Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 11, 1994                   TAG: 9403110049
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BILOXI, MISS.                                LENGTH: Medium

METRO HONORS CRUM AS ITS COACH OF YEAR

In the past, Louisville's Denny Crum has mused that only coaches who turn a bad team into a good one seem to win the Metro Conference coach of the year award.

That criterion almost always excludes Crum, whose Cardinals rarely lose. On Thursday, however, Crum was voted the Metro's coach of the year for fulfilling high expectations with his 23rd Louisville team.

He won his fourth Metro award - but the first since 1983 - in what some may consider a surprisingly lopsided vote, 34 for Crum to nine for Virginia Tech's Bill Foster, whose team went from 10-18 and a last-place preseason prediction to 17-9 overall and 6-6 in the Metro.

Tulane's Perry Clark received two votes and Southern Mississippi's M.K. Turk had one.

In other Metro awards announced Thursday, Louisville's Clifford Rozier repeated as player of the year, and Cardinals guard DeJuan Wheat was voted freshman of the year.

Rozier averaged 19.1 points and 10.9 rebounds for the Cardinals. Wheat averaged 14 points and is the Metro's top 3-point shooter (41.4 percent).

Rozier, Wheat, first-team All-Metro Greg Minor, second-team All-Metro Dwayne Morton and Metro all-freshman team member Jason Osborne led 14th-ranked Louisville to a 24-5 regular-season finish.

Since 1983, the Cardinals have won five Metro regular-season titles, four league tournaments and one NCAA championship (1986).

"Sometimes, it's harder to do what's expected of you," Crum said. "There's more pressure on you if you're supposed to do it. But I've never been hung up on individual awards anyway. I didn't do this by myself."

Rozier, a first-team All-America selection by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association, said Crum's competitiveness in everything from basketball to table tennis rubs off on his teams.

"He won't let you fail," Rozier said. "People could say I'm the No. 1 player on the planet. He'll find a lot of things wrong with my game."

Foster found nothing amiss in the voting. He said he could have voted for himself but voted for Crum.

"I think sometimes we all say, `They've got the players, they ought to win,' " Foster said. "It's not always as easy as people think it is. It'd be nice [to win the award], but it's not going to affect my day. This year has been rewarding enough for me."

Keywords:
BASKETBALL