Golden Panthers or Paper Tigers? : NCAA tournament: Florida International in the hot seat after winning conference tournament, automatic berth.

They attend a university where they’re as anonymous as the pimple-faced kids in freshman English.

They play in a cramped gym that’s more suited to a high school than a major university.

They draw fewer people to their games than some of the algebra classes on campus.

They are the unwanted, the neglected.

Meet Florida International University’s basketball team.

“We’re the freak show,” Coach Bob Weltlich said.

The Golden Panthers may be the checkered leisure suits on a rack of Armanis, or the beat-up Dodge on a lot full of Mercedes-Benzes, but they are one of 64 privileged teams in the NCAA tournament.

Yep, even with an 11-18 record.

“It’s a miracle we’re here,” senior guard Matt Tchir said. “No one could ever have believed this. I mean, most of us were just hoping to get the season over with.

“Now, look at us. My God, we’re playing UCLA!”

The moment Florida International defeated those rugged Mercer Bears, 68-57, for the Trans America Athletic Conference tournament title, basketball purists went running for cover.

The victory gave the Golden Panthers the conference’s automatic tournament berth even though they had the worst record by a tournament team in 34 years.

FIU opened the season by losing to Florida State--by 47 points. It later lost by 37 points to Navy. The Golden Panthers were 5-17 in mid-February. And they were being coached by an exasperated soul who announced his resignation in mid-January.

“It’s crazy,” said forward James Mazyck, the team’s star. “None of this makes sense. I’m a big dreamer, but I could never be crazy enough to dream this stuff up.”

This may explain why the moment Florida International made the tournament, the players put their arms around one another, pointed at the camera and shouted for all the world to hear:

“We want UCLA! We want UCLA!”

Clarence Flournory, assistant coach, shook his head and yelled back, “No, you don’t! No, you don’t! Hey, I’ve seen films of these guys, and you don’t want to play them.”

Said senior guard Marc Dozier, “Hey, I don’t care. I want to see Ed O’Bannon play in person. Now, I’m going to be on the same floor as my favorite college player. You don’t think I’m going to be loving life?”

Tchir said, “We’re not expecting to get blown out by 50, but I don’t think we’re exactly expecting to win either. I mean, it is UCLA.”

Pardon the reverence, but this is a school whose athletic tradition consists of two Division II soccer championships in the early ‘80s and whose athletic powerhouse was the women’s cross-country team that brought home five conference championships from 1988-1993.

Basketball tradition?

This is a program that never has produced a professional basketball player, although someone seems to recall one alumnus, Chuck Stuart, playing in Chile. Oh yeah, and Dwight Stewart played in the CBA.

The Golden Panthers have had one winning season since 1985-86. And until this month, they never had won even a conference tournament game.

They’re averaging 539 fans a game this season at the 4,661-seat Golden Panther Arena.

The biggest crowd of the year was 701 for the 84-61 victory over Central Florida. Why, most of the players never knew what a sellout crowd looked like until seeing the 5,000 folks who packed the place for Deion Sanders’ Prime-Time Shootout in January.

“It’s like, ‘F-I-who?” Dozier said. “No one knows who we are. No one cares. I mean, I played in front of bigger crowds in high school (in Washington, D.C.), and I went to a small high school.”

A stroll across campus yields no glimpse of hope, nothing remotely resembling NCAA tournament fever.

You learn that Dan Quayle is speaking at the school Wednesday night. You discover that Ralph Rosado and Maria Alvarez want to be elected student body president and vice president. You find out that Mary desperately needs a roommate, female preferred.

But unless you happen to be walking on the second floor of the Graham Center, looking above the bookstore window, you will find no trace of basketball fever.

The sign reads: “Golden Panthers TAAC Champs!!! It’s March Madness.”

Oh, really?

“I’m not really into basketball,” said student John Antoine, apparently echoing the sentiments of the rest of the 26,501 students on this commuter campus. “You don’t really hear too much about it around here. I’ve got better things to do with my life.”

