College Basketball

SI TOP 20
Monday's matchups at the Bud Light Holiday Classic in Las Vegas and the Dallas Morning News Classic would have made a grand Final Four: Vegas against the U.S. Robinson Academy, and Purdue vs. Carolina. A man can dream, can't he? Wonder if Kentucky and UCLA met going up and down the ladder? How did Arkansas lose to Southwest Missouri State ? Same way the Hogs' William Mills failed another drug test. Stupidity.
	LAST WEEK
1. UNLV (10-0)	1
2. PURDUE (7-0)	2
3. N. CAROLINA(8-1)	3
4. IOWA (11-0)	4
5. GEORGETOWN (8-0)	5
6. INDIANA (9-1)	7
7. TEMPLE (9-1)	8
8. AUBURN (7-0)	9
9. NAVY (5-1)	11
10. KENTUCKY (6-1)	—
11. ST. JOHN'S (8-0)	12
12. OKLAHOMA (7-2)	6
13. SYRACUSE (10-0)	15
14. DEPAUL(8-0)	16
15. KANSAS (6-2)	10
16. DUKE (6-1)	17
17. ILLINOIS (8-2)	14
18. FLA. STATE (5-1)	—
19. CLEMS0N(7-0)	—
19.9 TULANE*(0-0)	—
*May 1987 inspire university president Eamon Kelly to reinstate a game that he Green Waved away in the wake of point-shaving allegations in 1985.

AND THE EGGNOG ISN'T SOUR

Texas A & M coach Shelby Metcalf has his holiday tournament priorities in order.

The Aggies so far have played in the Kentucky Invitational and the Connecticut Mutual Classic in Hartford and will wind up festivities with the Heritage Drake Classic in Des Moines . Metcalf says he likes the city because a radio station broadcasts the pretournament banquet live and replays the best of a coach's monologue the next morning. "It's not whether you win or lose but whether you're funny or not," he says.

And why Hartford ?

"They've got a great spread in the hospitality room," says Metcalf .

DANKE SCH�N

Can this man never rest? Just when UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian got his team roosting at No. 1 in the polls, a USA Today story reported that Tark's contract calls for him to receive $39,118 worth of tickets per year, including 234 season tickets. Tark told Joe Hawk of the Las Vegas Review-Journal , "Those tickets are for assistant coaches, families, recruits. They're allotted to the program, not me. They made it sound like they were all mine." After distributing tickets to families, friends and associates, says Old Sad Eyes, "I only have around 80 left."

That won't cover Wayne Newton 's horn section.

DAMNING THE BEAVERS

Last March Oregon State wound up its first losing season in 15 years. Soon after, five Beaver underclassmen and a redshirt departed the team; none shows up on this year's roster. Oregon State leaked an explanation that a couple flunked out, a couple of others became homesick and left school and others "saw the handwriting on the wall."