The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 57

3Ifb Inquirer SUNDAY SECTION ITolivi i to innn ltuiuaijf to, XVJKJ 'Nova Barnes: The fall of a basketball star downs Pitt Ir I Taylor and Greis key 71-68 victory SPORTS By M. G. Missanelli Inquirer Staff Writer Back in September, Villanova coach Rollie Massimino circled last night's game with Pitt as the Wildcats' most important of the season. Perhaps Massimino knew his II- team's hopes of landing an NCAA tournament berth would come down 1 i ill! I Pi jf 2q) (I ci ill ezii -mimimF'i Associated Press Above, Marvin Barnes with his attorney in a San Diego court in January. Right, Barnes playing for Providence in 1973.

He's off drugs, but back in jail to its final four regular-season games. Or perhaps Massimino is reaching the age where he can pick up those telepathic waves. Whatever, Villanova is still alive, sports fans. The Cats outlasted Pitt, 71-68, last night at DuPont Pavilion to even their record at 7-7 in the Big East, where a .500 mark is usually good enough to gain the attention of the tourney selectors. The Wildcats will take a 15-12 overall mark into McGonigle Hall on Wednesday night for a game against Temple.

Games at Georgetown and home against Boston College will take the Cats into next month's Big East tournament. And 17 wins and a good Big East tourney showing might get the Cats into the big event. "To win it makes it a very big game, but I don't think it was a must game. If we lost, I felt we still had a shot at the tournament," said Massimino. "I can tell you that we felt way back when we started the season, that this one was going to be important.

Now, we still have a chance." To win, the Cats had to overcome a Pitt rally. After trailing by as many as 13, Pitt was within three points in the final 1 minute, 32 seconds. But the Panthers never got closer. And in the final 17 seconds, Chris Walker and Greg Woodard each buried a pair of free throws. For the second straight game, Villanova got outstanding performances from seniors Rodney Taylor and Tom Greis.

Taylor finished with 12 points and six boards. Greis had 15 points (on 7-for-9 shooting), six rebounds, two blocks, and two steals. The Panthers (10-13, 4-8) got a surprising disappearing act from 6-foot-6 Brian Shorter, who had just 10 points, five rebounds and four turnovers in 27 foul-plagued minutes, his first visit this year to his home environs. The junior forward needed a meaningless layup at the buzzer to preserve his streak of double-figure scoring games (43). It tied a season-low for Shorter, who had 10 points in the season's first game.

"The key to the game, in my opinion, was the way Tommy IGreisI played Shorter," Massimino said. "We presented a challenge to him and he responded very well." Shorter was forced to the bench for 10 minutes of the first half after picking up his third personal foul. Not surprisingly, Pitt went into half-time trailing the Cats, 42-30. "We were really fired up," said Walker, Villanova's point guard. "We knew a victory would keep us in the picture for the tournament.

And we came out really ready to play." Pitt managed to stay in the game, however. At 11:50, the Panthers got within nine. At 9:40, they were (See VILLANOVA on 12-E) tween the good life of a successful basketball player and the seedy life of drug traffickers, hookers and thieves. It seemed as if he was always getting in trouble holding up a bus while in high school in Providence, R.I., slugging a teammate at Providence College, getting caught with a gun while he was with the Detroit Pistons. And always, it seemed, basketball would bail him out.

One day, though, there was no basketball and Barnes lost his balance. He succumbed to his romanticized image of gangsterism and life on the street. He took a long slide from a $2.2 million contract out of college, from being ABA rookie of the year and the second pick in the NBA draft to where he is now, jusl (See BARNES on 4-E) By Timothy Dwyer Inquirer Slafl Writer CHULA VISTA, Calif. There were times when all Marvin Barnes had were his memories and the clothes on his back. Walking the streets, living in abandoned buildings and junk cars, stealing to get his food and drug money, Barnes would push the memories of his life as a basketball star deeper and deeper into the back of his mind until he couldn't remember playing basketball at all.

had to forget a lot of things or I would have gone crazy," Barnes says. Now it is safe for Barnes to bring back those memories without fear of going insane. Once again he can daydream of those days in thg NBA. He feels secure now that he has a roof over his head, a bed to sleep in and three meals a day. "Bad News" Barnes is back; back behind bars here in the San Diego County Jail waiting for a transfer to the state penitentiary.

