03/18/92 - Sports Illustrated writer Curry Kirkpatrick said Tuesday he never spoke with Connecticut center Rod Sellers before quoting him in a November article, but used a quote obtained by sports writer Anthony Cotton of the Washington Post.
Sellers disputes the Sports Illustrated passage that quoted him as saying of Duke's Christian Laettner: "I just wanted to kill him, in fact I still do -- if I saw him now I would try to hurt him."
Monday, Sellers said, "I was misquoted. I never spoke to [Kirkpatrick]. Never. I never spoke to anyone from Sports Illustrated and I never said that to a reporter at all."
But Cotton said Sellers did say it -- after UConn's 81-67 loss to Duke March 22 in the Midwest Regional semifinals of the 1991 NCAA Tournament. The quote appeared in the March 29 edition of the Washington Post in a feature story on Laettner written by Cotton.
"It was in the locker room," Cotton said Tuesday. "He said that Laettner had just taken his head out of the game and he was angry. He definitely said it."
Sellers, in Cincinnati, could not be reached.
He will sit out UConn's opening-round NCAA Tournament game Thursday night against Nebraska as the result of a one-game suspension upheld Friday by the NCAA men's basketball committee for what it considered "flagrant misconduct" in the incident last March.
With just under 6 minutes remaining, Laettner and Sellers scrambled for a loose ball under UConn's basket. As a jump ball was called, Sellers landed on top of Laettner, pinning Laettner on his back. Sellers elbowed Laettner in the face and twice used his forearm to slam Laettner's head to the floor. No foul was called.
On UConn's previous possession, Sellers had taken a Laettner elbow in the right cheek.
Sellers fouled out with 4 minutes, 55 seconds left and picked up a technical foul for taunting Laettner.
The lead official of the game, Jim Bain, Tuesday refused to say why no foul was called on Sellers. "I have no comment, none at all," said Bain, who has retired to become supervisor of officials for the Missouri Valley Conference.
Tom O'Neil and Dave Hall, the other officials, could not be reached.
Staff writer Ken Davis contributed to this story.
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