Blue Devils Down To Their Final Chance

Duke’s chances at making the NCAA field are limited to a four-game run to the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament championship, and Florida’s are almost in the same state as the Gators stumble to the Southeastern Conference tournament.

The last time a team that played in the Final Four didn’t even make the NCAA tournament the next season was 1990 when Seton Hall dropped below .500 after losing the title to Michigan in overtime.

The last time two teams from a Final Four didn’t make the field the next season was 1985 when Houston and Virginia, which met in the semifinals in 1984 before Houston lost to Georgetown for the title, failed to get in the tournament.

No doubts

Kurt Thomas of Texas Christian has already been named Southwest Conference player of the year. He has a chance to add a piece of NCAA basketball history to his college resume as the season winds down.

The 6-foot-9, 235-pound senior center leads Division I in scoring and rebounding, something only accomplished twice since rebounds became an official NCAA statistic in 1951.

Thomas, who averaged 20.7 points and 9.7 rebounds last season, has really blossomed under coach Billy Tubbs, who is in his first year with the Horned Frogs after a long stint at Oklahoma. Thomas entered the week with a 29.1 scoring average and 14.3 rebound average, well of ahead of runners-up Kenny Sykes of Grambling (26.8 points) and Malik Rose of Drexel (13.6 rebounds).

To show how dominant Thomas is this season as far as both categories go, only two other players are in the top 20 in both.

Gary Trent of Ohio University is 18th in scoring at 23.1 and third in rebounding at 13.0, while Reggie Jackson of Nicholls State is 19th in scoring at 22.4 and 11th in rebounding at 11.2.

Polls apart

The computer (RPI) and media (AP poll) don’t agree on 10 teams as the season winds down and at-large berths to the NCAA tournament are to be settled.

The Ratings Percentage Index, a formula close to the one used by the NCAA Selection Committee, has five teams ranked in its Top 25 that don’t make the grade in the weekly poll: Tulsa (18th), Illinois (20th), Cincinnati (21st), Oregon (22nd) and Western Kentucky (25th).

The five teams in the national writers’ balloting which don’t make the computer grade are No. 15 Arizona State (28th), No. 17 Purdue (31st), No. 20 Stanford (34th), No. 21 Alabama (30th) and No. 23 Georgetown (33rd).

When the Buffaloes roam

Big Eight road victories are as rare for Colorado as the air on the Boulder campus.

The Buffaloes won 80-74 at Nebraska last Saturday to end a 28-game conference road losing streak. The last road win came at Iowa State on Feb. 16, 1991. That one had been a while in coming as it ended a 56-game league road losing streak since a 75-74 victory at Kansas on Feb. 10, 1984.

In an 11-year period, the Buffaloes managed a 2-84 road record in the Big Eight. Must be something in the air.

Rollie in Philly

There’ll be a homecoming of sorts in Philadelphia today when Rollie Massimino works the Atlantic 10 tournament as a television analyst.

Massimino accepted a $1.8 million buyout from UNLV just before practice was to get under way this season, ending a stormy twoyear stint as the Runnin’ Rebels’ head coach.

He did a number of games this season for the Atlantic 10, but the tournament will be his first time working in Philadelphia, the city where Massimino coached Villanova for nearly two decades. Many people in Philadelphia blame

Massimino for the scaling down of the Big Five intra-city series which is celebrating its 40th anniversary. The schools - Pennsylvania, Villanova, St. Joseph’s, La Salle and Temple - used to play a round-robin series every season. That was curtailed to one game per season and many locals were very upset when some of the games were moved to home courts from the Palestra, the city’s famed arena where Massimino will work the quarterfinals and semifinals today and Monday.

Where’s Kramer?

Sitcom fans have a player to be proud of in the Trans America Athletic Conference.

Junior guard Jason Alexander of Stetson was selected to the league’s all-conference team and all-newcomer team. At 5-foot-11, the transfer from Rhode Island and Queens, N.Y. native isn’t that much bigger than the actor whom he shares the name with, although he makes much better decisions on the court than the character George does on “Seinfeld” or in his pretzel commercials.

Alexander wasn’t the only familiar name to win a postseason award in the TAAC as Sam Bowie, a 6-5 junior guard from Southeastern Louisiana, was selected second-team all-conference and to the all-newcomer team.

Starting five

When the coaches of the North Atlantic Conference find something they like, they stick with it.

The league’s coaches picked the same five players to the all-conference team as they did a year ago. Malike Rose and Brian Holden of Drexel, Scott Drapeau of New Hampshire, Eddie Benton of Vermont and Tunji Awojobi of Boston University were named first-team all-NAC for the second straight year in a balloting of the league’s nine coaches.

The string ends here, however, as Drapeau and Holden are seniors. Rose, Holden and Benton were selected to the first team for the third straight year, joining Mark Halsel of Northeastern (1982-84), Reggie Lewis of Northeastern (1985-87) and Vin Baker of Hartford (1991-93) as the only players in league history to be accorded that honor.

Rose and Benton have a shot at the four-year sweep next season.