The Top 20

1 DePaul

Joe Ponsetto, stalwart forward for DePaul a few seasons ago when the Blue Demons were merely good, recently paid a visit to his old coach, Ray Meyer. After watching the current Blue Demons fly through their practice, Ponsetto heaved a sigh of relief. "Whew, Coach, I'm glad I got out when I did," he said. "Yup, Joe, I think you'd have been in a little trouble with this bunch," said Meyer.

Ponsetto shouldn't feel too bad because everyone will be troubled by DePaul this season. With all but one player back from the 26-2 powerhouse of 1979-80, the Blue Demons are not merely good, they're great.

DePaul is led by Mark Aguirre, the Player of the Year in 1979-80 (page 34) and smooth playmaker Clyde Bradshaw. Joining them in the starting lineup will be streak-shooting Skip Dillard (12.1 points a game) at guard, tough sophomore Terry Cummings (9.4 rebounds a game) at center and Teddy Grubbs, another soph, at forward. According to Meyer, Grubbs is the key. "If he comes on, we've got a super team," he says. "I feel sorry for him sometimes, I yell at him so much, but I have to get him going."

To show off all that talent, DePaul has shifted its home games to the Rosemont Horizon in suburban Chicago. The move will allow as many as 18,000 people to see the Blue Demons in action, but, say some pundits, it will take away the big advantage DePaul enjoyed when playing in Alumni Hall, a 5,308-seat pit. Meyer isn't worried. "There will be more people screaming, and our kids are hot dogs enough to respond," he says.

Bradshaw, a self-motivated sort who cut the mustard with 215 assists and 99 steals last year, is hoping something can turn on his teammates. "Evidently they don't realize how close we are to winning the whole thing," he says. "Catch us on a night we're up for a game and there's no one in the country who can beat us, but we have to play that game all the time. People know we're good, but we let a lot of folks down last season when we lost two of our last three games.. Now we'll have to show them again. I think we're the best team, but we've got to prove it." DePaul began doing just that last Saturday when it beat defending-champion Louisville, 86-80.

2 Maryland

Maryland Coach Lefty Driesell threw down the gauntlet at the Terps' basketball dinner last spring. "I challenge you guys to win the national championship," he said. That was a pretty tough proposition to lay on his players for a coach who's never won an ACC tournament or an NCAA regional championship, but the Terrapins really shouldn't settle for anything less. Forward Albert King (page 34) is one of five starters and nine top scorers back from a 24-7 team that finished eighth in the final AP poll and second in the nation in field-goal shooting (55.1%). Now Maryland figures to be even better with the addition of junior-college transfer Charles Pittman.

"We've got to turn the ball over fewer times and work on our rebounding because we're small," says Driesell, trying not to sound overconfident. If the Terrapins occasionally kick the ball away, they'll get it back more often than not with an effective zone press. It's also true that Maryland operated at a height disadvantage and had to switch from a double-post, the offense Driesell prefers, to a 2-1-2 to compensate for that shortcoming. Nonetheless, the man in the middle, 6'8" Buck Williams, who's really better suited to being a power forward, wasn't outscored by any of the centers he opposed in the ACC. Lineman-tough and fast enough to run a 4:53 mile, Williams outmaneuvered taller men on offense and outmuscled them on defense. When 6'8" sixth-man Pittman, who twice led Merced College to the California J.C. finals, enters the lineup at center or forward, 6'1" Ernest Graham will move from forward to guard.

King, the ACC's Player of the Year, wasn't satisfied with his 21.7-point average and Dr. J moves of last season; he has been working on his outside shot and dribbling through a slalom course of rubber cones to improve his ball handling. Graham led the Terps in assists despite being switched from guard to forward, while Greg Manning became the ACC's first player to lead the league in field-goal (64.3) and free-throw (90.8) percentage in the same season. Paradoxically, point guard is the Terrapins' deepest and weakest position. Neither Reggie Jackson nor Dutch Morley is an all-round player, but by using them for 20 minutes apiece Driesell can alternate Jackson's defense, shooting and leadership on the fast break with Morley's quickness and deft passing.