COLLEGE BASKETBALL / NCAA MEN’S TOURNAMENT : NOTES : Knight Tries to Bring Down Tournament Sites

For someone who won a regional championship at Albuquerque, N.M., Bob Knight is in no particular rush to return.

“I’m honestly against the NCAA having tournaments in places like Albuquerque or Denver because of the altitude,” the Albuquerque Journal quoted Knight.

“I think that throws a mix into the tournament that shouldn’t be there. There have been all kinds of different things on altitude training, and I really don’t think, at the end of the year, teams should be subjected to that.”

Meanwhile, at New Mexico State, center Chris Hickman hasn’t forgotten a comment by UCLA’s Don MacLean that the Bruins more or less “cruised” in the second half to their 85-78 regional victory over the Aggies.

“You can only talk like that so long before it catches up with you,” Hickman said after UCLA lost Saturday to Indiana. “It caught up with him today.”

A homemade sign held by a spectator, Susan Burchett of San Diego, at the Indiana-UCLA game listed the: “Top 10 Reasons IU Wins.”

Among them:

1. Cerebral Reversal.

3. Bobby Didn’t Move to New Mexico.

8. No Distracting Banquets.

9. We Thought Don MacLean Was a Singer.

A legend: A fourth national championship would tie Knight with Kentucky’s Adolph Rupp for second place among coaches, behind John Wooden’s 10.

A legend in the making: Mike Krzyzewski’s four consecutive Final Four appearances with Duke puts him in second place, behind Wooden’s nine.

Steve Fisher, who got the Michigan coaching job on a fluke in March, 1989, now has taken teams to as many Final Fours--two--as peers such as Ray Meyer, Frank McGuire, Al McGuire, Pete Newell and Lute Olson and more Final Fours than Jim Valvano, Eddie Sutton, Don Haskins, Digger Phelps, Rollie Massimino and Johnny Orr, among many others.

Fisher has coached three full seasons. He took over for Bill Frieder during the 1989 NCAA tournament after Athletic Director Bo Schembechler learned that Frieder already had accepted a position at Arizona State.

John McGill of the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader writes that Schembechler also decided not to send Michigan’s pep band to the NCAA tournament that year, instead paying college musicians from Georgia State to support the Wolverines at the regional in Atlanta.

One of the musicians, McGill recalls, held up a sign that read “FAKE BAND” on one side and “FAKE COACH” on the other.