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Don’t Beat Around the Bush, Bobby, Give Us Your Opinion

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Indiana basketball Coach Bob Knight is always obliging with an opinion, and here are a few he expressed in an interview in the Louisville Courier-Journal:

--On Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls: “He’s head and shoulders above anyone else who ever played the game.”

--On Notre Dame Coach Digger Phelps: “He’s a good friend of mine, and I’m his only friend.”

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--On TV analyst Dick Vitale: “He’s got a heart like an elephant and a mouth to match.”

--On TV analyst Al McGuire: “He was an outstanding coach because he had a way of getting people to do things. But he knows nothing about basketball.”

Ouch: Announcer Barry Tompkins was quoted in the Atlanta Journal as saying of Nevada Las Vegas: “They play like thugs. They have a lot of guys you wouldn’t want to bring home unless everything is bolted down.”

Trivia time: With Bo Kimble succeeding Hank Gathers as the NCAA scoring champion, Loyola Marymount becomes the second school to have two different winners in successive seasons. Which was the first?

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Longest inning: The subject was old-timers’ games, and former pitching star Jim Bunning told the St. Petersburg Times: “The first time I played, I got two quick outs in the inning and couldn’t get the third one. There were 11 straight people up. Nine runs and I still didn’t get them out. They finally had to come and get me.

“Somebody asked our catcher, Joe Garagiola, how hard I was throwing. He said, ‘I don’t know, I haven’t caught one yet.’ ”

20 years ago today: On March 21, 1970, Curtis Rowe scored 18 points, and Sidney Wicks and Steve Patterson had 17 each, with Wicks getting 18 rebounds, as UCLA defeated Jacksonville, 80-69, in the NCAA basketball championship game.

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Boo-som buddies: When the Detroit Pistons last visited Atlanta, Jerry Glanville, new coach of the Falcons, went to the game with the hope of meeting Detroit center Bill Laimbeer.

Glanville: “I wanted to meet him, because he’s the only guy I know who gets booed more than me.”

Conditional surrender: Chicago Cub Manager Don Zimmer on spring training: “Pitchers will tell you that first day, ‘I’m ready to go.’ Then you throw them for 10 minutes, run them around the field a few times, and half of them will be on their knees, throwing up.”

Grave question: From Phil Jackman of the Baltimore Evening Sun: “If promoters Don King and Bob Arum disappeared from the fight scene, would anybody even bother dragging the river?”

Trivia answer: Furman. Frank Selvy won it in 1953-54, Darrell Floyd in 1954-55. Actually, Selvy and Floyd each won two titles, giving Furman four in a row.

Quotebook: Paul Westhead, Loyola Marymount basketball coach, on keeping Bo Kimble in the game after he picked up his fourth foul with 25 minutes left against New Mexico State: “That’s my style. Besides, Bo’s a very good talker. If he’d gotten his fifth, he would have talked his way back into the game.”

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