McGUIRE: : LSU’s Dale Brown Is on a Roll That Will End Saturday in Dallas

Close only counts in drive-in movies and hand grenades, but before we go on and on about the winners from the NCAA regional finals Saturday and Sunday, I’d like to tip my hat to:

--David Robinson of Navy, who reminded me of Bill Bradley the year he carried Princeton to the Final Four.

--Chuck Person, the Auburn forward who should be one of the players taken in the NBA draft lottery.

--Jim Valvano, Coach V., who finally ended his emotional roller coaster without a true point guard.

--Kenny (Sky) Walker, who again brought the Kentucky Wildcats as far as he possibly could considering they were without a legitimate center.

So let’s look at the semifinals:

Louisville vs. LSU

Now it’s down to four, and we have only one team that shouldn’t be there--LSU. Dale Brown has been dancing between the clipboard and the pulpit, stringing miracles like some guy on a hot roll at the MGM Grand.

That roll will end Saturday in Dallas because Louisville will get the Tigers in foul trouble and has that triumvirate of guards, led by fifth-year All-American Milt Wagner, that can exploit LSU’s zone.

Louisville will force a transition game and take advantage of the Bayou Bengals’ backcourt. I look for the Cardinals to shut down Don Redden, who is the key to LSU. John Williams, the 6-8, 237-pound man-child, probably will end up in foul trouble, and the Tigers can’t afford that because they need an exceptional game from him.

The Cardinals also have Mr. March or Cool Hand Luke, Denny Crum, who played his normal no-buffalo-chip schedule and waxed the paint that other coaches wouldn’t. It’s a shame he’s not being mentioned as a candidate to coach our Olympic team in ‘88, which, by the way, looks like it will be a two-horse race between Larry Brown and John Thompson.

I guess I’ll have to jump on loose-lips Billy Packer’s bandwagon and plan to see the Cardinals in prime time on Monday.

THE HIDDEN KEYS: For LSU, guard-turned-center Ricky Blanton has to get at least five putbacks and stay out of foul problems. That will be very difficult because Louisville will come at him with its ballerinas in the sky.

For Louisville, it’s forward Herbert Crook, who must score from multiple angles. And nobody, including Dick Enberg, can tell me Pervis Ellison is a freshman. He’s Rodney McCray in disguise.

Duke vs. Kansas

The result in this one won’t be different from the game these teams played in the Big Apple NIT, a 92-86 Duke victory.

Johnny Dawkins is the second coming of Dave Bing, so natural and instinctive. His only problem might be a lack of weight, but George Gervin had the same problem and he scored 30 points a game for quite a few NBA seasons.

Mark Alarie is the second coming of Dave DeBusschere. He does all the right things you’d want out of a forward. He has no quickness, but he’s so fast squaring up on his jumper that it doesn’t matter.

Duke hasn’t played well in its first four tournament games. The players were feeling the pressure of everybody expecting them to get to Dallas. Now that they’re in the Final Four, they’ll relax and show everybody what kind of team they have.

Kansas, with Danny Manning and Greg Dreiling, has the better baseline, but Duke has the best guard tandem in the last 10 years, and that will be the difference. What the Blue Devils do is play adequate offense until their defense takes over. They’ll eventually start forcing turnovers and then let the offense bump up the score.

THE HIDDEN KEYS: Duke has to get 8-and-8 from Jay Bilas, its center. The Blue Devils will need his eight points and eight rebounds to neutralize Dreiling. I saw Dreiling five years ago when he was at Wichita State, and he’s not the same guy I saw Sunday against N.C. State. Larry Brown has really made him a player.

Ron Kellogg is the man Kansas needs to make 50% of his shots. His outside shooting will be critical.

Here’s some things I’ll remember about this NCAA tournament:

--The Jack Dempsey clock at Kemper Arena.

--David Robinson, a true student-athlete playing at Navy.

--The home-court advantage of the Jayhawks.

--Bobby Cremins wearing blue suede shoes to walk into his Heartbreak Hotel on Peachtree Street.

--The class of North Carolina in defeat. The Tar Heels handled themselves like true sportsmen, which comes from Coach Dean.

--The commercials by the NCAA involving the CEO’s and Olympic heroes are long overdue. Whoever thought those up deserves two extra tickets to the Final Four.

--And don’t forget my Final Four special on NBC, Sunday at 10:30 a.m. If you don’t like it, I’ll send you a T-shirt--and I know I’ll get a letter from Billy Packer, who doesn’t like anything that’s not on CBS.