The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 16

4 THE COURIER-JOURNAL, SATURDAY, MARCH 22, 1975 Ultimate game MTOwigm m. I -cf 4, IlPs May might start as emotions build for UK rematch mistic. On the subject of his team's improvement since Dec. 7, he was asked if Kentucky had played well enough since then to defeat Indiana. "Perhaps, if they had a bad game," Hall said.

"But if we have a great game and they have a good game, it wouldn't be enough." Inevitably, someone asked about a late-game incident at Bloomington when suddenly that man is going over the top (circling out by the free throw line) and popping open for the jumper. You tend to get angry with your player, but their offense is creating those shots. So you want to zone them but they're a complete team made up of complete players, and their outside shooting will wreck a zone." As indicated, Hall was cheerfully pessi Conflict averted UK-1U on Ch. 3, UL-Maryland on Ch. 32 i7i live coverage of NCAA regional finals Knight, in an unthinking gesture, tapped Hall's head after a courtside discussion.

Hall said the matter was resolved, that it was not worth talking about, that, yes, he hoped he and Knight would go fishing again this summer. The Indiana coach had no comments, being laid up in his motel with a severe bout of flu, but assistant Dave Bliss startled the gathering by revealing that All-America Scott May is a possible starter. "He may Scott may," Bliss said, laughing at his pun. Wearing a light cast to protect a broken arm, May has not seen more than two minutes of action in any one game during the past month. He is a devastating baseline shooter and perhaps the Hoosiers' finest defender, the perfect candidate to put the skids on Kentucky's brilliant Kevin Grevey.

Benson, Robey square off again "Scotty's made tremendous progress and we feel he's ready to play basketball," Bliss said. "In fact, he's been kind of antsy for the last week and a half, but the situation hasn't been right. He shoots the same as he always did, and the arm won't hurt his defense that much because he's one of our best position players. If he started, we'd have more mobility going into our bench (with 'super sub' John Laskowski becoming a reserve again)." Under the backboard, Indiana's 6-11 Benson and UK's 6-10 Robey will square off again, each possibly remembering a forearm to the teeth that Benson used to educate Robey at Bloomington. "I'm not going out there with any thought of delivering blows," Robey said.

"Just in the course of playing basketball, licks will be given and received" "Kentucky is a much better team now, offensively and defensively," said Benson. "We have to play as if they beat us back in December. You need something inside some pride every time you take the floor. You can't try to toss your shoes out there. This is it.

We beat Kentucky or we go back to Bloomington until school's out." Make no mistake. When the first ball is tossed up today, school's out. By MIKE SULLIVAN Courltr-Journal A Tlm Still Writer DAYTON, Ohio Already it's been a regional to put in your scrapbook, and still we're hours away from the Ultimate Game. What else can happen? Will Rick Robey and Kent Benson unleash wild roundhouse forearms, missing each other but incapacitating several teammates? Will Bobby Knight, in a self-destruction rage, cuff himself on the back of the head? Can Kentucky beat Indiana? Well, can they? Huh? It's almost too poetic, too tidy and unwinding of fate, but the Indiana University Fighting Hoosiers and the University of Kentucky Wildcats will do battle at 2:10 p.m. in sold-out Dayton Arena today, deciding the championship of the NCAA's Mideast Regional basketball tournament.

Indiana, unbeaten in 31 games, is ranked No. 1 in the land. Kentucky, 24-4, is rated fifth. The Hoosiers left UK for dead back on Dec. 7, reeling off a deceptively "close" 98-74 victory at Bloom-ington.

What both teams have accomplished since that day is remarkable, nothing less. Patterns are varied Kentucky had the good sense to laugh at a humiliation that could have wrecked its confidence, coming back instead to lash North Carolina 90-78 two nights later then carving out the best UK record in five years to banish the ghost of a 13-13 season and earn its embattled coach, Joe Hall, a shiny new contract. Indiana, outscoring its opponents 88.0 to 65.1, shooting a splendid 51 per cent from the field and forcing 21 turnovers per game, has been a marvel of aggression, consistency and precision. "I'm not sure I've ever seen a team so thoroughly effective at both the offensive and defensive ends of the court," Hall told a press conference yesterday. "Why," somebody asked, "does Indiana get so many 10-foot jump shots?" "They have tremendous variety in the patterns they run," Hall answered.

"Your player is trying to follow his man through a series of screens on the baseline, and on iftfh fvy rjy Stall Photo by Bryan Mots Coaches Joe Hall (left) of Kentucky and Bobby Knight of Indiana chatted on the bench yesterday during an IU practice at Dayton as both clubs prepared for their NCAA Mideast Regional meeting today. And Without M()SeS. tOO By JAMES DOUSSARD Courier-Journal TV 1 Radio Critic It sounds terribly simple now that everything has been resolved: 2 p.m. Kentucky vs. Indiana, WAVE-3.

