Funderburke, who quit the team Dec. 14 after Coach Bob Knight kicked him out of practice, told the Indiana Daily Student that he has contacted Athletic Director C.M. Newton of Kentucky to see if the school is interested in him.

Funderburke has also contacted Missouri and said Indiana, from whom he is asking a release from his letter of intent, would give him a conditional release only if he went to Missouri.

“I’m not saying I’m going to Missouri,” Funderburke told the Hoosier school newspaper. “I’m going to fight and push this as much as I can to try to get my release.”

The 6-8 Funderburke, who averaged 11.7 points a game and started three of the Hoosiers’ first six games, told the Daily Student that he got along fine with Knight.

“He got on me just like he got on anybody else, and I wasn’t bothered with that,” Funderburke said. “People said we didn’t get along. That’s not true. We did get along. It’s a great school and a great coach. To me, he’s the best coach on the college level by far.”

The reason he left, Funderburke said, was because he felt stifled in Indiana’s disciplined offense.

“I don’t think it was very helpful for my game as far as the future (goes),” he said. “I like to play open. Here at Indiana, you don’t have a lot of freedom.”