DATE: Thursday, November 20, 1997           TAG: 9711200647

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: TOM ROBINSON

DATELINE: RICHMOND                          LENGTH:   62 lines

UNC SOARS, BUT RICHMOND COACH NOT IN OVER HIS HEAD

One thing they don't do at Wheeling Jesuit, at Erie Community College, at Canisius or anyplace else John Beilein has played or coached basketball in his 44 years is skywalk along the baseline.

They do such things at North Carolina. Some guard throws an alley-oop pass from way out beyond the top of the key and some spring-loaded forward flies through the air, grabs the ball like a grape and stuffs it in the hoop as if it were nothing at all.

Which, of course, it isn't. For them. For Beilein's University of Richmond Spiders, for every team he's ever coached in 20 years, games take place on the ground.

Here you have the central dilemma Richmond faced Wednesday night - somehow keeping the Tar Heels, Antawn Jamison in particular, out of the Robins Center rafters.

It was a major chore. Much bigger than Sunday when the Spiders, in Beilein's Richmond debut, dumped the University of Virginia 83-79 in two overtimes.

``The other day, we created the problems,'' Beilein said after his team was toasted 84-65 by the Tar Heels. ``Tonight, the problems were ours.''

Yet after a while, the Spiders caught on, foiling the picks that triggered the handful of alley-oops North Carolina threw down in the first half. So the Tar Heels shot layups and short jumpers instead, with 64 percent proficiency.

Richmond shot 3-pointers, 32 of them, many more than Beilein wants to shoot against normal competition. The Spiders made enough of them, though, - 11 for the game - that they trailed by only 39-36 early in the second half.

Seven straight points in the next 63 seconds by North Carolina's Shammond Williams, however, greased the rout. Jamison finished with 26 points and Williams had 21 in what new Carolina coach Bill Guthridge called ``a workmanlike effort.''

``I told coach Beilein he's doing a very good job,'' Guthridge said. ``We've just got better players than he does. But I think they'll do very well in their conference.''

That would be the Colonial, which for Beilein is as big as it's ever gotten. He spent the last five years at Canisius, which is in Buffalo, which is in Northern New York, which is where he spent nearly his whole life.

So Beilein took a brave step when he left family and friends to cart his wife and four children south and cast his lot with Richmond.

Considering he has a 1-1 record against ACC competition - Richmond plays Wake Forest next week - using players he did not recruit, but who are sweating, sprawling for basketballs and showing no fear despite their limitations, you'd have to say the relationship is already humming.

Not that it should surprise anybody. Beilein, who has never been an assistant coach, has won 348 games and lost 206. He's the only college coach in the country who has posted 20-win seasons at four levels: junior college, NAIA, Division II and Division I.

Before Sunday, he'd slain no ACC monsters, though. He went up against Wake Forest twice and Duke once while at Canisius. Beilein, in fact, made his Division I debut against the Blue Devils, one of the Grant Hill editions.

``We were up 30-24,'' Beilien said. ``Then they went on a 30-0 run to end the first half.''

That one told him, figuratively, that he wasn't in Kansas anymore.

Five years later, by the looks of things, Richmonders eager to revisit the Dick Tarrant glory days are probably going to be glad Beilein's not at Canisius anymore.

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