COLLEGE BASKETBALL / TIM KAWAKAMI : December: March Without Madness

The days of six or seven sweet December servings of Cupcake U. are over, probably forever, and what’s left is a month of made-for-TV showdowns, splashy arrivals and easy conclusions that may or may not have any bearing on what happens come March.

Arizona plays Michigan on Saturday, and Michigan has already gone into Cameron Indoor Stadium to beat Duke. Duke shook off the Wolverine loss and went to Philadelphia and beat Villanova. UCLA got clobbered by Kansas, which had just beaten Cincinnati.

Everybody plays everybody, freshmen throw in 29 points on national TV, the power ratings weigh heavily in every coach’s mind, major powers fall apart . . . all before Christmas--and conference play.

What does all this high-profile activity produce, other than locking up the weekend TV schedule?

Gene Keady, coach of three-time defending Big Ten champion Purdue, looks at December as a mini-preview and testing period for the NCAA tournament--a lot of neutral sites, a lot of tricky matchups, a lot of serious basketball without the win-or-die pressure of the madness.

More and more, Keady says grudgingly, the conference season is being devalued as teams prepare for March.

“Maybe other coaches sensed it earlier than I did,” Keady said this week, acknowledging his less-than-stellar record in the tournament, “but what’s happened now with college basketball is we’re all judged in a three-week period in March, and if you don’t do well there, you’re not considered a very good coach, no matter what else you do.

“So, December is more like in March: bigger arenas, bigger games. You want the kids to get a sense what it’s going to be like in March, against a great team.

“Of course, it hasn’t helped us yet. We’ve been more into doing well in the Big Ten, and that may have hurt us. Maybe I haven’t done a good enough job getting us ready. God, it’s been frustrating.”

Last season at about this time, you had a pretty good idea that Kentucky and Massachusetts were the teams to beat, that UCLA was in for a bumpy time, that Stephon Marbury and Shareef Abdur-Rahim were not long for college ball and that Georgia Tech was dead in the water.

And only the Georgia Tech angle (starting 6-7 before storming to the Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season title) didn’t pan out.

So, in an attempt to reset the picture after the series of early-season big games, here’s a quick look at some fresh faces, new races and traded places as college basketball turns the corner into the conference season:

EARLY CANDIDATE TO UNSEAT WAKE FOREST’S TIM DUNCAN AS PLAYER OF THE YEAR--Kentucky sophomore Ron Mercer was a role player as a freshman during the national title run, but with Tony Delk and Walter McCarty gone, it’s Mercer’s team now.

And so far, Mercer, with the assistance of gunner Derek Anderson, is averaging 20.3 points, including 30 in a 101-87 victory over Purdue at the Great Eight in Chicago.

Mercer and Anderson, averaging 20.4 points, have been so good, Wildcat faithful are scrambling to get them a proper nickname--”Thunder and Lightning” seems to have caught Anderson’s attention.

“He brings the noise,” Anderson said, “and I bring the pain.”

EARLY CANDIDATE AS MOST IMPROVED PLAYER--With big-time scorer Brian Evans having graduated, Indiana junior forward Andrae Patterson is averaging a team-high 16.3 points (taking only 12 shots a game), chipping in 6.9 rebounds, and has generally begun to play like the superstar he has always been projected to be, including his 39-point game to beat Duke in the NIT final.

Also: Arizona forward Michael Dickerson, filling the void left by Miles Simon’s absence due to academic problems, has come out of nowhere to be the Pacific 10’s most productive player. Dickerson, who averaged less than 12 points last season, is scoring 25.5 this season--and already has made 20 three-point shots (in 40 tries).

Simon is supposed to return soon, but Dickerson should keep firing.

EARLY CANDIDATE AS FRESHMAN MOST LIKELY TO BE LOTTERY PICK BY MAY--Villanova’s Tim Thomas, who thought about going to the NBA from high school, already looks like a polished Big East forward, leading the Wildcats with a 17.1 scoring average, in 31 minutes a game.

In a rare performance for these dunk-happy days, the 6-foot-9, 235-pound Thomas made his first 28 free throws as a collegian, and has made 91.4% this season.

And, at Arizona, point guard Mike Bibby is having a mini-Jason Kidd kind of debut--averaging six assists and three steals.

