The Country Slickers

Down on the West Virginia bench, Coach Fred Schaus crunched a program in his country-ham-sized hands and grimly watched his lanky, burr-headed Mountaineers put the ball in play. Around him, Philadelphia's Palestra was rocking with astonished delight. With a 75-10-72 lead, the local boys from Villanova were just 30 seconds away from upsetting undefeated West Virginia, the nation's first-ranked team.

Smoothly, the well-drilled West Virginians whipped the ball back and forth until baby-faced Sophomore Jerry West broke free, twisted through the air and sank a layup that made the score 75 to 74. Then Schaus's mountain boys got a whopping break. A mix-up between officials gave them the ball under the Villanova hoop. Instantly, a pass flicked in to Star Center Lloyd Sharrar, who arched his 6 ft. 10 in. off the floor and took aim. Two seconds before the gun, his winning shot dropped in. The hustling Mountaineers had overtaken a 14-point lead in ten frantic minutes. Final score: West Virginia 76, Villanova 75.

"We weren't quite ready to hardnose with them so early," said Schaus after last week's squeeze. "But in the second half, the boys found they'd have to do it. And they did." When the hardnosed Mountaineers landed back in Morgantown at 1 in the morning, they got a reception fit for World Series winners.

Stay Home & Known. With such home-state support, Fred Schaus (rhymes with spouse) has built the most successful team in college basketball out of a band of boys from West Virginia and neighboring Pennsylvania. In other years, Schaus's boys from back home too often panicked at the first tweak of big-time pressure; last year, for example, West Virginia collapsed in the first round of the N.C.A.A. tournament. But this year the Mountaineers went at it with slick skill, won the high-pressure Kentucky Invitational tournament by snapping the winning streak (at 37) of North Carolina, last year's national champions.

Fred Schaus knows all about hard, high-pressure basketball; he used to play it himself. As a teenager, he was good enough to make the wartime Great Lakes Naval Training Station team, later played so well for West Virginia that the professional Fort Wayne Pistons tapped him after his junior year. Schaus turned pro, managed to get his B.S. (major: physical education) before going off to play with the Pistons for four years, three as captain. In 1954, when West Virginia Basketball Coach Robert N. ("Red") Brown moved up to athletic director, Schaus was his logical successor.

Schaus soon found that the West Virginia hills grow a hardy breed of human kangaroos on high school basketball courts, now sets out night after night over the winding West Virginia roads in his 1957 Chevrolet to search for talent at high school games. Ohio-born Coach Schaus uses a recruiting argument that seems to work: he went out of his state to play ball, he explains, and now is almost a stranger back home. The moral: stay home and stay known.

By cultivating his backyard (with an occasional foray into Pennsylvania), Schaus has created an anomaly in big-time college basketball: a home-grown team. North Carolina combs the New York subway circuit for its players, and Kansas stretched out to Philadelphia for Wilt ("The Stilt") Chamberlain. But Schaus finds his stars in towns like East Bank (pop. 1,500) and Shinnston (pop. 2,793). As a result, the state rightly looks on the team as its own, not a high-priced import, follows its games with chauvinistic zeal.

"Conditioned Reflex." At 32, Schaus is a boyish, genial giant (6 ft. 5 in., 220 lbs.) who still can mix it up with his team in practice, still share his team's private jokes. But he is also a solid tactician who builds his offense around a whirling fast break led by Forward Bob Smith, insists on a dogged, man-to-man defense.

"Our practice is designed so the basic plays and patterns become mechanical. I try to develop a conditioned reflex in the boys so they won't have to take even a split second to think in a given situation. They'll just react automatically." With such a system, Schaus has turned out an extraordinarily well-balanced team, e.g., all five starters regularly score in the double figures. The balance was neatly illustrated at week's end when Coach Schaus's boys had such an easy time drubbing George Washington University, 93-66 (for their 12th straight) that G.W. Coach Bill Reinhart marveled: "They have everything a great team needs."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.