n743  0528  23 Mar 78
 
BC-Kentucky 1stadd 03-23
(Mike Downey) . . . he says.
    But the word ''play'' nearly stops him in midstence,
because Jay Shidler does not play much any more. And when he
does play, he does not play very well. He says so himself.
''You saw me,'' he says. ''I didn't do much, did I?''
    The head turns, the eyes stay low.
    ''I don't know what's wrong. I wish I did. The whole
season's been a disaster. Not for the team . . . it's been
a real good year for the team. But I haven't done a thing.''
    He has started twice. One of those games Kentucky lost, and
it has lost only two all season. Jay Schidler is shooting 41 per
cent from the floor, which is the percentage of a stone-fingered
center, not a high school All-American guard. He is
averaging 3.9 points a game.
    He doesn't know what to blame. There is the bone in
his foot that he broke last October. ''That cost me about 10 weeks
altogether. I didn't even dress until our third game.'' There also
is the Kentucky system of working the basketball into the brutes
who play in the front line, like 6-11 Rick Robey and 6-11
Mike Phillips. ''I've always been a guy who put it up
from anywhere,'' Shidler says.
    At Lawrenceville, he fired missiles that made the crowds hum
like Mazdas. Kentucky has changed his style, just as it has
changed his appearance. High school fans remember the blond
bomber, the ''Bionic Boy,'' whose long hair flopped on his
shoulders as he shot. If the hair looked bleached, it's
because it was. Now it is his natural color, a dishwater
brown, and cropped close. ''There are rules to follow at
Kentucky,'' Jay Shidler says.
    Kyle Macy follows the rules, too, although his dark
brown shock of hair always has been short and rather
American Graffiti-ish. Like Shidler, he has sacrificed his
scoring to fit into the Kentucky system. ''Kyle took three
shots all night,'' coach Joe B. Hall said after the Miami game,
''and the offense ran perfectly. I think that's a credit
that he is requested not to shoot. ''I score when I
have to,'' Macy snaps.
    It had been suggested to him that maybe Kentucky preferred
Macy to Shidler because he surrendered the ball more easily to his
teammates. ''I don't think that's so,'' Macy says. ''I didn't
take Jay's place in the starting lineup. I'm doing the job
Larry Johnson did last year - the playmaking.
    Truman Claytor won the other guard position.''
    The guards will have their hands full Saturday afternoon
in St. Louis when the Wildcats go up against Arkansas. The
Razorbacks have three people who ''put it up from anywhere,'' just
as Jay Shidler used to do. They are Marvin Delph, Ron Brewer
and Sidney Moncrief, or, as Al McGuire calls them,
''The Arkansas Triplets.''
    Kentucky's  front line, which is rougher than Roller Derby,
figures to limit Arkansas to one shot each time down the
floor. The 665 pounds of Phillips, Robey and 6-5 Jack
(Goose) Givens will start the game, and before long Joe B. Hall
will summon 6-5, 230-pound James Lee into the game. Should one
of the four get into foul trouble, Hall has 6-11, 250-pound
sophomore Chuck Aleksinas. Alex Karras would be a
guard on this team.
    Aleksinas is the only one of the five returning next season, so
for Kentucky, the future may be now.
    All the guards, however, will return, including Jay Shidler.
    ''I like it here,'' Shidler says. ''I'm unhappy now, but
I'm not leaving.''
    He may not get any happier, though. Dwight Anderson, a 6-3 high
school star from Dayton often mentioned as the top guard
prospect in the country, said last weekend he intends to enroll
at Kentucky. Dwight Anderson averages 38 points a game.
    Macy, who knows the traumas of transferring, says he
''understands'' if Shidler can't adjust to riding the bench.
He spent an unhappy year on the sidelines himself, waiting
for his eligibility after leaving Purdue for ''personal
reasons.'' He knows what Shidler is going through.
    ''But there's no resentment,'' Macy says. ''Jay's the
loudest one on the bench, cheering for me and Truman and everybody.
We're a real close group. We live in one big house on
campus. There aren't many secrets between us.''
    ''We are good friends,'' Shidler says. ''I stay in
Lexington during the summer so we can play together. I got a
construction job and worked on a horse park they're building in
Lexington. Kind of a museum, a tourist attraction for
people who love horses.
    ''That job kept me fit. I came to Kentucky last year
weighting 181 pounds, and when the season was over I
weighed 205. They really feed us here. But I worked hard
to get down to 185 before this season started. Then I got
hurt. The whole year's been a mess for me ever since.''
hb    (Endit Downey) 03-23
 
 
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