New Season of Madness Starts Friday

Dean Smith headed for the golf course. Rick Pitino left for the NBA and $70 million. Danny Fortson and Ron Mercer decided not to be upperclassmen. And Tracy McGrady leapt straight from high school to the pros.

College basketball lost many familiar faces in the off-season, yet some star coaches and players are back for a shot at being the last team to cut down the net.

Arizona has its top eight players returning to defend its championship. Kansas is among the favorites to win it all because Raef LaFrentz and Paul Pierce didn’t give in to the lure of the NBA. Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski managed to come up with one of best recruiting classes in years.

And the five-second rule is back.

So a season that ends in San Antonio on the last Monday night in March starts this week with a lot to get used to.

It will be hard to watch North Carolina and not be distracted by the absence of Dean Smith, with his furrowed brow and dominating nose that made it hard to tell whether he was smiling or frowning. For the past 36 seasons he was the focal point of one of college basketball’s special programs and his departure was as expected--on his terms.

Smith, who won two national championships and retired as the sport’s winningest coach, was replaced by longtime assistant Bill Guthridge, but the Tar Heels probably will be as tough as ever as they compete in the country’s strongest league, the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Pitino left Kentucky after consecutive appearances in the NCAA championship game--the first a victory that gave the school its sixth title; the second an overtime loss to Arizona that ended up being his last college game. The man who turned the Wildcats back into a national powerhouse left for a chance to do the same with the Boston Celtics. He’ll be followed by his former assistant, Tubby Smith.

North Carolina and Kentucky are just two of the 64 schools that start the season with a new coach. With 306 schools competing in Division I, that’s 21%, the second-highest mark ever to the 23% that changed coaches entering the 1986-87 season.

“Basketball coaches are the last of the old cowboys. They live on the edge and the posse is just around the corner,” Kansas coach Roy Williams said. “It’s the nature of the game. It doesn’t mean we have to like it or say it’s OK, because it’s not. Some of the situations are mind-boggling. It makes for a lot different environment from 20 years ago.”

What made the moves entering this season so stunning was that they came so late. In addition to Smith’s retirement, moves at major schools with longtime coaches and possible NCAA violations--such as Michigan, Arizona State and New Mexico State--all came as practice was about to start or had already begun.

“Pretty soon, five years is going to be considered a long time,” Arkansas coach Nolan Richardson said of his profession. “It’s because the fans and administration have no more tolerance for bad years no matter what you did the year before. And then everything gets sensationalized on radio shows. It’s becoming a tougher and tougher business.”

It’s hard to keep the star players around for four years, too.

Three members of last season’s All-America team were eligible to return and only LaFrentz did. And Cincinnati’s Fortson and Kentucky’s Mercer weren’t the only top-flight players to leave early: Tony Battie of Texas Tech and Chauncey Billups of Colorado joined them in the NBA draft lottery.

The 18-year-old McGrady went straight from Mount Zion Christian Academy in Durham, N.C., to the Toronto Raptors, the latest young player to choose to learn the game at the highest level, not in college.

Many feel college basketball is too strong to be brought down by players who leave early or jump to the NBA from high school.

“It’s hurt our sport, but overall it’s still exciting,” Krzyzewski said. “The older player, the really outstanding player, can’t teach the younger player to become that great player, that superstar, and that hurts the pros.

“The players are still talented and stars, but they don’t have that vision of the game. . . . If you’re never a part of something for a long time how do you know how you should feel and how is it passed along? That’s what I’m worried about.”

Krzyzewski’s freshman class has four members and no nickname.

“These kids wanted to come independently to be part of our program. They didn’t come to be part of this class,” he said of William Avery, Shane Battier, Elton Brand and Chris Burgess. “Those kids didn’t want a name. They knew they were coming into something that was bigger than them, Duke is bigger than one class. There’s no secret handshake or tattoo.”

As for the biggest rule changes, coaches themselves can now call a timeout and players with the ball must advance toward the basket or pass within five seconds if a defender is within 6 feet. That rule returns after a three-year absence.

Some early season games also will experiment with a 40-second shot clock rather than the 35 now used and four quarters instead of halves.

