They Are Warriors, Poets--and Winners : College basketball: With Campanelli’s leadership and Colson’s offense, Cal turns the clock back to the glory days.

A hush fell over the University of California’s basketball team when Pete Newell, the most successful coach in school history, rose to address the players before a recent game.

“Guys, I’m really proud of what you’ve accomplished this season,” Newell said. “You’ve done so much to bring Cal back into the basketball picture nationally. And you’ve brought back credibility to Cal basketball.”

The Golden Bears had a lot of credibility after Newell coached them to the 1959 NCAA championship. They returned to the 1960 Final Four but lost to Ohio State in the championship game.

Cal hasn’t played in the NCAA tournament since Newell retired 30 years ago, but it is likely to gain an NCAA bid this season.

“It’s been paradise,” assistant coach Gary Colson said. “It’s a miracle year. It’s scary what we’ve done. Next Sunday (when the NCAA tournament field is announced), the Campanile’s bells might be ringing and we might be ringing them.”

Seeded No. 3 in the Pacific 10 tournament, which opens today at Tempe, Ariz., Cal has a 21-8 regular-season record, its best in 30 years.

The Bears have been nicknamed “the Road Warriors” because they compiled the Pac-10’s best road record by winning seven of nine games, coming from behind each time.

Cal basketball floundered after Newell retired in 1960, partly because of student protests over alleged racism in the athletic department during the ‘60s, and the Bears had only seven winning seasons in the 25 years before the hiring of Coach Lou Campanelli in 1985.

Cal’s most successful coach since Newell, Campanelli has revitalized the program, making three appearances in five years in the National Invitation Tournament. His teams have also won 20 or more games three times.

Although this was supposed to be a rebuilding season, the Bears compiled the sixth-best record in the 82-year history of basketball at Berkeley. The team’s achievement is even more impressive in light of the university’s stringent entrance requirements.

“We’ve done pretty well for an Ivy League school,” Colson quipped.

The fans have also returned to Harmon Arena, which was filled with empty seats before Campanelli arrived. Cal has sold out every Pac-10 game for the last five years.

“They’ve done a lot these last few years in terms of dispelling the jinxes and the negative records that were compiled against them,” Newell said this week. “I give a lot of credit to the coaches--Lou Campanelli, and of course Gary Colson has been a tremendous help to him in turning the program around. They’ve done a marvelous job.”

Campanelli has done such a good job at Cal that he has been mentioned as a candidate for the job at Virginia. But he said he hasn’t been contacted and is content at Cal.

If Campanelli were to quit, Cal has a capable replacement in Colson, a former head coach at Valdosta (Ga.) State, Pepperdine and New Mexico.

Still being paid by New Mexico, which fired him after he won more than 20 games in each of his final two seasons, Colson interviewed for several jobs last season but decided to remain at Cal. He plans to explore the job market after this season, and his work at Cal is certain to impress athletic directors.

“In coaching, if your team is hot, you’re hot,” Colson said.

COLSON’S GUARANTEE

Cal’s offense was so predictable in Campanelli’s first four years that Sports Illustrated’s Rick Reilly described it as “Arthur Murray’s follow-the-footsteps offense.”

The Bears would pound the ball inside to their big men, 6-foot-8 Leonard Taylor, 6-6 Matt Beeuwsaert and 6-8 Hartmut Ortmann.

But after losing Taylor, Beeuwsaert and Ortmann last season, Campanelli was forced to make some changes. He turned the problem over to Colson, who installed a three-guard offense based on the successful system developed by former Oregon State Coach Ralph Miller.

Colson knew Miller’s offense well. Using it, his New Mexico team shot 82.6% in an 81-63 victory over Oregon State in 1985. “After the game, Ralph told me that he felt bad, but I did what he taught me to do.”

Colson told Campanelli that Cal could win 20 games with the new offense.

“I told him that I’d guarantee we’d win 20 games if he let me run the offense,” Colson said. “And he asked me to write it down. He’d forgotten about it, and after we beat Stanford for our 21st win, I asked him to pull out that piece of paper.”

Guards Keith Smith, a 6-4 senior, and Ryan Drew, a 6-3 junior, have developed into exceptional three-point shooters. Smith averaged a team-high 16.7 points and 6.7 assists a game to set a school record.

The son of Greg Smith, who spent nine seasons in the NBA, playing for Milwaukee (1968-71), Houston (1972-73) and Portland (1973-76), Keith is an NBA prospect.

“The Detroit Pistons called me the other day, asking about Pac-10 players, and I told them they should draft Keith Smith,” USC Coach George Raveling said.

Drew, who set a school record by hitting 65 three-point shots, averaged 10.3 points.

