Chain Could Have Had Another Link

There would have been another UCLA-family connection at Valparaiso this season, had Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, son of the former Laker-UCLA star of the same name, stayed in school there.

The younger Abdul-Jabbar spent two years at the Indiana school, playing basketball as a red-shirt freshman in 1995-96. He transferred after that season to Santa Monica College, then last fall transferred again, to Western Kentucky in Bowling Green, Ky., where he played as a reserve with the Hilltoppers, who finished 10-19, 6-12 in the Sun Belt Conference.

Abdul-Jabbar, who is 6 feet 6, played in eight games, scoring 14 points, with a single-game high of eight.