College Basketball

HOLIDAY SURPRISES

It was a holiday of mixed blessings for the Big Ten. On the one hand, Ohio State won the ECAC Holiday Festival in Madison Square Garden behind an MVP performance by senior guard Jay Burson (37 points against Florida, 23 against St. John's); Indiana won its own Hoosier Classic for the seventh straight year; and Illinois's championship romp through the Rainbow Classic in Hawaii included an 80-75 semifinal win over potent Georgia Tech.

But those achievements didn't command nearly the attention that two defeats did: Iowa's 110-92 pummeling by UC Riverside in the Chaminade Christmas Classic and Michigan's 70-66 failure against Alaska-Anchorage in the Utah Classic. Both the Hawkeyes and the Wolverines were undefeated before these games; what's worse, both losses were to Division II schools.

Iowa lost because UC Riverside sank 21 three-point shots (in 36 attempts), an NCAA record for any division. In the case of Michigan, Alaska-Anchorage used a sort of freeze (what did you expect?) to beat the Wolverines. "Going in, we knew we couldn't run or rebound with them," said coach Ron Abbegglen. "No way in the world. We wanted to hold the ball down to 10 or 12 seconds on the shot clock—just hold it—to nullify the tremendous rebounding of Michigan. I think they got frustrated with the way we were holding the ball."

The two upsets left Illinois as the only undefeated team in the Big Ten. The Illini got 24 points from Lowell Hamilton and 15 from Nick Anderson in their win over Georgia Tech, then dispatched Hawaii in the championship game behind Kenny Battle's career-high 29. Although they lack an intimidating big man in the middle, the Illini compensate with depth and balance. Says Tech coach Bobby Cremins, "They remind me of a Louisville team—a lot of good athletes and tough defensively. They'd be incredible with a 6'11" man."

LEXINGTON BOUND?

As Vanderbilt hosted the Music City Invitational last week—the Commodores lost to Stanford 89-68 in the final—there was growing speculation that Vandy coach CM. Newton would resign at season's end to become athletic director at Kentucky, where he played on Adolph Rupp's 1951 NCAA championship team.

The 58-year-old Newton, who has restored Vanderbilt to respectability in his seven-plus seasons in Nashville, was coach of the fine Alabama teams of the 70s that signaled the rise of the SEC as a basketball conference. Between his stints at Alabama and Vandy, Newton worked in the SEC office as an assistant commissioner.

After Cliff Hagan resigned as Kentucky's AD last November, Newton was immediately mentioned as a logical choice for the job, but he said he was happy in Nashville. However, Newton is apparently reconsidering and has already had at least one conversation with Kentucky president David Roselle.

The timing appears to be good for both sides. Newton has accomplished much as a coach and is approaching a milestone—at week's end he was only four away from 500 career wins. From Kentucky's standpoint, Newton has the record of achievement as well as those Kentucky bloodlines tracing back to Rupp. And, perhaps most important for this tarnished program, he has a Mr. Clean image.