“By putting that five-second count back in, you’re going to see the speed of the game increase,” Oklahoma coach Kelvin Sampson said. “I think you’re going to see a livelier basketball game with more scoring because you’re going to have more opportunities to score on defense.”

Amid all the coaching changes, the new rules and players coming and going, fans should note one date that begins the most important part of the season: Sunday, March 8, the day they can fill in their tournament bracket.

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1997-98 Coaching Changes

American U.: Art Perry (Delaware St. hc)

Arizona St.: Don Newman (Arizona St. asst.)

Army: Pat Harris (Army women’s hc)

Bethune-Cookman: Horace Broadnax (Valencia CC hc)

Boston College: Al Skinner (Rhode Island hc)

Bowling Green: Dan Dakich (Indiana asst.)

BYU: Steve Cleveland (Fresno City Coll. hc)

Canisius: Mike MacDonald (Canisius asst.)

Centenary: Billy Kennedy (California asst.)

Central Michigan: Jay Smith (Grand Valley St. hc)

Chattanooga: Henry Dickerson (Chattanooga asst.)

Chicago St.: Phil Gary (Chicago St. asst.)

Delaware St.: James Dubose (Delaware St. asst.)

DePaul: Pat Kennedy (Florida St. hc)

Eastern Kentucky: Scott Perry (Michigan asst.)

Florida St.: Steve Robinson (Tulsa hc)

Furman: Larry Davis (Minnesota asst.)

George Mason: Jim Larranaga (Bowling Green hc)

Georgia: Ron Jirsa (Georgia asst.)

Georgia St.: Lefty Driesell (James Madison hc)

Gonzaga: Dan Monson (Gonzaga asst.)

Hampton U.: Steve Merfeld (Hampton U. asst.)

Idaho: David Farrar (Idaho asst.)

Indiana St.: Royce Waltman (Indianapolis hc)

Jacksonville: Hugh Durham (Georgia hc 1996)

James Madison: Sherman Dillard (Indiana St. hc)

Kentucky: Tubby Smith (Georgia hc)

Liberty: Randy Dunton (Liberty asst.)

LSU: John Brady (Samford hc)

Loyola, Md.: Dino Gaudio (Army hc)

Loyola Marymount: Charles Bradley (Metro St. hc)

Memphis: Tic Price (New Orleans hc)

Mercer: Mark Slonaker (Pensacola JC hc)

Michigan: Brian Ellerbe (Michigan asst.)

Morehead St.: Kyle Macy (Kentucky radio)

New Mexico St.: Lou Henson (Illinois hc)

New Orleans: Joey Stiebing (New Orleans asst.)

North Carolina: Bill Guthridge (North Carolina asst.)

North Texas: Vic Trilli (Texas asst.)

Northwestern: Kevin O’Neill (Tennessee hc)

Ohio St.: Jim O’Brien (Boston College hc)

Oral Roberts: Barry Hinson (Oral Roberts asst.)

Oregon: Ernie Kent (St. Mary’s, Calif. hc)

Rhode Island: Jim Harrick (UCLA hc (1996)

Richmond: John Beilein (Canisius hc)

Rider: Don Harnum (Rider asst.)

Rutgers: Kevin Bannon (Rider hc)

Sacramento St.: Tom Abatemarco (Rutgers asst.)

St. Mary’s, Calif.: Dave Bollwinkel (Cal Poly Pomona hc)

Samford: Jimmy Tillette (Samford asst.)

Seton Hall: Tommy Amaker (Duke asst.)

Siena: Paul Hewitt (Villanova asst.)

South Alabama: Bob Weltlich (Fla. Intl. hc (1996)

SE Missouri St.: Gary Garner (Fort Hays St. hc)

SW Louisiana: Jessie Evans (Arizona asst.)

Stetson: Murray Arnold (Okaloosa JC hc)

Tennessee: Jerry Green (Oregon hc)

Texas Pan American: Delray Brooks (Kentucky asst.)

Towson St.: Mike Jaskulski (Miami, Fla., asst.)

Tulsa: Bill Self (Oral Roberts hc)

UC Irvine: Pat Douglass (Bakersfield St. hc)

Virginia Tech: Bobby Hussey (Virginia Tech asst.)

Wright St.: Ed Schilling (N.J. Nets asst.)

Wyoming: Larry Shyatt (Clemson asst.)