Points Well Made

It's a pity that Loyola Marymount coach Paul Westhead is a Shakespearean scholar, because Loyola's two-game tournament run against Wyoming and North Carolina would best be left to a professor of accounting. In the Lions' 119-115 defeat of the Cowboys, the two teams set an NCAA tournament record for most points scored in a game. Loyola forward Hank Gathers likened the Lions' light-it-up style to an amusement park: "So many rides, so much to do."

The joyride ended against North Carolina when the Lions shot 32.1% in a 123-97 loss, missing more shots (70) than North Carolina took (62). The Tar Heels broke the single-game tournament marks for points and field-goal percentage (79%). But the game was such an aberration that it hardly gave a measure of how the Heels might fare against Michigan in the West Regional Friday night.

The Wolverines put on a show of their own in beating fractious Florida, which had somehow won its opening-round game with St. John's with only eight Gators suited up. Michigan, meanwhile, had struggled to defeat Boise State 63-58. Wolverine forward Glen Rice played with eight stitches in his shooting hand, cut, he said, while reaching into a dishwasher. Or was it, as Michigan coach Bill Frieder jokingly suggested, while reaching into a garbage disposal? Whatever, Rice healed in a hurry, scoring 39 points in a 108-85 romp past Florida.

Arizona had a rehabilitated big man of its own, center Tom Tolbert, who twisted his back during a 90-50 first-round rout of Cornell. But he managed to score 13 points in the Wildcats' 84-55 dismantling of Seton Hall. "That's the best anybody has played against us all year," said Seton Hall coach P.J. Carlesimo, "and that's the poorest anybody has made us look."

The UNLV team that lost 104-86 to Iowa wasn't the same band of Runnin' Rebels who, in last season's West Regional, made up a 16-point deficit to deny the Hawkeyes a trip to the Final Four. "I'm not sure we could score 20 points in a half" said UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian. Ed Horton and Jeff Moe scored 24 points apiece for Iowa, though Moe was totaling the wrong numbers. "I was supposed to take a statistics test," said Moe. "Now I have to call my professor and tell him I won't be able to for another week."

The Hawkeyes aren't the team they were last year, either, and Michigan is somewhere between what it was against Boise State and what it was against Florida; figure Iowa to fall to Arizona and Michigan to North Carolina in the regional semifinals. The Tar Heels and Wildcats match up well—J.R. Reid and Jeff Lebo are Sean Elliott and Steve Kerr—but Arizona has a certain something, a synergy. It's a togetherness that a devout fan and hoops aficionado like Mars Blackmon can surely appreciate.

But Mars probably didn't appreciate the technical foul slapped on Iowa swing-man Bill Jones in Friday's game against Florida State. Jones got the T for wearing two gold chains. Now that's cold. Very cold.