Cats Riding Four-Game Loss Skein

By JIM DAWSON
Assistant Sports Editor

If Arizona’s groggy basketball team hasn’t developed an interiority complex, this weekend’s brutal assignments — Brigham Young and Utah — may push the Wildcats over the brink.

The only cheery note in the Friday 13th meeting with BYU and the Saturday night date with the Utes is that the games will be played in archaic Bear Down Gym, a sinister structure which most Western Athletic Conference teams regard as a house of horrors.

The UA losing string reached four games Saturday night in Tempe, where crude, cold-shooting Arizona State University severed its own seven-game famine by skinning the Wildcats, 73-67.

The victory handed ASU a 3-9 record, the WAC lead and Sun Devil coach Ned Wulk his 17th success in 19 meetings with Arizona. The Devils’ league lead is expected to last only until they take the court again (Friday night against Utah).

The Wildcats (5-8) have lost seven of their last eight games.

Arizona still holds a 79-43 series edge over ASU, but the Cats WAC debut served only to magnify coach Bruce Larson’s problems.

"Our front line scored pretty well, but we didn’t get much from the guards — again — and we couldn’t get untracked at first," said Larson. "We have to get together. Our inexperience still shows."

Larsen was pleased with the performance of 6-8, 225-pound Mike (Moose) Kordik, who started his first game and gave the Cats some hustling post play, and the outside shooting of veteran Mike Aboud.

Kordik, who scored 12 points, claimed eight rebounds, blocked five shots and handed out three assists, probably earned a regular job and the 6-5 Aboud and 6-7 Bill Davis gave promise of forming a dependable front line.

Aboud led Arizona with 17 points, Davis hit 14 and Brad Greene, who played well in a relief role, 11. Starting guards Jim Hansen and John Newsome contributed only four points while ASU’s backcourt regulars combined for 36.

"We weren’t very artistic," said Wulk, "but we scrambled around pretty good. Our shooting was poor again and Arizona accommodated us by not shooting well."

Roger Detter scored 22 points, Randy Lindner 16 and Frank Bailey 14 for the Sun Devils and all three played the entire 40 minutes. ASU got 13 points from sub Marion (King) Tutt, a 6-4 junior who more than made up for the ineffectiveness of 6-6 Mike Lange.

Lange, who had been wearing a softball catchers mask to protect a broken cheekbone, received a doctors permission to play without the device but he and 6-11 ASU soph Bob Edwards managed only four points apiece and both fouled out.

ASU hit only 33 percent of its field goal attempts to the Wildcats’ 36 percent, but the Devils swished 23 of 28 free throw tries while Arizona missed 12 of 29. The Cats led in rebounds, 58-55, although the 6-4, 225-pound Lindner was top individual board man with 13 retrieves.

Arizona State rocketed out to a 21-10 lead before UA clipped the intermission margin to 42-39. The Devils went up by 11 points again at 56-45, but Arizona moved to within two points — 63-61 — with 2:56 left in the game.

Guards Detter and Bailey and the scrambling Tutt locked up the decision with a string of free throws in the closing minutes when ASU unveiled an effective stall and Arizona be came bashfull with its own attack.