Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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'Boswell imm Mathia BY HAROLD REAMES Of The Gamecock8taff Bob Mathias hasn't set any strong personal goals for himself this season. His primary goal is basically a team goal--to be in San Diego when this season's college basketball powers gather to vie for the national championship. He said his individual goalg are "to play as well as I possibly can in rebounding, my mental game and shooting, and just help the team as much as I possibly can. I haven't set any individual goals such as amounts of points or rebounds." Last season Mathias played excellent defense from his center position. He wasn't relied upon to score. This season, because of the presence of Tom Boswell at center, he will probably have to switch to forward and improve his scoring to earn a starting berth. "Boswell's kind of an immovable object and pretty much has the Tournament expanded to 32 teams The expanded field for the NCAA basketball tournament this year will include 32 teams, with 12 of the teams being at-large selections from anywhere in the nation. For the first time, conference runnerups, like Maryland in the ACC, Southern California in the Pacific Eight and Indiana in the Big Ten of last year, will be able to enter the postseason classic, no longer being- relegated im mediately to the lesser National Invitation Tournament in New York. In the 32-team field, will be 16 conference champions, four Eastern Collegiate Athletic Con ference Affiliates (the group in cludes many Eastern schools) and the 12 at-large berths, which is, of course, Carolina's goal. And, under the new set-up, conference champions no longer gain a first-round bye. The 12 at-large teams can be selected from anywhere across the country, but the new rules stipulate that a second place finisher in a conference cannot play the con ference winner in the playoffs unless it is in the finals. So, the runnerup selection would have to be sent to a region not playing its home region till the last game. Tournament sites this year are Providence for the East in the regionals, Dayton for the Mideast, Las Cruses, N.M., for the Midwest and .Portland for the West. Regional.seI March 22. March 15's frt-round games are at Charlotte and Penn in the East, Kentucky and Alabama in the Mideast, Oral Roberts arnd an unnamed place in tpie Midwest and' Artzona State and Washington State in the West. Read The Gamecock.. ovable' CS resg spot sewed-up," Mathias said. "He's probably the best ballplaye we have right now, and I'd have tc consider playing out of the cornei because that's my chance o starting." Mathias doesn't consider himsel a natural center. Last season he played center because the tean "didn't really have a center." In'his approach to plAying for ward this season, he is con centrating more on offense. "We are going to be more of an of fensive threat. We played really tough defense last year, which we will play -this year, but I think I've concentrated more on offense because I'll have to shoot biettei than I did last year. With people keying on Boswell and English, I might have to score a little more. I had to improve my shooting and I guess Ihave worked a little harder on It, maybe subconciously, but : think I have," The. "trimmed-up" Mathias Quantity discounts for B usiness Gifts ed toj V wit %E IM Bob Mathias believes that. a switch to forward will help his chances for a pro contract. "I lost from 15 to 20 pounds this summer-because I figured I would CUE BA] In ham -gift b 1EE DELIVE~R in the Columbin area with gifts. totalling over' )osition play out of the corner and I would have to be quicker. To play pro I would have to play out of the corner and that means my future lies in the corner. It's no longer in the middle." Mathias said that naturally he would like to start, but he feels that he will be equally effective coming off the bench if'he has to. "If I don't start I'll have time to think about the ganqe and size up some situations that the guys that are playing can't see right away." The basic strong points of this year's team, according to Mathias, ein the big men. "I think we have the finest frontline in the country. We have a lot of depth and should dominate on both boards. "Up front the possible starters are Boswell, English, myself, Nate (Davis) and Mark Greiner. Any one of us could start depending upon who we play and the per So] BAS FULL ESE IMP( LLS dsome 4)x es 09 GOURMET FOOD BASKET from $8499 WINE BOXES from $ 9 60 1801 TAYLOR STMsI swsitch sonnel they throw at us." In comparing this year's team to last year's, Mathies said this year's team has "IMore talent. It will be tough to top the team unity we had last year because that's how we won a lot of ball games, playing together. That could be the key since we do have so much talent this year. If we. play together we could go all the way and if we don't we won't go any place. "We definitely have a first-class schedule," Mathias said. "We're pla.io op-oth teams, but I don'ttink there is anybody on the schedule we can't beat. I see no reason that we should lose a game if we play up to our full capacity. "I think Coach McGuire expects great things from us- cham. pionship or at least the top five," Mathias said. KMELIER KET WITH BOTTLE OF IRTED WINE WINE & CHEESE PA RTIES qjo -s350 PER PERSON WINE CHEESE * BASKETS from 00 00