He's serving a 13-month sentence after having pleaded guilty to stealing X-rated videotapes. He was selling the tapes to buy speed and crack cocaine. He'd snort the speed to wake up and smoke the crack to get high. "The thing about me is I'm an extremist," Barnes says. "When I party, I party hard.

You know what I'm saying? When I was getting high on dope, I was a dope fiend, a dope addict to the max." Ever since he waS in high school, Marvin Barnes has unsteadily walked the line be defeat Tyson a seme of purpose By BILL LYON -i him go on defense." Not until now. And then, one week ago, halfway around the world, in an air-supported dome' in Tokyo, an adoring crowd was struck mute by the sight of their fearsome adopted samurai, Tyson-san, being punched about with an ease that left everyone agape, punished by a journeyman pug from Ohio with nothing at all in his background to suggest that he was capable of this sort of achievement. When Mike Tyson hit the canvas, surely the thud must have been louder than when the original Goli-(See LYON on 10-E) cret dread that haunts all athletes how to handle defeat the first time they meet it. It is like meeting your own mortality. Professional athletes, after all, die twice.

The first death is in public. Now, Mike Tyson, who grew up a bully, is challenged. "You know," said George Foreman, the relic with sock, "no one ever got jight in that young man's face before." Not until now. "You know," said Evander Holy-. field, who covets the belts Tyson once wore, "no one ever stood up to him before, backed him up, made test him somewhere along the line.

Mike Tyson nodded his head. "Uh-huh. That's why it's such 'a great book." The conversation had taken place in the autumn, in Atlantic City, when Mike Tyson was still without defeat, thought to be without vulnerability, when he roamed the casino aisles with that rolling swagger and the crowds parted for him, partly out of respect and, yes, partly out of fear. Now, Mike Tyson has his great fish. Now, with his blood jn'the water, the sharks close in.v' Now, Mike Tyson confronts the se In the course of light conversation-til sparring, Mike Tyson, without any warning, sneaked in a sucker punch.

"Did you ever," he asked, "read The Old Man and the Sea?" Surely he couldn't have missed the dropped jaw and the look of astonishment. Surely he sensed what his audience was thinking, and trying desperately, diplomatically, to hide: You mean you have actually read a book? "I love that book," he went on, dreamily. "The old man out there in the middle of that big ocean, all that water, all by himself, fighting off all those sharks, talking to that big fish, doing what he knew in his heart he had to do. Yeah, that was great." He sighed, audibly. A man recovered from his shock long enough to suggest that every one of us, fighters and fishermen, even writers, has his own big fish to Flyers' Hextall to start today against Islanders 1 Wor Hawkins, second season tastes sweeter 7i After a rocky rookie season, Hersey Hawkins is once again playing with confidence.

I really want to add something positive. I think I can. We'll see." Flyers coach Paul Holmgren said that had he felt Pete Peeters needed to be replaced in the Flyers' loss at Detroit on Friday, he would have inserted Hextall. Holmgren said that even though his team lost, 9-6, most of the Red Wings' goals were not Peeters' fault. Hextall said yesterday that it probably was a good thing he hadn't been called on the previous night.

He said he hadn't warmed up enough and would not have felt comfortable replacing Peeters in the middle of the game. Ken Wregget, who has served as the team's principal goaltender in Hextall's absence, will dress and (See FLYERS on 2-E) t-'-fT- VI 1 By Gary Miles inquirer Stall Wriler Flyers goalie Ron Hextall, who has not faced an NHL opponent in more than three months and has not played at the Spectrum since last season, will start in goal today against the New York Islanders. Hextall has played only two games this season he has a 3.60 goals-against average in victories over Toronto and the Islanders and last was in goal in an NHL game on Nov. 14, when he beat the Islanders, 3-2, at the Nassau Coliseum. Since then, a hamstring pull and two groin injuries have kept him sidelined.

