12/27/1972

By P. J. ERICKSON
Assistant Sports Editor

LAS VEGAS— John Bayer, coach of Nevada-Las Vegas, swears it's a true story. "I have a piece of film on our victory over Oral Roberts University," says the Rebel coach, "and I swear to you the first five minutes of it are nothing but a blur, even in slow motion. That's how fast the ball was moving up and down the court."

Bayer may decide to employ high speed cameras tonight when his team meets the University of Arizona in the championship game of the Las Vegas Holiday Classic, beginning at 10 p.m. Tucson time.

"They are very quick, but I think we can rim on them," said UA coach "Fred Snowden after scouting the Rebels' 89-83 victory over Duke last night.

Snowden's Wildcats defeated Purdue, 83-80, in the first game at the Convention Center with a clutch performance by an unexpected lineup that had Coniel Norman, John Irving and Randy Echols, all substitutes, playing the entire second half.

"I think some of their speed is suspect," Snowden said of the Rebels. "I don't think Bob Florence gets back well on defense and I'm not sure about No. 10 (Lester Weaver).

He made a lot of mistakes tonight even though Duke doesn't really have anyone fast enough to harass him. And I think we do."

Much of that harassment may have to come from Eric Money, the talented UA guard who stumbled through the opening minutes of last night's game and was lifted early, never to return.

Money was solemn in the revelry of the UA dressing room, and he had a long talk with Snowden after the rest of the team had left. "I just told him how much I thought of him," Snowden said afterward, "and that my opinion of him and his talent hadn't diminished one iota. Eric's been bothered by virus or a bug of some kind and he couldn't get untracked. I didn't want to push him. That's why I took him out and kept him out and I wanted him to know it.

"He'll have a heck of a ball game when we play for the championship."

Snowden explained his decision to stay with his lineup through the pressurized closing minutes when the experience of senior starters Tom Lawson and Lynard Harris might have seemed the logical alternative.

"I didn't really consider taking them out," said the UA coach. "I wanted these guys to win a game for us. Randy, Coniel, John, they hadn't really done that yet. Harris won the Southern Cal game for us and I thought Lawson won the Northern Illinois game. Eric Money had won a couple for us. I wanted this bunch to get a taste of that.

"I've always believed that if I dressed 12 people for a game I have to be ready to play 12 people. And they all had better be ready to play, because if I dress 'em, I'll call on 'em.

"Randy Echols was ready tonight. We had Paul Strong with a bad knee and Jimmy Wakefield woozy from some flu shots, so we have two people missing from the front line substitutes. I called on Randy and he did the job. He did a great job defensively.

"As for Coniel... well, I've always said he's best shooter I've seen. Nothing happened tonight to make me change my mind."

Norman's two free throws with 1:36 to play were the winning points, coming after six ties in the last five minutes, the first of which came at 65-65 on Echols' long jumper.

Norman scored 17 points in the second half and a total of 25, but the three newcomers all shared heroics in the final minutes. Echols opened a three point lead at 78-75 by canning a pair of free throws with 4:30 to play. Irving broke a 78-78 tie with a one-step drive and layup before Norman's two free throws, following Frank Kendrick's basket, gave UA a permanent lead.

Purdue had possession after Norman was called for traveling with 23 seconds left, but the Boilermakers used up all but five ticks of the clock batting shots around before Irving vacuumed a rebound with five seconds left. After a timeout, UA ran out the clock moving the ball down the court.

"You have to give Arizona a lot of credit," said Purdue coach Fred Schaus. "They have some great outside shooting, more than our scouting reports indicated they had. And they just kept scratching. I think maybe we lost it back in the first half, after we built up a 10 or 12-point lead. We just quit playing and they didn't."

The big guns in Nevada's win were Florence, who threw in 33 points, and James Baker, whose rumored dissension with head coach Bayer wasn't apparent in his 25-point effort last night.

Arizona brings a 5-3 record to the title game while UNLV is 4-5. Officials expect a 6,300- fan sellout, most of whom will be very vocal in support of the Rebels.

Tonight's game will be telecast on Channel 11 in Tucson and will be broadcast over KTUC.