2 p.m. WLKY-32. Louisville vs. Maryland, But getting those two basketball games on Louisville television LIVE this afternoon has taken a heap of doing. As virtually everybody in basketball-mad Kentucky and Indiana surely must know by now, the games in question are regional finals of the National Collegiate Athletic Association Basketball Tournament.

Kentucky and Indiana will meet in the Mideast Region at Dayton, Louisville and Maryland in the Midwest at Las Cruces, N.M. NBC has the television rights to these and several other NCAA games this afternoon. It begins a tripleheader at noon. Two of the games are to be televised nationally, but the games involving teams in this area are regional. NBC, somewhat arbitrarily, but with varying area interests in mind, divided its affiliates, giving one game or the other.

With Louisville, Kentucky and Indiana involved, WAVE-3, the NBC affiliate in By PAUL BORDEN Courlar-Journal Timet Stall Writer LAS CRUCES, N.M. Maryland's Lefty Driesell snowed up yesterday at a press conference for coaches taking part in the NCAA Midwest Regional. That by itself is not particularly notable, except that Driesell was the only one of the four to appear, the other three preferring to take a scenic tour of cactus and mesquite in the surrounding desert. It can be assumed that losing coaches Gale Callett of Cincinnati and Digger Phelps of Notre Dame both would have complained about having to play a meaningless consolation game today at 10 a.m., Mountain Daylight Time. Both lost in Thursday's openers Cincy by 78-63 to Louisville and Notre Dame by 83-71 to Maryland.

Winning coaches Driesell and UL's Denny Crum would exchange compliments. In fact, Driesell spent part of his time allowing as how teams that arrive at this point in the tournament one game away from the finals in San Diego next week have a lot in common. "Louisville plays excellent defense, we play excellent defense," Driesell said. "Offensively, Louisville is a fine basketball team. They break and run a set offense well.

We have shown we can do this. A lot of who wins depends on which team is best prepared mentally and is the best physically. Coaching doesn't have a whole lot to do with it." Quick, balanced Louisville elects to go with its "big" front line of 6-10 Ricky Gallon, 6-9 Bill Bunton and 6-5 Wesley Cox, whose status is still shaky because of a pulled hamstring muscle. Phillip Bond starts in the backcourt. The third guard is 6-5 senior Junior Bridgeman, who now has scored 56 points in two tournament games, 20 coming in Thursday victory over Cincinnati.

Li linn i I It's sue a Maryland faces UL Bridgeman, relaxing before his afternoon workout, gave some insight as to what Louisville will have to do to gain an NCAA finals berth for the third time in its history. "Maryland is very quick and they use that advantage as much as they can," he said. "They get the ball down the floor fast, which is what you have to do with a three-guard offense. ew Low to a in Midwest final "Our guards are bigger and may offset that quickness. The main thing we'll have do is have two guys back for defense all the time.

If they get the ball down the floor, they'll burn you to death with 15-' footers. After watching them against Notre Dame, I'd say nine out of 10 titties they have two guys bringing the ball down and a third coming up so they 'get 2-on-l or 3-on-l." toBirim" Prices: Louisville, naturally wanted both games, live. With a lot of help from a lot of people, including NBC, WAVE tried to get one of the starting times changed. In short, it didn't work. In the end, WAVE-3 ended up with Kentucky-Indiana.

WLKY-32 agreed to carry Louisville-Maryland. WAVE issued this statement late yesterday afternoon: "Over the past 24 hours, extensive efforts have been made by WAVE-TV and NBC to avoid the conflict between the Kentucky-Indiana game and the Louisville-Maryland game on Saturday, March 22. "We attempted to change the starting time of either game so there would be no conflict. Supporting our efforts were the athletic department of the University of Louisville, Creighton Mershon and the Board of Aldermen, Gov. (Julian) Carroll and many other officials in Kentucky.

"Unfortunately, our efforts to get the NCAA to change were unsuccessful despite so much support. "After NBC assigned the Kentucky-Indiana game to WAVE-TV, it was through the courtesy of both NBC and WAVE-TV See TWO CHANNELS Page 8, Col. 2 Driesell said he has never had a team as balanced as the one that will meet UL at 2:10 p.m., EDT (Channel 32). Maryland has six players averaging in double scoring figures. John Lucas is tops at 19 a game.

Driesell said his players have taken inspiration from the loss of Moses Ma-lone, the high school sensation who went straight to the Utah Stars for a lucrative pro contract after signing a letter-of-in-tcnt to enroll at Maryland. Without him or Len Elmore and Tom McMillen, mainstays of last year's 23-5 team, Maryland wasn't supposed to be here now. But it has duplicated last year's record and Driesell says now he doesn't even think about what-might-have-been had Malone decided to seek knowledge at College Park, the next four years. Others have entertained that thought, including Louisville assistant Dana Kirk. Kirk stood in for Crum yesterday.

