Arkansas has so much talent it could beat the Los Angeles Clippers. Then again, so could Drexel. UCLA goes because Coach Jim Harrick won’t want to come home if the Bruins don’t get there. Massachusetts, which beat the Razorbacks last week, is Arkansas Jr. and Alabama is the requisite long shot.

2. Clip and save for your April NCAA Tournament office pool:If UCLA, UMass or Alabama don’t make it, Georgetown, Kentucky or Arizona could.

3. The newcomer of the year won’t be St. John’s freshman Felipe Lopez, but Georgetown freshman Allen Iverson.

4. Nevada-Las Vegas will win the Big West Conference, earn the automatic NCAA Tournament bid and win a first-round game if nobody in the Runnin’ Rebels’ starting five gets hurt.

5. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wants to become a college head coach. What he might want to do is pay his dues, like Steve Alford at Manchester (Ind.) College.

6. The five best players are:Arkansas forward Corliss Williamson, Indiana forward Alan Henderson, Oklahoma State center Bryant Reeves, Villanova guard Kerry Kittles and Georgia Tech point guard Travis Best.

7. There remains considerable resentment among some established coaches toward

See TOP 25, page 15

California’s Todd Bozeman. Of course, what they really might resent is Bozeman’s ability to attract some of the best high school players to Berkeley.

8. If we knew Maryland wouldn’t suffer a key injuryas was the case last seasonor two or three then we would pick them to earn a Final Four spot. But we don’t, so we won’t.

9. The luckiest man in America is Wisconsin’s Stan Van Gundy, who woke up one morning as an assistant coach and ended it as the Badgers’ head coach in charge of a lineup that includes center Rashard Griffith and forward Michael Finley. Not bad for your first Division I job.

10. The most underrated and versatile player in the country is DePaul’s Tom Kleinschmidt.

11. Three teams that could come out of nowhere and kick some NCAA Tournament butt:Cal, Mississippi State and Utah.

12. Three top 25 teams most likely to struggle:Virginia (is there such a thing as too much talent and too few minutes?); Iowa State (a new coach and a new point guard); Duke (if Erik Meek doesn’t help solve the rebounding concerns).

13. Seven coaches who could use boffo seasons:Miami’s Leonard Hamilton, Georgia’s Hugh Durham, Ohio State’s Randy Ayers, Memphis’ Larry Finch, Rutgers’ Bob Wenzel, North Carolina State’s Les Robinson and UCLA’s Harrick.

14. Cincinnati Coach Bob Huggins might not admit it publicly, but in a strange way the Bearcats actually are better off without Dontonio Wingfield.

15. Until Avondre Jones decides to put as much effort into his basketball career as he does his musical career, UNLV didn’t help itself by signing him for next season. According to one well-respected coach who saw the former heralded University of Southern California freshman play this summer, Jones wasn’t worth the trouble.

16. UNLV Coach Tim Grgurich will work wonders with Jones.

17. Prediction:If you asked last season’s top 100 high school recruits what Colgate was, 99 of them would have said toothpaste. Adonal Foyle, one of the nation’s most sought after players, said it was his college of choice. Good for Foyle.

18. Five post-December games we’d pay big bucks to see:Jan. 24, Michigan at Indiana; Jan. 29, Kentucky at Arkansas; Feb. 2, North Carolina at Duke; Feb. 15, Arkansas at Alabama; Feb. 26, Georgetown at Syracuse.

19. Alabama star forward Jason Caffey is out with an ankle injury but should be back sometime this month. Whew.

21. We hope they stay, but we wouldn’t be surprised if North Carolina’s Jerry Stackhouse and Rasheed Wallace, Wisconsin’s Griffith and UMass’ Marcus Camby leave school early for the NBA.

22. NCAA investigators are saying that they were stunned by the scope and blatant nature of the alleged cheating done by former Baylor coach Darrel Johnson and his staff. Johnson has maintained he had no knowledge of wrongdoing.

23. The best juco transfer might be Brandon Jessie, who already has established himself as a force at Utah. Give an assist to former UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian, who put in a good word for Utah.

As it turns out, Kansas State Athletic Director Max Urick first approached UCLA Coach Jim Harrick about replacing Dana Altman as coach. Harrick said no thanks, but suggested Pepperdine’s Tom Asbury.

Here’s the guy you ought to talk to, Harrick told Urick.

Urick made the call, interviewed Asbury at the Final Four and hired him soon thereafter. No dummy, Urick also arranged for Asbury to fly directly into the small Manhattan, Kan., airport rather than make the two-hour drive from Kansas City. Good thing, too; Asbury might have been spooked by signage on I-70.

1988 NCAA National Champions

Home of Dr. James Naismith

1991 National Debate Champions

1993 National Debate Champions

Yeah, I saw them, Asbury says, but not until after I had taken the job.

Asbury, who also was interested in the Iowa State opening at one time, faces one of the tougher jobs in the Big Eight Conference:to rebuild a program that is dangerously low on talent.

It makes me nervous to be looking down on what appears to be my two starting forwards, says Asbury, who is 6 feet 6. That’s a scary thought. But if they had great players here, there wouldn’t be an opening.

And Asbury would like to dispel the popular theory that he left Pepperdine to somehow escape the memory of his daughter Stacey’s death last September. Stacey was 22 when she suffered heart failure associated with anorexia nervosa, an acute eating disorder. Asbury completed the season, took his team to the NCAA Tournament, nearly upset Michigan in the first round and then considered his options.

A lot of people thought it was because of the personal tragedy we had, he says. That wasn’t the case. It was just time for a change. It probably had been time for a change prior to that. There were other years when there was nothing available and other years where we figured we couldn’t move because of Stacey’s illness.

More George Raveling Revelations:According to the former USC coach, his recent resignation wasn’t entirely the result of a Sept. 25 auto accident that nearly cost him his life.

The most fun in coaching I ever had was when I was at Washington State, because there was a different set of circumstances, says Raveling, 57. The rules were different, the kids were different and the expectations were different. It was just fun to coach then. You really were a coach then. Today, it is coach, slash-slash-slash-slash. Coaching is the easiest part. Now, you have to deal with so many other things, from NCAA rules changes to public relations.

Raveling says his retirement has nothing to with reported feuding between him and USC Athletic Director Mike Garrett. Raveling adds that the public perception of his relationship with Garrett had been misinterpreted.

And Raveling has this to say about his decision to turn down the Seton Hall job in July:(Former Seton Hall Coach ) P.J. Carlesimo told me that he didn’t think that there was enough talent there to win more than nine games.

^Gene Wojciechowski reports on college basketball ^for the Los Angeles Times.

^Distributed by the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service=

LA TIMES-WASHINGTON POST11-30-94 1735EST