With an NCAA Berth in Hand, Campbell Gets Over the Hump

Everything you need to know about the Campbell Fighting Camels, winners of the Big South Conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA basketball tournament and the team you are sure to get in the office tournament pool:

--The Campbell campus is in Buies Creek, N.C., which has a population of 2,000. Buies Creek is so small that the only restaurant in town is the university dining hall. Do not, however, call it a one-stoplight town. There are no stoplights.

--Campbell is a strict Southern Baptist school that does not allow its teams to play on Sundays.

--Campbell Coach Billy Lee can turn a phrase. After the Camels, who were 7-7 in Big South regular-season play, won the conference tournament, he said: “I’m as happy as a possum chewing briars.”

No doubt.

But can he shoot the “J?”Player with the best name in the NCAA tournament field so far? Delaware’s Spencer Dunkley.

Trivia time: How many NCAA basketball tournament games have been played in New York’s Madison Square Garden?

Matched set: Relief pitcher Steve Farr of the New York Yankees is known as “the Beast,” in part because of his fierce work habits. His fiancee apparently thinks the nickname is appropriate. She has a vanity license plate that reads “BEAUTEE.”

Another view from the rear: Prairie View A&M;’s record for college basketball futility this year--an 0-28 season--prompted James Van Valkenburg, NCAA director of statistics, to recall the only other NCAA Division I team to go winless since 1948, the first year of official national college statistics. That would, of course, be those Citadel Bulldogs of 1955.

As Van Valkenburg notes, the Bulldogs (0-17) were not complete dogs, managing to lose to Furman by only two points, 26-24, after losing, 154-67, to the same team earlier in the season. The Bulldogs, in fact, did win a game that year. But the victory came against a non-four-year school and thus did not count on Citadel’s record.

Wild about Larry: When Charlotte Hornet rookie Larry Johnson appeared in his hometown of Dallas for the first time as an NBA player Wednesday, he bought or obtained more than 150 tickets, a record for a visiting player at Reunion Arena. Johnson’s haul surpassed the 144 tickets obtained by Cleveland’s Craig Ehlo, a native of Lubbock, Tex., when the Cavaliers visited Dallas in January 1990.

Add Larry: During his homecoming, Johnson remembered a visit he made to Reunion Arena five years ago to watch the Mavericks play the Chicago Bulls. A senior at Dallas’ Skyline High at the time, Johnson was widely known as one of the top prep players in the nation, but he had yet to realize what that status meant.

So it gave Johnson a jolt when Michael Jordan approached him in an arena corridor after the game and casually said, “Hi, Larry.” When Jordan had moved on, Johnson turned to his high school coach, J.D. Mayo, and said, “Is he talking to me ?”

Trivia answer: In the current Garden, none. The original Garden, however, played host to 71 NCAA tournament games in 16 years.

Quotebook: Walter Byers, former executive director of the NCAA: “The corrupting influence in intercollegiate athletics is those inflamed, undeveloped alumni and boosters who have enlarged egos and retarded maturity (and) who seem to get a kick out of bribing 18-year-olds to come play for their institutions.”