"I'll tell you, Lefty, I woke up last night wondering how good Maryland would be with Moses," Kirk said. "Maybe I'll get him here Saturday," Driesell replied. "If he does come, I'll pick him up at the airport for you," Kirk said. Kirk also brought up the point that while much has been made of Maryland's three-guard offense Lucas, Mo Howard and Brad Davis UL essentially has been running the same thing all season with little notice. Allen Murphy, though listed as a forward, moves into the back-court on defense and can play there if Wilkerson is bigger and quicker.

If UK is going to win, it will need 25 or 30 points from Grevey and he won't get that many against Wilkerson. Green will play Guyette and Givens. Neither will score much. At center, Benson will control Robey and Phillips. Quinn Buckner won't give Flynn much at guard.

Maybe Conner can score against John Laskowski. Q. That doesn't sound too encouraging for Kentucky. A. Joe Hall knows that.

"We've got to hit the perimeter shot, to keep their guards from slacking off into the middle," he said. "I'll tell Flynn and Conner to shoot. And we have to get on the boards real good." Q. What else will UK do on offense against a team with a super defense? UK will run all day. It will shoot all day.

"Remember Drake against UCLA in the '69 NCAA?" Hall said. Drake nearly beat UCLA in Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's senior year. It did it by running like crazy. "That's what we have to do," Hall said. Q.

But can UK stop Indiana's offense? A. No one has yet. IU is scoring 88 points a game and shooting 51 per cent against teams breaking their cabooses to beat them. UK will try both a man-to-man and a 1-3-1 zone. But Hall isn't too confident.

"We're going to have to score well," ne said. "We can't stop them." Q. So what will the score be? A. Indiana 93-81. Stall Photo JUNIOR BRIDGEMAN points in two tourney games 56 ff rKfcMiUSVWfclUUttOurt 4 WtTSCJUT V- 's ft' I'll Hi Tlj fturt wwiiiwi dave kindred Courier-Journal Sports Editor $99 QUART J) CASE $63.34 $f99 FIFTH What does Kentucky face today? only a computer in sneakers 1 CASE liYa.il DAYTON, Ohio When you say "Indiana" to a University of Kentucky basketball player, what does he think? "You gotta beat 'em," said Bob Guyette grimly.

"It's a great team and we want to beat 'em." Mike Flynn said. "I think of power, and we'll have to play awful good basketball to beat 'em," Kevin Grevey said. "Beating 'em," Rick Robey said. Jimmy Dan Conner delivered a monologue. "I think of the thrashing they gave us back in December.

And I think that I want to beat them more than anybody in the world. Why? Because they're No. 1, and they beat the hell out of us, and we want to set the record straight." UK plays Indiana University in the championship game of the NCAA Mideast Regional here this afternoon. The winner goes on to San Diego, moving within two victories of the national championship. As luck would have it, sports fans, your touring typist bumped into a fellow willing to pick a winner.

Himself. The interview follows Q. Does it mean anything that UK's starters are so intense about "beating A. Kentucky doesn't have many edges in this game. But emotion is one.

When UK lost to Indiana 98-74 on Dec. 7. the humiliation was total. "One time Scott May just reached between Jimmy Dan Conner's legs from behind and stole the ball," said Joe Hall, the UK coach. Q.

Put isn't Indiana fired up about winnjng the national championship? A. Nobody said UK had a big edge. It's just that. Kentucky sometimes plays brilliantly when it means the most. Indiana plays brilliantly all the time.

Q. All the time? A. Indiana is a computer in sneakers. It never makes a mistake. Every shot is a wide-open 12-footer.

Almost every one goes in. Steve Green, the forward, is shooting 70.2 per cent and averaging 27 points a game since May broke his arm six games ago. Q. They must have some weaknesses. A.

Bob Knight catches cold a lot. Q. Get serious. A. Maybe Knight will breathe on Steve Green.

Q. Is that Kentucky's only hope? A. It'd help if he'd breathe on Kent Benson and Quinn Buckner, too. Q. You said Kentucky's only edge was emotion.

Isn't Kentucky's bench good? A. Mike Phillips at center, Jack Givens at forward and Larry Johnson at guard give UK excellent depth. That depth has won lots of games, including the first two in this tournament. But if May can play today and he will if UK uses a zone defense then IU's bench is just as good with Wayne Radford at guard and Tom Abernethy ready to play either center or forward. Not that it makes much difference.

Q. What do you mean? A. The starting lineups will decide it. Q. So go through the matchups.

A. Indiana will play Bob Wilkerson against Kevin Grevey, UK's best scorer. Taste you can swear by. 8-year-old, amber gold, bred-in-Kentucky, aged-in-oak bourbon. Roll that around on your tongue.

Gltnmort Oitillri Louiivill.Ownboro. Ky 80, 86 4 100 Prool bottled in bond 175..