There are no FIU booster clubs chartering planes to Boise, Ida., for Friday’s game. You probably won’t even see FIU administrators, considering there’s a seminar scheduled Friday in Tallahassee.

“We’re kind of like the convicted felon sitting on death row,” Weltlich said. “Do you want to see us die by lethal injection, the gas chamber or the electric chair?

“No one really cares to see it, because you don’t become deader one way than the other.

“I don’t count on too many people showing up from our place to see it.”

Then again, never in Weltlich’s wildest imagination did he believe he’d still be working for FIU this late in the season, much less be in the NCAA tournament.

Weltlich, 50, a disciple of Bobby Knight, announced his resignation on Jan. 15, when the Golden Panthers were 3-10 and going nowhere. He was tired of coaching, tired of the university.

“I just didn’t want to coach any longer at FIU, it’s that simple,” he said. “It’s a decision I made, and stand by. I didn’t want to lie to my kids and say, ‘Oh, by the way, I made the decision two months ago to resign.’

“This doesn’t change a thing.”

Ted Aceto, FIU athletic director, who didn’t protest when Weltlich made his plans known, has begun interviewing candidates to replace Weltlich. He hopes to name a successor within a week, barring, of course, a miraculous victory over UCLA.

“I was looking at the odds in the paper,” Weltlich said. “I saw where Mount St. Mary’s (of Emmitsburg, Md.) is 2,000-to-1 odds to win the tournament. Then, I look at us, and we’re 4,000-to-1 odds.

“Does that mean we’re twice as bad as the (second-)worst team in the tournament?”

For the Golden Panthers to even qualify for the NCAA tournament was little short of a miracle.

The Golden Panthers were 5-17 before winning two consecutive games, for the first time all season, putting themselves in position to make the tournament. Then they beat Stetson, 62-61, in the regular-season finale on a last-second jump shot by Mazyck. That moved the Golden Panthers into a tie for ninth place, but since regular-season champion Charleston has not been a Division I school long enough, it was ineligible for the Trans America Athletic Conference Tournament, opening the door to FIU.

FIU upset top-seeded Stetson, 63-56; beat Southeastern Louisiana, 65-64 in overtime on a three-point shot by Tchir with four second left, then knocked off Mercer for the championship.

“It was like magic. A miracle is what it was,” said Donald Tchir, Matt’s father, who flew in from New Jersey for the tournament.

“You’ve got to remember, this is a team that at one time couldn’t wait for the season to be over. The coach wanted to pack it up. The players wanted to pack it up.

“Now, it’s like Fantasyland.”

The Golden Panthers, who have the fourth-worst record in NCAA tournament history, suddenly have become media darlings. Radio stations from Portland to Jacksonville have been calling. Writers from newspapers that didn’t even know the school existed are dropping by. WSCR radio in Chicago has even adopted FIU as its favorite team.

“We were kind of critical of an 11-18 team being in the tournament and were making fun of them,” said Rick Gieser, WSCR’s executive producer. “But then we had Coach Weltlich on the air. He was such a nice guy, and gave such a great interview, we decided we’d make them our team.

“We’re getting a lot of people into it, although to be honest, this Michael Jordan stuff has kind of mucked up all of the things we wanted to do with FIU.”

Weltlich said: “It’s kind of funny. This school has had more attention this last week than it’s ever had. And if our record was 15-13, no one would have even noticed us. It’s our record that’s getting us all of the attention.”

Who knows just what this attention will mean for the university?

“The biggest thing is that people will finally know where FIU is,” said nine-year assistant coach Ed Riggan. “It should make it easier to recruit for whoever gets the job.

“I just wish we could fit Florida International University on our jerseys instead of having to use Golden Panthers.

“It’s just so darn hard to cram international into an arch on a basketball jersey.

“I guess no matter what we do against UCLA, nothing will ever change that.”

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West Regional

* No. 1 UCLA (25-2) vs. Florida International (11-18)

* Site: Boise, Ida.

* Time: Friday, 30 minutes after conclusion of Missouri-Indiana game, which starts at 4:50 p.m.

* TV: Channel 2