COLLEGE BASKETBALL / NCAA MEN'S FINAL FOUR : For Them, Superdome Becomes a House of Style : Game 2: Kentucky has been unstoppable, Michigan has been barely getting by. Somehow, they got to the same place.

By DANNY ROBBINS

April 3, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

NEW ORLEANS — Startling NCAA tournament statistic No. 1:

Kentucky has beaten Utah, Wake Forest and Florida State by a total of 80 points. That’s 21, 34 and 25 points, respectively.

Startling NCAA tournament statistic No. 2:

Michigan has beaten UCLA, George Washington and Temple by a total of 15 points. That’s two, eight and five points, respectively.

A team on a roll against a team on a roller coaster. Such is the Kentucky-Michigan matchup today in the NCAA semifinals as the Final Four unfolds in the Superdome.

Both Kentucky (30-3) and Michigan (30-4) were seeded No. 1, Kentucky coming out of the Southeast Region and Michigan the West. But they have taken such divergent routes to the Final Four that the seeding process of three

weeks ago seems almost irrelevant now.

Has any team ever blitzed its first four tournament opponents the way Kentucky has this year?

With a 44-point victory over Rider in the first round, the Wildcats have won by an average margin of 31 points. The last time they won a game by fewer than 10 points was an 85-77 victory over Florida on the last day of the regular season.

“I thought we had the toughest region,” Coach Rick Pitino said. “I honestly thought that, except for the Rider game, all of our games would be won in the final five minutes. Florida State, Wake Forest and Utah are all outstanding teams. I was surprised at the outcomes of those games.”

Michigan, in contrast, looked ragged against UCLA, George Washington and Temple--the ninth-, 12th- and seventh-seeded teams, respectively, in the West. The Wolverines trailed during the second half of each game.

“We won,” Michigan forward Ray Jackson said. “It might not have been pretty, but we won. We’re here.”

Obscured by the difference in the two teams’ tournament performances is the fact that Kentucky-Michigan is a matchup of thoroughbreds --”two really, really athletic teams who play exceptionally hard and have the ability to score points in bunches,” Michigan Coach Steve Fisher said.

Said Jamal Mashburn, the Wildcats’ All-America forward: “They like to run. We do, too. That’s our style of basketball. Should be a nice game.”

Under Pitino, the Kentucky style is pressure defense at one end of the floor and three-point shooting at the other. The Wildcats are shooting 46.6% from three-point range in the tournament, with point guard Travis Ford making 13 of 22 and Mashburn nine of 18.

Ford, a 5-foot-9 junior who transferred to Kentucky from Missouri in 1990, has played exceptionally well in the postseason. Against Wake Forest and Florida State in the Southeast Regional semifinals and finals, he scored 45 points and shot 75% from the floor.

“He’s a very mature young man,” Pitino said of Ford. “He’s 24 years old. I was a head coach when I was his age. And he’s an outstanding shooter. He’s improved his game to where he’s going to the basket very well. I wouldn’t trade him for any point guard in basketball.

“Having Mashburn and Travis on this team is like having (John) Stockton and (Karl) Malone. They feed off each other very well. (Ford) is just a terrific backcourt player.”

Michigan probably will put 6-5 guard Jimmy King, instead of 6-8 point guard Jalen Rose, on Ford, the hope being that King’s quickness and all-round defensive ability will be a greater irritant to Ford’s game than Rose’s height might be.

The job of picking up the 6-8 Mashburn, who is as comfortable on the perimeter as he is under the basket, is expected to fall to the 6-6 Jackson.

“He is a great player,” Jackson said, “and when he gets the ball, he makes things happen. I’ll just try to keep the ball out of his hands as much as possible.”

If nothing else, Jackson will approach the assignment with confidence.

“I think I can stop anybody,” he said. “That’s my mentality.”

Perhaps playing Kentucky will put a charge into Jackson and the rest of the Fab Five, Michigan’s five sophomore starters who are making their second consecutive appearance in the Final Four.

Said George Washington Coach Mike Jarvis: “I guarantee you, as sloppy as they might have been against our press, they won’t be that way against Kentucky. No way. They’ll play at the level they have to play at--a higher level. Those kids have been hearing so often that they get bored. So guess what? They get bored. You hear it enough, you become it.”

Whatever the case, it should be a game played at a pace to Michigan’s liking. Unfortunately for the Wolverines, the pace will be to Kentucky’s liking, too.

“Yes, we are going to run,” Pitino said. “I think Michigan will be happy to hear that, because they haven’t had too much of that (in the tournament). Michigan is a very talented basketball team, and we expect to have a fun night running up and down the floor.”