Despite the marksmanship of Smith and Drew, Cal’s offense has worked because of the emergence of Brian Hendrick, a 6-8 redshirt freshman center, who set a school freshman scoring record by averaging 15.2 points and 7.4 rebounds.

“We hoped he’d average 10 points and five rebounds,” Colson said. “But then we realized we had a monster on our hands.”

Without the inside presence of Hendrick, defenses would be able to concentrate on stopping the outside shooting of Smith and Drew.

Although he had never used set plays, Colson came up with a playbook to satisfy Campanelli, who requires structure.

While Colson ran the offense, Campanelli ran the defense, which held opponents to 44% from the field, best in 19 years.

“It’s difficult for a coach to totally divorce himself away from a style of basketball that he feels real comfortable with and to take on a new style that might be even more compatible with the personnel that he has, because most of us tend to be traditionalists,” Raveling said. “And that’s what Lou had to do.

“In the last few years, they were just a pound-it-inside offensive team and (they played) you hard man-to-man defensively. This year, they’ve been a lot more of a finesse team.”

THE DEAD POETS SOCIETY

Sportscaster Dick Vitale, a former pro and college coach, agreed with Raveling’s assessment.

“(Campanelli) is playing according to his personnel,” Vitale said. “Lou’s always been a bright coach and he’s been able to adjust according to his personnel and his talent. He tries to fit the pieces, and I think that’s a sign of good coaching.”

As the Cal players entered their bus before a recent game, they took seats in the back, eight rows behind the coaches.

During the ride, they bantered back and forth, telling jokes and teasing each other.

“We’re like a fraternity,” Drew said.

Colson has nicknamed the team “The Dead Poets Society,” because of the bonding that has taken place this season.

It’s quite a contrast from the past, when the team was generally divided into cliques. There are no egos on this year’s team, but there is at least one hot temper.

Bill Elleby, a sophomore guard, made an obscene gesture at UCLA’s student rooting section before the Bears won their first game at Pauley Pavilion, beating UCLA, 79-71, last month.

“I was pumped up, and instead of taking it out in the game, I took it out on the crowd before the game,” Elleby said. “I wanted to beat UCLA bad because I wanted to go there when I was in high school.”

Elleby said he was upset because he felt UCLA’s players were too cocky. “They have the attitude that they’re the best and that they can’t be beat,” he said.

Elleby was involved in another incident when Cal played at USC, pointing his finger and exchanging angry words with members of the Trojan student section.

Elleby said USC Coach Raveling provoked the outburst.

“George Raveling called me a punk and a faggot three times,” Elleby said. “I couldn’t understand it. He kept telling the refs to get me off (Harold) Miner but he was talking to me, calling me all those names.”

Said Raveling: “When we played them up at Cal, he was running his mouth, and he was running his mouth all during the game down here. It got to a point where he couldn’t conduct himself like a Pac-10 player, so I felt I would conduct myself in a manner which his deportment deserved.

“I was stunned at his behavior on the court, and you can print that. If it was one of my players, he would have never played another second for me until we had an understanding that the next time he did it, he was done.”

Campanelli has told Elleby to clean up his act.

THE NEW LOU

Campanelli was as welcome as gingivitis when he replaced the easy-going Dick Kuchen.

A strict disciplinarian, Campanelli clashed repeatedly with his players, feuding openly with guard Kevin Johnson, now with the Phoenix Suns. A good open-court player, Johnson resented the restrictions placed upon him by Campanelli.

“Nobody had ever put the reins on Kevin, and somebody had to do it if he was going to grow as a basketball player,” Campanelli said. “I never had a player challenge me as much as Kevin did. But that’s good, because you can’t just have the ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir’ guys.”

In past seasons, Campanelli has berated officials frequently, sometimes blaming losses on poor officiating.

Job stress took its toll on his health. To combat high blood pressure, he lost 22 pounds by watching his diet and exercising.

Just before the start of last season, his wife, Dawn, was seriously injured in an auto accident, suffering a broken pelvis when the car in which she was a passenger was hit broadside by a drunk driver.

Turning the team over to Colson, Campanelli spent more time at the hospital than he did at the gym.

The experience appears to have helped him put basketball in perspective. After receiving seven technical fouls last season, he has received only three this season.

“He likes to say he’s matured, but I think he’s calmed down a bit,” forward Roy Fisher said. “He still rants and raves but he’s giving us more freedom. He’ll still jump on us in a second, but it doesn’t feel the same. It’s more positive. The negative is filtered out.

“He’s relating to us as a team a lot better than he did before. His tirades aren’t meant to destroy us as a team.”

But Campanelli says he retains the same drive, adding: “The day I don’t have fire in my butt, I’m getting out.”