"It's Always Too Soon to Quit"

By Tom Callahan

The short dynasty of Houston, the sweet destiny of N.C. State

As unlikely stories go, the ending of the college basketball season last week went way past irony, nearly all the way to poetry. Of many possible settings for its showcase, the National Collegiate Athletic Association selected Albuquerque, where two years ago a judge pointed to the easy morals of the community in declining to punish former University of New Mexico Coach Norm Ellenberger for fraud in the name of recruiting. The Lobos' gym lent to the N.C.A.A. for this occasion, the Final Four, is known as "the Pit."

Houston, Louisville, North Carolina State and Georgia went into the Pit on a Saturday afternoon for the semifinals of the 48-team tournament, No. 1 Houston and No. 2 Louisville presumably to play for a national championship, N.C. State and Georgia apparently to try on each other's glass slipper. If the ball cannot be kicked through a goal post, the game is not for Georgia. N.C. State, while a basketball school sure enough, lost ten games this year, five times as many as Houston, more than any eventual champion in history. State's 67-60 success against Georgia in the first semifinal was applauded politely, but cheers were reserved for the varsity.

Gracing the Final Four three of the past four 1 years, Louisville has set a standard in college basketball recently, and it is not enough to say Houston raised the standard with a 21-1 second-half rampage that transformed the exercise into a 94-81 exhibition of stunt flying. "Kinda awesome," murmured Louisville Coach Denny Crum, whose players had never seen anything like it. "Not in a real game," said Scooter McCray.

Thirteen Houston dunks rattled the sport, several deserving not just points but marks. "Some sixes, some sevens," judged Jim Valvano, N.C. State's streety New York coach. "Drexler had a ten-plus." Clyde Drexler, a 6-ft. 7-in. forward, is fitted with Elgin Baylor's old gyroscope. For Houston's jumping fraternity, call letters Phi Slamma Jamma, arrogance was unavoidable. Forward Benny Anders described the method of the Cougars' 26th straight victory: "Take it to the rack, and stick it on them."

The least overbearing, most overwhelming man in the tournament (not to mention the most unlikely participant in the sport) was 7-ft. Akeem ("the Dream") Olajuwon, 20, a converted soccer goalie discovered in Lagos, Nigeria, by a U.S. State Department worker acquainted with Houston Coach Guy Lewis. Olajuwon can run like Alberto Juantorena, the Cuban Olympian, and is a precocious protege of former Houston Rockets Center Moses Malone, now with Philadelphia. "What is the most important thing Moses has taught you?" Olajuwon was asked. "Don't sign anything," he answered.

If a Nigerian central figure in an American basketball tournament is not farfetched enough, Akeem became the first man of any nationality to mention education at the Final Four. When he called home Sunday, none of the conversation was wasted on trivialities. "My parents don't know about basketball," said Olajuwon, whose lilt brings back the beautiful Nigerian prizefighter Dick Tiger. "They ask about education. Some day I plan to go into commodities, but you need money to make money." The N.B.A., then? "Ah," he said.

For two days, Houston was praised like no team since U.C.L.A. "To be able to play on the last day of the season" was all Valvano could wish. But he said: "The dream continues." It was founded on a pair of senior guards who look like bank guards, Shooter Dereck Whittenburg and Playmaker Sidney Lowe. "Sidney," according to Whittenburg, "was the oldest-looking guy in the history of junior high." They go back that far. "At times now it's like telepathy," said Lowe.

In the Atlantic Coast Conference, where a 19-ft. shot is rewarded with three points, Whittenburg's mortars were the antidote for Virginia's 7-ft. 4-in. Ralph Sampson. But then, at just two points a shot, N.C. State beat Virginia again in the regionals. A sophomore with a sense of theater, a forward named Lorenzo Charles, made two free throws at the end of that 63-62 victory, just as he had made one with three seconds left in a 71-70 triumph over Wake Forest.

In double overtime, State beat Pepperdine. By a point, the Wolfpack defeated Nevada-Las Vegas. At any of these moments, the dream could have ended.

The final was on a Monday night. Though N.C. State led by eight at halftime (on the unexpected outside shooting of 6-ft. 11-in. Thurl Bailey), the Cougars scored the first 15 points of the second half before the country coach, Lewis, 61, inexplicably slowed them down. State began to foul, Houston to miss; Whittenburg and Lowe started lofting distant jump shots. With half a minute left, the score stood tied at 52.

In the cool days that followed, people would fault but not blame Olajuwon for permitting Lorenzo Charles the inside position on the rebound. But there was no rebound. Whittenburg's 30-ft. buzzer shot missed completely. Standing under the backboard, Charles caught it and, scoring State's only second-half basket not shot from outside, stuffed it. Against Phi Slamma Jamma. That was the poetry.

The city coach, Valvano, 37, provided the prose: "The great thing about college basketball is that you win your national championship on the floor, not in some poll. Everyone is captured at the end of the year by the excitement because there's always hope. It's always too soon to quit." Whittenburg and Lowe glanced at each other, and as usual nothing had to be said, but Whittenburg wanted to say it. "We'll live with this the rest of our lives," he told Lowe. Neither made All-America, first or second team. North Carolina State had no All-Americas, just all of America. --By Tom Callahan This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.