ALL BUBBLY in Champaign

By GEORGE DOHRMANN

March 12, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Lon Kruger was sitting in front of a television with his team and staff when the NCAA tournament pairings were announced Sunday. His 12-year-old son, Kevin, was there too.

When Illinois’ name showed on the screen as the sixth-seeded team in the Southeast Regional, matched against USC on Friday, the Fighting Illini coach shook hands, gave a few hugs and then was tapped on the back by his son, who had a thought.

“Where will you be playing?” Kevin asked.

Kruger gave an answer he believed Kevin already knew, “The Charlotte Coliseum.”

Kevin leaned closer to his father and said, “Dad, you know your record there isn’t very good.”

So it goes for Kruger. He practically wills Illinois to its first 20-victory season in six years--its record is 21-9--has the Illini ranked 15th in the country, and on what should be a day of celebration, gets hit with an uppercut.

Kruger knows Charlotte all too well. That’s where, in 1994, his Florida team was defeated by Duke in the Final Four, cutting a dream season one game short.

“[Kevin] had to remind me of that,” Kruger, 44, said.

He should have expected it.

Kruger has accomplished enough to be considered one of the top college coaches, yet when he was hired to replace the retiring Lou Henson last March, the first reaction among fans was to reel off his flaws.

Now, he quietly toils at Illinois’ campus in Champaign, devoid of one-liners, playing second fiddle to anything in Chicago and even Notre Dame football until mid-January.

“I’ve always thought that you do your job and [the attention] will happen, if it happens,” Kruger said.

But Kruger has done his job, having earned his seventh NCAA bid in his last 11 seasons as a coach at Illinois, Florida and Kansas State. He had that one Final Four appearance, took Kansas State to the final eight and now goes into the tournament with an undersized team few believed would earn a bid, let alone a No. 6 seeding. Even so, he is still, for the most part, a secret.

“I’m not one to promote myself,” he said. “This is a player’s game and we promote them.”

His wife, Barbara, has a better take on Kruger’s quiet demeanor.

“You know how it is in college when people are singing by a piano or wearing lampshades on their heads?” she asked reporters when he was hired. “That was never Lon.”

A headline in the Chicago Sun-Times after Kruger’s hiring read: “Mr. Nice Guy Lacks Pizazz Illinois Needs.” It was one of many criticisms he heard after electing to leave Florida, where he spent six seasons and made two trips to the NCAA tournament.

Sonny Cox, the coach at Chicago’s King High and the Chicago version of Crenshaw High Coach Willie West--but with even more influence over high school players--told one newspaper: “[Kruger] got to the Final Four once, but he didn’t do much before then and he hasn’t done much since. You’ve got to look at his record.”

Bonnie Hester, the mother of Illinois senior Jerry Hester, said at the time: “Jerry is very frightened. It is frightening for all of us.”

Also, Chicago Public League friends of Jimmy Collins threatened to steer players away from Illinois because Collins, an assistant under Henson for 13 years, was not given the job.

And, if all that wasn’t enough, Illinois Athletic Director Ron Guenther went around telling anyone who would listen that Kruger’s new job was “one of the 10 best” in the country, and that he expected a Big Ten Conference title “once every three years.”

Guenther then painted on another coat of pressure by comparing Kruger to Chicago Bulls’ Coach Phil Jackson.

“There were some articles and people made a lot out of it,” Kruger said of the talk that he didn’t deserve the job. “But all you can do is get to work and determine what needs to be done.”

Illini fans’ major criticism of Kruger also happened to be Collins’ strong point: recruiting. They said Kruger didn’t attract stars. True, Kruger said.

Mitch Richmond of the Sacramento Kings, whom Kruger coached at Kansas State, was the only star ever to play for him, unless Andrew DeClercq counts. Kruger had the Golden State Warrior reserve at Florida.

“What is a great player?” Kruger said. “At Kansas State, we recruited players who went to the final eight and they didn’t rank high on anybody’s list. At Florida, we recruited players who weren’t ranked very high either. People get hung up on lists.”

But even the recruiting rap may turn out to be a bad one. Kruger signed five players in the fall, two of them were rated among the nation’s top 50. His recruiting class is ranked in the top 10 by some analysts.

Kruger would never toss that back at the skeptics. Very much like the coach many have compared him to, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, whose team is seeded second in the Southeast, Kruger seems to be gathering accolades like acorns and wants to be judged by the size of his pile, not each nut.

That has been his image since high school, growing up in Silver Lake, Kan. He played football, basketball and baseball, then starred in the latter two at Kansas State from 1970-74.

Bradley Coach Jim Molinari played basketball at Kansas State with Kruger, who was twice named Big Eight player of the year and twice led the Wildcats to conference titles.

“He used to score on me at will in practice, but one day I was having a good day and coach [Jack] Hartman complimented me on a few things,” Molinari told the Chicago Tribune. “The next thing I know, Lonnie elbowed me in the throat. He knows how to send a message.”

Yet, Kruger talks little about his athletic career, even though he:

--Was drafted by the Houston Astros after high school;

--Was invited to the Dallas Cowboys’ training camp as a quarterback after graduating from Kansas State, even though he had not played college football;

--Played a season of minor league baseball in the St. Louis Cardinal organization;

--And spent a season playing professional basketball in Israel.

After a four-year stint as coach at Pan American University (now Texas Pan American) in Edinburg, Texas, Kruger returned to Kansas State, where he began building his pile. He took the Wildcats to the NCAA tournament four times in as many years, then brought Florida back from the ruins of NCAA probation, and now has done much the same at Illinois, which was sanctioned for recruiting violations in 1990.

“I look back now and I don’t think you could have written a better script [for a first season],” Kruger said. “Never did I say we had a chance to make the tournament, and never did I say we didn’t have a chance.

“You have to give the players, and especially the seniors, all the credit for this.”

Does Kruger believe he deserves at least a little credit?

“We’ll have to wait and see if I can win in Charlotte first.”

Kruger’s

Impact

Lon Kruger’s coaching career before taking over at Illinois last March:

PAN AMERICAN

* Seasons: 4 (1982-86)

* Record: 52-59

* Postseason tournaments: None.

KANSAS STATE

* Seasons: 4 (1986-1990)