No way Pomona-Pitzer can play with Kansas.
“I could lie and say differently, but that would be baloney. We cannot win. No way,” said Pitzer coach Gregg Popovich, whose NCAA Div. 3 Sagehens will visit Allen Fieldhouse tonight.
Tipoff for KU’s home opener is 7:35 p.m. “This isn’t one of those things where you say, if Kansas looks past us, we can overtake them.
“They’re on a different level. We’re not going to worry about this game. WE can’t stop Kansas. We’ll do our best to enjoy the experience, do the things we want to do when we get back to league play. We’ll also try to do a good job for coach (Larry) Brown, to make his kids work and execute. We won’t hold the ball or play zones. We’ll just play very hard.”
Popovich, who took a year’s sabatical from the Claremont, Calif., school to work under Brown at KU last year, promised the coach his Sagehens would play basketball – not stallball – when the game was scheduled.
“Larry said if we held the ball, he wouldn’t return the trip to Pomona,” Popovich said chuckling.
It goes without saying Popovich enjoyed working with Brown last year.
“It was the best professional experience of my life. It’s because he (Brown) allowed me to get so close to the program,” said Popovich. “His ego is such it doesn’t keep people from giving opinions. He loves people participating. He think he can learn from anybody and everybody and that is a rare quality.
“He let me do so many things, I felt I had a stake in the program.
“We’ll run a few of his specials against him, ones I stole,” added Popovich laughing. “Seriously, we’ve changed our (fast) break a little. It looks more like his.
“Last year, I learned as much as anything about dealing with people and handling kids as much as X’s and O’s.”
Popovich says it’s been tough getting reacquainted with his team. Pitzer, led by 6-7, 230-poind junior forward Rick Duque, takes a 1-3 record into a matchup against the 1-2 Jayhawks.
“It’s been sort of like being a new coach in a new job,” said Popovich. “Our kids are real young (four sophs start). I recruited ’em, but didn’t coach ’em last year.
“They are great kids. We took a lot of care in recruiting this group, knowing I would leave a year. We recruited the kind I want to coach. We play full court man to man for 40 minutes. We get it up and down the court. Whether that’s wise against Kansas I don’t know. What the hell, we’ll try it anyway.”
Might as well let it all hang out and enjoy what could be an historic evening. A victory would give KU a Big Eight record 49 straight home wins. Oklahoma is the other league school to have won 48 straight.
“Our kids are really fired up. They’re excited. We’re trying to put them in the proper frame of mind,” said Popovich. “We’re telling them to go compete, play hard and have as good a time as possible.
“As a practice facility, the Fieldhouse is terrible. For a gagme floor, there’s none better. As long as it doesn’t render our kids motionless, it’ll be wonderful. I told our kids, the first time Manning throws a pass and the crowd goes crazy, look around and enjoy it. See what playing before 16,000 is like. These memories will last forever. All of ’em will be begging me to guard Manning.”
Popovich will enjoy watching Danny Manning and the other Jayhakws he worked with last year.
“Realistically, the outcome of the game is not in doubt. But it’ll be a wonderful time for these teams to get together. I’m anxious to see how much KU’s kids have improved,” said Popovich. “To see how much Gueldner, Pritchard, Randall, have improved. It’ll be fun not only to watch my kids, but theirs.”
The Sagehends placed second in the Southern California Intercollegiate conference last year and are expected to battle for the crown again this year.
