Pac-10 Basketball | Love takes spot among the best

Into the house where his dad was once a player of endearment, Kevin Love stepped last week. The sights and sounds of McArthur Court might have even made his father Stan blush.

Almost 40 years ago, Stan Love was the sort of player opposing gyms loved to hate, a guy who once stepped on an opponent's chest. In advanced life, he's the dad who warred in the Oregon newspapers with Ducks coach Ernie Kent in the recruiting tug-of-war for his son.

Stan showed up at Oregon last week wearing a Bruins-blue polo shirt. The night quickly devolved into what UCLA coach Ben Howland called a "vile" atmosphere.

Strong stuff, that. More later on the atrocities attached to the Loves. For now, let's veer toward civility and call Kevin something else:

This is the best big man in the Pac-10 Conference since Bill Walton.

How intimidated was the 6-foot-10, 270-pound Love by the reception at Mac Court? With the Bruins missing a couple of key front-line players, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and Lorenzo Mata-Real, Love went for 26 points and 18 rebounds. At Oregon State, he broke the UCLA-freshman rebounding record he set 48 hours earlier, pulling down 21.

He's the Pac-10 player of the week for the third time, in a year in which the conference is its best in history.

Love is crazy-good, in sort of a subtle, understated way. The game comes to him. He rebounds efficiently (and repeatedly), stays within the offense, steps out to the three-point arc profitably and throws outlet passes like Patrick Ewing and Walton did.

He averages 17.3 points and 11.3 rebounds, shoots 76 percent on free throws, 38 percent on threes and leads a front-and-center NCAA-title contender in scoring.

All of which amounts to preaching to the choir if you're Marques Johnson, the Fox TV analyst and Wooden Award winner who played on the back end of Walton's UCLA days.

"Forget the scoring," Johnson wrote in an e-mail response. "The Unseldian [referencing Wes, the old NBA Bullets tough guy] commitment to going hard after every rebound is the most impressive thing to me. It's an innate toughness that only the special ones have."

Johnson says he heard concern in a TV-production meeting that day in Eugene that Love wouldn't be able to handle the heat of returning to his home state. Instead, Johnson says when they chatted before the game, Love "was laughing and relaxed to a point that I was uncomfortable because of his coolness."

Johnson says he was telling people even before Love's first game that he's the best he's seen since Walton. I wouldn't disagree.

Understand first that this isn't a list as competitive as the Cannes Film Festival. In fact, it's difficult to pinpoint who exactly in Pac-10 history is Love's stiffest challenger in this post-Walton argument. There hasn't been one single, dominant, drop-dead-best low-post guy, just a lot of people with varied skills who don't all fit the height/weight/attributes profile.

(Looking at the accompanying chart of our highly subjective best-big-guy-at-each-school, you might also wonder: Where have all the big guys gone?)

For instance, I wrestled with California's Mark McNamara, a rugged board-banger of a quarter-century ago, against Shareef Abdur-Rahim of 1996, ultimately deciding Abdur-Rahim was as much finesse guy as power player and going with McNamara.

Although he was only 6-7, Oregon's Greg Ballard was a bull underneath and, at heart, a low-post force. Washington presented a choice of James Edwards, Chris Welp or Todd MacCulloch, and Welp's career-leading scoring and 1987 league player-of-the-year status tilted it.

But back to what the Loves faced in Eugene. First, the "Pit Crew" somehow got hold of Kevin's cellphone number and sprayed it to anyone who cared. In the stands that night, there were signs and chants with drug and lewd, sexual references — what Howland termed "some really vile, disgusting, inappropriate innuendoes."

Pat Kilkenny, the Oregon athletic director, sat in front of the Pit Crew. Presumably, he was daydreaming of wood inlays on doors in Oregon's planned new $200 million arena, or the makeup of Oregon's fledgling competitive cheer team, because he didn't take action. Later, he called the atmosphere "horrible" and "malignant," and he apologized to UCLA on Tuesday.

Kent, who took the P.A. mike before Saturday's USC game and asked for good behavior, said Tuesday he had talked to Pit Crew people two days before the UCLA game and "strongly advised them to keep things in perspective. I thought all that was completely ignored."

It was, particularly by Kevin Love.

And what's more ...

• WSU coach Tony Bennett's allegation that a couple of Cougars were hit with water bottles after the ASU win apparently will die a slow death. "In my opinion, it's done," Bennett said. ASU coach Herb Sendek brushed off the incident. A school spokesman said AD Lisa Love likely will address the matter.

• The father of O.J. Mayo was charged Friday in Huntington, W.Va., with possession of half a pound of marijuana and intent to deliver, according to a TV station there.

• Remember how Oregon State's 6-8 Marcel Jones pondered a jump to the NBA last spring? He has made 15 of his last 70 field-goal attempts.

Bud Withers: 206-464-8281 or bwithers@seattletimes.com