Basketball Team Might Be Bullish Industry : Colleges: Multiple road games on the same night apparently aren’t unusual for Arkansas Baptist. And make that payment cash, please.

Who can play four games in three states on two nights? Arkansas Baptist.

Nobody’s quite sure about Arkansas Baptist’s season record. Saturday night, the Buffaloes were 0-2 in Texas and Oklahoma. On Nov. 20, they were 0-2 in Oklahoma and Arkansas.

Coach Arcell Marks and the Buffaloes lost to Prairie View A&M;, 90-76, Saturday night. The same night, a man who said he was Arkansas Baptist’s athletic director, Bobby Carey, coached Arkansas Baptist to a 148-78 loss against Oklahoma Baptist University.

Marks called in sick on Nov. 20. He told George Biggs, who says he succeeded Carey as athletic director in June, he wasn’t feeling well and would be unable to take the team to Conway to play Hendrix College. An assistant coach, Stanza Montgomery, made the trip, accompanied by Biggs. The Buffaloes lost, 78-61.

But another Arkansas Baptist team lost, 106-78, the same night to Oklahoma Baptist University at Shawnee, Okla. Marks was the coach.

“I just know that I allocated money to go to Hendrix,” Biggs said. “I went with the assistant coach because Coach Marks said he was feeling ill.”

The names of four Arkansas Baptist players showed up in both box scores on Saturday. Three names appeared in both boxes on Nov. 20.

Marks has not been questioned about the Nov. 20 game, Arkansas Baptist President W.T. Keaton said Tuesday.

“It’s been something,” Marks said. “Basically I don’t know what happened.

“I hope and pray that there are no sanctions that come down because of this because this is out of our control.”

Arkansas Baptist was paid $1,200 for the game at Oklahoma City University, according to Coach Win Case. A check was given to the man who coached the team, although he had asked for cash, Case said.

Marks was given a check for $1,250 for the game last month at Oklahoma Baptist.

Arkansas Baptist has received no money from either game, Keaton said.

“The check has cleared,” said Norris Russell, athletic director at Oklahoma Baptist.

“I can tell you from past experience that they have asked for cash, but this time he did not,” Norris said. “But he did ask where he could cash the check. I told him the bank would be open in the morning.”

Norris said he assumed the team used the money for expenses.

Keaton said he has called a meeting for 3 p.m. today at his office on the campus of the 286-student school, located on a one-block campus about a mile from downtown Little Rock. He wants to meet with Biggs, Marks, Carey and other administration officials, he said. Efforts to notify Carey of the meeting were unsuccessful Tuesday, he said.

Case said Marks tried to get out of the contract to play Oklahoma City on Saturday, about four or five days before the game, pleading that he had to take an exam Saturday night as part of his studies for a doctorate. Case said he told Marks that tickets to the game had already been sold and he expected Arkansas Baptist to show up.

“He said he’ll either do one of two things: ‘I’ll either take my final early and come down with the team, or I’ll just have my assistant come,’ ” Case recalled.

Because of the conversation with Marks, Case said he wasn’t too surprised when the visiting team arrived with someone other than Marks as coach.

The double games might never have been discovered if Prairie View hadn’t won Saturday. The school hadn’t provided reports of scores or game information for months during a 30-game losing streak. It promptly reported Saturday’s victory, however.

Case said he talked about the Arkansas Baptist situation with the Central Arkansas coach “and he said they do it all the time, play two or three games in one night. . . . I heard from some other coaches that it’s not an abnormal thing for them.”

“We won’t be playing them again,” Case said.

Arkansas Baptist College is affiliated with the National Small Colleges Athletic Assn. Commissioner Gary Dallman said Monday that there is no rule against splitting squads. A call to Dallman on Tuesday, to ascertain the NSCAA’s position on listing the same players in box scores of two games on the same night, wasn’t immediately returned.