On Dec. 13, he played for Hershey of the American Hockey League on a rehabilitation assignment and suffered the second of his two groin Injuries. The goalie, who has been practicing with the team for the last week, said yesterday that he was 100 percent healthy and ready to go in today's 1:35 p.m. game at the Spectrum. Hextall, who stayed away from training camp in a contract dispute, said he was glad his return was coming at home even if the fans do choose to greet him negatively.

"I think a lot of people are saying that it would be better to play my first game on the road," he said after practice yesterday at the Coliseum in Voorhees. "But I'm a professional and when I'm ready to play, I'm going to tell them that I'm ready to play. I don't care if it's at home or on the road. It doesn't matter. I'll be fired up.

"I've been away from the team," Hextall said. "I haven't been in the dressing room for a lot of games, and 'By Jere Longman Stall Wriler In college, at Bradley, Hersey Haw-, kins' shot was so sweet and unstoppa- -'tie that when his coach yelled at him, it was to quit passing and keep ishooting. The basket was to be stoked dike some insatiable fi Then Hawkins came to the 76ers and found that the unstoppable had suddenly become the predictable preventable. Professional basketball is a business, he learned brutally. Other players made it their business to stop him.

He was 6-foot-3, and now he was guarded by players at least as 'tall, if not 64 or 6-5. Players too Strong to muscle. Too tall to leap in a aingle bound. Too quick to drive around. Unable to put the ball on the rfloor and create his own shot, Haw-kins had to rely on screens or safety 'valve passes when Charles Barkley Jwas double-teamed.

By any measure, Hawkins struggled as a rookie, shooting 45.5 per-cent during the regular season. In the playoffs, he went to Madison Square Garden, a place known for its 'pickpockets, and had his confidence ilifted like a wallet. Hawkins shot 3 24 while the Sixers were being out by the Knicks in an untidy pit of spring cleaning. To cure what ailed him, Hawkins Mast summer paid several visits to the Shot Doctor, otherwise known as Sixers assistant coach Fred Carter. What Carter had in mind was a little 'reconstructive surgery.

Three days a week, two hours a day, Hawkins and Carter worked in the gym. Carter's prescription was evasive action. What Hawkins needed was misdirection in his game, moves that would separate him from his defender and give him room to launch his shot. Carter helped Hawkins polish several stealth maneuvers. The crossover dribble.

The between-the-legs dribble. The fade shot while moving to his left, the swinging jumper while moving right. He encouraged him to put up a runner in the lane. This a more assertive, resourceful Hawkins is shooting 46.3 percent overall and averaging nearly three more points per game (17.9). In the Sixers' last 10 games, Hawkins has shot 48.6 percent (71 for 146).

The Sixers have won eight of those games, and Hawkins' confidence has returned like a lost pet. "I've gotten to the point now where I know I can go out and put up 18 or 25 points a night and I'm not going to (See HAWKINS on 6 E) Index Craig Amos's 29 points carry St. Joseph's past Atlantic Ten rival Massachusetts, and Jerry Simon's 27 points propel Penn to an Ivy League triumph over Brown. Page 10-E. The owners' spring-training lockout will hurt many clubs, but the Montreal Expos may stand to suffer most.

Jayson Stark, Page 9-E. NBA commissioner David Stern has a five-year contract at $3.5 million per year, and a $10 million bonus. And he's worth every dime. Bob Ford, Page S-E. Auto racing 8-E Horse racing 15-E The Philadelphia Inquirer JERRY LODRIGUSS Hawkins, driving to the hoop, is scoring about 18 points a game.

7-E NBA, NHL 2-E Ben Callaway 3-E Sports in brief 10-E Hockey.