NCAA TOURNAMENT NOTEBOOK: Both teams feel loose, confident

BALTIMORE -- The hour-long Alabama practice last night, which was open to fans, was a circus. Meanwhile, the Quakers practice that immediately followed was rather sedate. "I don't know that you're ever going to have a great practice with all the distractions that go on around the NCAA practices," Alabama coach David Hobbs said. "If we happen to survive the first round and we have a closed practice that's an hour and a half long the next day, I'm sure it will be a whole lot better. But it's very difficult to come into this setting knowing you only have an hour." The clocks above each of the scoreboards in the cozy arena ticked down the hour during the practices as people milled around and crews got set for today's games. Tide center Antonio McDyess looked particularly impressive during Alabama's intrasquad scrimmage. He had a couple monster slams that sent the crowd into a frenzy, including one over teammate Wade Kaiser. McDyess was also drilling line drive shots from the baseline consistently. · Penn and Drexel both play in the evening session, which means the crowd should be pretty one-sided in the Philly schools' favor. That didn't seem to bother Hobbs though. The Tide has showed this year it is actually a better road team. Alabama won 88-70 at Arkansas. "To play on the road in an adverse situation has not been all that bad for us," Hobbs said. "What we have to worry about is the team that's out there between the lines." · Hobbs had the usual reaction when he saw his Tide was going to play an Ivy League squad. "We all sit there as coaches, particularly in those days when Princeton was in the Tournament and giving everyone so much trouble, and you hope for two things," he said. "You hope to see your name in a fairly high seed, and you hope Princeton wouldn't be in the spot next to you. "Penn is a team that plays in the Ivy League, but I think is a little bit different from most Ivy League teams from what I can tell in that they have much better athleticism than most of the teams in the Ivy League. For so many years, Princeton did it with intricate offense, good screening, good passing, back doors. I think Penn does it with a combination of that and very good athletes." · The only other meeting between Penn and Alabama came Dec. 29, 1986 at the BMA Holiday Classic in Kansas City. Alabama won the game, 110-68. · For those who care about pregame meals, both the Penn and Wake Forest basketball teams ate dinner last night at Sabatino's. On the menu was an intriguing dish called "Jerome," which the waitress described as egg-battered veal served dry with a lemon. Drexel ate across the street at Ciao Bella. · The team apparently in the least-envious position today is North Carolina A&T;, which earned its second straight berth by winning the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference over Coppin State here in Baltimore. The Aggies (15-14) face top-seeded Wake Forest in the first game today at Baltimore Arena. Roy Thomas -- the third coach in three seasons at A&T; --Esaid he is here to win, bringing along two suits just in case the team gets to stay through Saturday. The Aggies, who hail from Greensboro, have never met Wake Forest despite the scant 20 miles separating the schools. Thomas' star forward, John Floyd -- who is from Winston-Salem, home of the Demon Deacons -- grew up with a big Wake Forest fan in mother Willie Mae Floyd. "When I was coming up, she was a big Wake Forest fan, but I think she's for A&T; in this game," he said. · Penn coach Fran Dunphy's first NCAA Tournament experience came here in Maryland against Columbia in the 1967-68 season when he was a sophomore at La Salle. Dunphy and the Explorers lost the game.

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