EARLY CANDIDATES TO HAVE A LONG, LONG SEASON--A tie between first-year coaches moved up from the assistant ranks--Bruiser Flint, 31, of Massachusetts and Steve Lavin, 32, of UCLA.

UMass, after the departure of Coach John Calipari and center Marcus Camby to the NBA and with guards Carmelo Travieso and Edgar Padilla struggling, has already lost three more games than all of last season.

Recently, Flint got a call from his old boss, Calipari, who is not exactly tearing it up with the New Jersey Nets. “I think we took turns trying to make each other feel better,” Flint said.

Meanwhile, things have settled down a bit in Westwood for Lavin and his high-spirited squad, but, beyond all the obvious turnover and mental discipline problems, the team’s lack of depth is showing up.

Right now, the Bruins could have an 18-to-22 win team, but are one key injury away from a possible sub-.500 season. Also, even if everybody avoids injury, Lavin concedes that having six or seven players head-and-shoulders over their backups hurts workouts.

“If you’re first string is able, like ours is, to kind of dominate our second string, it’s not simulating what our game conditions are going to be like,” Lavin said.

EARLY CANDIDATE TO BE THIS YEAR’S PRINCETON--How about . . . Princeton? Bill Carmody, a longtime assistant under Pete Carril, has moved to the top spot and things are pretty much as usual.

The Tigers, with almost the same team that beat UCLA in the first round of the NCAA tournament last season, are 4-2 (with a victory at Marquette and losses to Indiana and Bucknell), running the weave offense, and giving up an average of only 58.2 points. They host North Carolina on Sunday.

Working his way into the lineup is a red-headed 6-7 freshman forward from San Diego named Nathan Walton--son of Bill Walton.

One concession to progress: Carril forbade anything but two tiny scoreboards in Jadwin Gym, but now there’s a large modern scoreboard that hangs from the ceiling of the building.

THE PROOF IS NOT IN THE POUNDING

After the smoke cleared from USC’s 107-45 wipeout of UC Irvine last Sunday, who really came out looking worse:

The 0-5 Anteaters, who could be looking hard at a winless season and aren’t exactly giving Coach Rod Baker a rousing send-off for his expected ouster after six increasingly desultory years in the spring?

Or Trojan Coach Henry Bibby, who had the grace and dignity to keep pressing the hapless Anteaters even when USC was up by 40 and long after any reasonable man would have called off the troops?

Bibby, who went 0-9 after taking over the team from Charlie Parker last season, explained running up the score by saying that nobody had any pity on USC last year.

But, as old coaches always say, what goes around, comes around, and Bibby has already raised plenty of eyebrows around the nation in his short time with the Trojans.

And that’s a pity.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

--Everybody knows No. 1 Kansas is 9-0 without senior point guard Jacque Vaughn, who returned to practice this week after a broken wrist and is expected to return to action sometime in early January. What nobody knows is how the Jayhawks, who are playing with so much confidence now, will respond when the All-American returns. Lavin said he’s not sure Kansas necessarily will be better.

“They have such great chemistry and offensive rhythm and flow right now, that when Jacque Vaughn comes back, because he dominates so much with the dribble, to me, they’re going to be easier to defend,” Lavin said. “I think he’s the best point guard in America, don’t get me wrong. Right now, they’re not really a one-on-one oriented team, they’re a pass-oriented team, and [replacement Ryan] Robertson’s getting 11 assists and two turnovers, without dribbling the ball. That’s what makes them dangerous, like Princeton. To me, they’re like a talented Princeton--they cut, pass, screen, play together, but they have great players at every position.”

--Brigham Young fired controversial coach Roger Reid on Tuesday, after a 1-6 start. Could this be a fit for the coaching comeback of Jim Harrick, who spent four happy years at Utah State as an assistant before joining Gary Cunningham’s UCLA staff in 1977?

--Performance of the season so far: Texas guard Reggie Freeman’s 43 point, 10-rebound, three-steal, two-assist outing in the Longhorns’ 98-86 victory over Fresno State at Austin last Saturday. The fifth-best scoring performance in school history was especially notable because Freeman was suffering from a sore wrist before the game, and underwent several sessions with a physical therapist. “I was going to try anything--a witch doctor, anything,” Freeman said. “She did some stuff I’ve never seen before. I hope she comes for every single game.”