They Come to Play All the Way

Why college basketball is so much livelier than the pro game

One month ago, players on 23 conference-winning college basketball teams packed their travel bags, stroked their press clippings for luck, and set off to do battle in the National Collegiate Athletic Association championships. Arrayed against them were 25 other squads rated by the N.C.A.A. as the best of the rest. From then on, it was jump ball in arenas from coast to coast as the annual season-ending scramble proceeded.

One by one, touted teams were upset. The nation's No. 1-ranked school, DePaul, which went into the championships with a 26-1 record, was toppled in its very first game, by a renascent U.C.L.A. North Carolina (21-7), a perennial power in the proud Atlantic Coast Conference, was whipped in its opening duel, by lowly Texas A.&M. Bad Bobby Knight's oh so good Indiana team, Big Ten champion, fell to Purdue. Duke, which was sixth in the A.C.C. standings, rose up to beat Kentucky, flagship of the Southeastern Conference.

When the final four teams met in Indianapolis to decide the championship, the only survivor among the 23 conference winners was the University of Louisville, ranked in the top five nationally with a 31-3 record. After getting by Iowa in the semis, Louisville took the title by beating U.C.L.A., 59-54, in a come-from-behind effort led by everybody's All-American, Senior Guard Darrell Griffith.

Griffith, the tournament's Most Valuable Player, is an extraordinary outside shooter, and his pyrotechnic leaps for dunks and rebounds brought the school its first national title in any sport. The cheerful, 6-ft. 4-in. son of a Louisville steelworker. Griffith, 21, had carried his junior high and high school teams to state trophies, and he had hoped to do the same for his college. After the win, he exulted: "When I came here, I said that before I left, we'd get a national championship. Now I can say that I didn't let too many people down."

It is just that kind of rah-rah ambition that makes college basketball one of the most exciting and unpredictable sports in the country today. A talented newcomer can walk into a moribund basketball program and make his school a conference contender in his first year and a national champion before he departs for the pros. Last season, the aptly named Magic Johnson finished his sophomore year by tucking the national title under Michigan State's arm, then went to the Los Angeles Lakers. The national exposure that comes with a trip to the N.C.A.A. tournament can help in fund raising and in keeping dorms and classes filled. After Larry Bird and his Indiana State teammates reached the final four last year, interest in the school soared; this year applications are up by 25%.

Some rule changes have helped assure that the talent that makes such success possible is spread around.

Over the past five years, for example, the N.C.A.A.'s big-campus Division I, which has 261 colleges and universities competing in basketball, has cut the maximum number of athletic scholarships a school can offer each year from 25 to 15. Result: the powerhouses can no longer monopolize the best athletes. Says Coach Ray Meyer, 66, who revived DePaul's national basketball reputation at an age when most coaches have retired to Maalox and memories: "These are rules where the rich are not going to get richer. They have given the smaller schools a chance to compete on a national basis."

With the relaxation of rules against off-season competition at both the high school and college level, and with freshmen playing on varsity teams, more and more promising athletes are being drawn into the game. Says Oregon State's coach Ralph Miller: "The supply of good players today is better than ever before. There must be ten to 20 times more players than there were ten years ago."

Money to finance basketball programs is abundant too. NBC paid the N.C.A.A. $8.5 million for TV rights to the tournament. Schools get $40,000 for each regular-season game that is televised nationally; the 48 teams in the tournament were paid a minimum of $80,000 apiece, and the final four got a whopping $320,000 each. For all the TV saturation, however, game attendance remains strong. At North Carolina, demand for season tickets is so high that the university limits their sale, in the case of nonstudents, to a people who have contributed at least $5,000 over the years to the school's athletic scholarship fund.

The fans are getting their money's worth. With its varied zone defenses and complicated offensive strategies, as well as the zest provided by the bands and cheering students and alumni, college basketball is a high-voltage spectacle. For all the great talent in the National Basketball Association, the pros rarely match the excitement of college youths playing for their schools in front of their friends. Says Georgia Tech's coach Dwane Morrison:

"They laugh, they cry, they play with such intensity." According to Oregon's Miller, part of the pros' problem is the long (25 weeks) N.B.A. schedule and the rule that requires a team to shoot within 24 seconds. Says he: "There's a lot more emphasis on one-on-one ball rather than the team concept in the pros, so they all do the same thing offensively. And they play so many games that they're kind of tired most of the time."

While the pros now show signs of turning their attendance problems around, the crowds at college games have been growing for several years. Says DePaul's Meyer: "Our sport is at its apex. There's more fan interest than ever. There's spirit, cheerleaders and bands. And when a schoolboy plays, his whole heart and soul is in the game."

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