COLLEGE BASKETBALL NOTEBOOK : ACC Strives to Stay Off Fight Card

During the last 20 years, college basketball players have gotten bigger and stronger, so, in many ways, it seems only natural to expect that play would get more physical.

But the sport has been marred by a series of ugly, bench-clearing brawls the past six weeks that have required, in some cases, hospitalization of players and spectators.

In the first battle, players and fans from North Carolina Central and North Carolina A&T; slugged it out for 15 minutes last month, with some fans wielding chairs as weapons.

Subsequent fights have pitted players from Nevada-Las Vegas and Cal State-Fullerton against each other, and the most recent brawl between West Chester and Cheyney State in Pennsylvania two weeks ago, found one West Chester player knocked unconscious while players and fans scrapped with each other.

Numerous conferences have taken steps to curtail fighting and the taunting that can lead to fisticuffs.

The Big East, for example, after celebrated brawls involving Georgetown, Pittsburgh and other schools a few years ago, has issued a memo through Commissioner Dave Gavitt’s office, strongly discouraging taunting, as well as ordering suspensions for fighting.

The Atlantic Coast Conference, which hasn’t had a notable fight in recent memory, also has placed the kibosh on KOs, according to league coaches.

“Our conference has always been good about that from (Commissioner) Gene Corrigan through (supervisor of officials) Fred Barakat,” said Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski. “I think it starts at the top. I don’t think anybody wants that. The ACC’s been a class conference.”

Maryland’s Gary Williams added, “I think the officials have done a good job in talking to the players so that nothing gets out of hand.”

But Georgia Tech’s Bobby Cremins said during an ACC coaches’ teleconference that despite Corrigan’s diligence, he is surprised that there haven’t been any fights in the league this year.

Dean Smith of North Carolina said he could recall the last two brawls in the league, back in 1959 and in 1961, remembering that the conference then suspended the participants.

“I don’t think we’ve had anything happen since then, but I don’t think we’ve done anything since 1961,” said Smith.

“The way the officials are letting things go, I’m surprised that (a fight) hasn’t happened. But cooler heads have prevailed. I’m talking about the players, not the conference officials.”

While on the subject of Smith, the Tar Heels lost a recruit to Stanford two years ago for a most unusual reason.

Adam Keefe, then a senior at Woodbridge High School in Irvine, had decided he wanted to play both basketball and volleyball in college, and although the Tar Heels aren’t known for their prowess in the beach sport, North Carolina were still on his list of considered schools.

Between Keefe’s junior and senior years, North Carolina assistant Bill Guthridge tried to call Woodbridge Coach Bill Shannon to express an interest in Keefe.

Trouble was, Shannon didn’t answer, because the school’s athletic offices were closed for refurbishing. Whoever picked up the phone told Guthridge that Keefe wasn’t interested.

“We think it was a construction worker,” Keefe told the Orange County Register.

At any rate, before North Carolina discovered what had happened, Stanford had established a foothold for Keefe.

You don’t suppose that Lefty Driesell posed as a construction worker just to confound his old nemesis, do you?

Probably not.

Less than three weeks remain before those office pools start turning up and Brent Musburger becomes a staple in your household, sort of the know-it-all uncle you wish you didn’t have.

It’s getting to be NCAA tournament time and in preparation for college basketball’s answer to the World Series and Super Bowl, Jim Delaney, chairman of the nine-member NCAA Division I selection committee, met the press by phone.

Delaney, who is also Big Ten commissioner, said the committee already has met once to discuss criteria for inviting the 64 teams -- 30 automatic qualifiers and 34 at-large teams -- to participate in the big dance that culminates with the Final Four in Denver at the end of March.

Delaney said the committee will likely begin meeting in a Kansas City hotel the Thursday before invitations are sent out on March 11, and caucus through the weekend to come up with the nominees.

Delaney expects the committee will make recommendations to the NCAA membership on how to allocate the $1 billion that CBS will begin paying next year for exclusive rights to the tournament.

“We would like to get back to the point where we play more for the trophy and less for the money,” said Delaney. “I think there is a recognition that we need to use the money to encourage broad-based programs and more academic programs.”

Fairly certain is that the tournament will remain in its current 64-team format through 1997, when the CBS contract expires, because the broadcast rights were sold on that premise.

In all the good news talk of power ratings, strength of schedule and magic numbers of wins and losses, Delaney did have one potentially ominous note for the ACC.

Delaney declined to speak specifically on Maryland’s current NCAA problems and the anticipated punishment, saying the school still is eligible for postseason play.

But he did say that if a conference allows teams to participate in its postseason tournament where an NCAA bid is at stake, it runs the risk of forfeiting that bid if any of those teams wins the tournament.

“If that conference permits an ineligible institution to participate, and that team wins, then the automatic bid is lost,” said Delaney. “It’s as if they had forfeited the automatic bid.”

North Carolina State already has been banished from this year’s tournament, and Maryland may be forced to sit out when the sanctions are announced, presumably within the next two weeks.