Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • Page 314

C4 THE HARTFORD COURANT Friday, December 8, 2000 COLLEGE BASKETBALL Wake Forest Upsets Kansas; Tennessee Survives SMU NATION tainment Sports Arena in Raleigh, N.C., on March 18 and 20. The East Regional will be held on March 25 and 27, with the champion advancing to the Final Four at the Ala-modome in San Antonio. Lou to Garden rafters: Former St. John's basketball coach Lou Carne-secca will have a banner raised in his honor at Madison Square Garden, arena officials said. The ceremony for Carneseca, 526-200 in 24 seasons with St.

John's, will take place at halftime of the game between Connecticut and St. John's on Jan. 30. His banner will include his name and the No. 526.

The award, initiated in 1999 by the Los Angeles Athletic Club to accompany its Wooden Award for the college basketball player of the year, went to North Carolina's Dean Smith and Duke's Mike Krzyzewski the first two years. East final at Meadowlands in '04: The East Regional final of the NCAA Tournament will return to the Continental Airlines Arena in 2004. It will mark the 10th time the regional final will be held at the Meadowlands, but the first since 1999. Preliminary sites for the 2004 East Regional will be the HSBC Arena in Buffalo, N.Y., and the Raleigh Enter since Tim Duncan's senior season of 1996-97. The Jayhawks failed to start 8-0 under Williams for the fifth time in his 13 seasons, shooting a season-low 38 percent and turning it over 20 times without Gregory in the lineup.

Drew Gooden led Kansas with 13 points. No. 6 Tennessee 85, SMU 76: Reserve Ron Slay scored 22 points as Tennessee overcame a nine-point second-half deficit in Knoxville, Tenn. Slay gave the Volunteers (8-0) their first lead since 3-2 with a one-handed shot in the lane to make it 67- 66 with 8:36 left. Tennessee lost the lead and then tied it again at 69 after Slay made two free throws with 7:04 left.

Slay made his only attempted three-pointer at the top of the key and Isiah Victor made one free throw for a 73-69 lead with 4:41 left, and the Vols never trailed again. Jeryl Sasser had 20 points and 12 rebounds for the Mustangs (4-1). Olson to get award: Lute Olson, who has taken Arizona to the NCAA tournament each of the past 16 years, will become the third coach to receive the John R. Wooden Legends of Coaching Award. Associated Press One of the nation's best offenses looked lost without its star Thursday night Wake Forest got a career-high 21 points from Josh Howard, and Craig Dawson added 20 as the llth-ranked Demon Deacons beat No.

3 Kansas 84-53 in Winston-Salem, N.C., as the Jayhawks played without leading scorer Kenny Gregory. And it showed as the Jayhawks matched their fourth-worst loss in school history and second-worst under coach Roy Williams. Kansas (7-1) came in averaging Battle To Have Surgery Today Arizona's Arenas Easy To Notice full year of eligibility if she does not play again this season. NCAA rules allow medical hardships when a player is injured and plays less than 20 percent of her team's games. Battle was injured in the second half of the Huskies 77-53 victory over Miami on Tuesday, when she dived for a loose ball and was caught under a Miami player struggling for possession.

She screamed and was helped from the court. She showed up briefly at practice on Wednesday and was visibly upset as she told her teammates the ligament By DESMOND CONNER Courant Staff Writer Gilbert Arenas seems to have a firm understanding of the team concept. But he also understands that some players remain big names even though their impact is not as great as the hype had suggested. Arenas, a 6-foot-3 sophomore shooting guard for the fifth-ranked Arizona Wildcats, was not one of those big names as a recruit out of Grant High in Van Nuys, where he left as the school's all-time scoring leader. Now, the slashing, smooth-shooting Arenas is drawing the attention that comes with being a team's best perimeter player.

He is a candidate for the Wooden Award, but four of the other candidates happen to play for Arizona, too. Arenas' impactis clearly felt on his team, in the Pac-10, even across the country. Still, he says he doesn't get the respect he deserves. "Sometimes I feel what I do goes unnoticed," Arenas said in a telephone interview. "Mike Wright, Lo-ren Woods, Jason Gardner and Richard Jefferson, when they came out of high school, they were All-Americans and stuff, so everybody mainly pays attention to them.

So I'm out there just doing my thing. I'll make a big play here and there and it won't be mentioned, but that helps me out sometimes because they won't key on me. They'll be looking at them, so it helps." Gardner, Arenas' roommate and close friend, said there are a lot of behind-closed-doors discussions between the two about that very subject. "Coming out of high school, he was a person that didn't get a lot of love," said Gardner, the other half of the Wildcats' starting backcourt. "Nobody really knew about him.

It's still kind of going the same way. I think every game, that gives him more motivation to go out and score more, play harder and shut down opposing guards, because he wants to go out and prove something and show everybody that he's just as good as anybody else." On Saturday (4 p.m., Ch. 3), the Wildcats (5-1) invade Gampel Pavilion for a nationally televised game against No. 15 UConn (6-1). You would think that Arenas, who turns 19 next month and has been compared to Penny Hardaway, would be out to make a statement on 92.1 points and shooting 55.4 percent third-best in the nation but couldn't get its offense clicking without its senior leader in its first road game.

Gregory was off to a great year, averaging 17.9 points and 7.7 rebounds, but missed his first stall of the season with a stress fracture to his right foot. The Demon Deacons (7-0), shooting 68 percent in the second half, won their 12th straight dating to last season and are off to their best start John's case, doctors took a piece of tendon from his leg and used it in his left elbow. Battle's injury is less severe and doctors only need to repair the ligament. If Battle is able to return in eight weeks, she could rejoin the team in early February, a full month before the Big East tournament. But if her rehabilitation takes longer then anticipated, she would force UConn coach Geno Auriemma to decide if she should sit for the remainder of the season.

Battle would be eligible for a medical hardship and retain her Amanda Abraham and looks to make 18 5-8 2-2 5 1 1 13 20 4-7 0-0 4 2 1 9 22 25 9 11 18 14 18 6 2-6 2-5 1-1 1-3 1-6 1-4 35 1-2 4-5 3- 4 2-2 1- 1 4- 4 0-0 2- 2 0-0 1 1 i I ill V' swim on the missing was torn. She was led from the court by fellow Pittsburgh native Swin Cash. Battle has been impressive this season. BATTLE Her effort.re- bounding and defensive play have won her praise from her coaches and teammates. She is averaging 4.2 points and 2.8 rebounds in 10.4 minutes.

Her nine steals were tied for third on the team before Thursday. 21 Percent --u i -i, 'V il y' i v. By MATT EAGAN Courant Staff Writer STORRS The news was not good, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been for Ashley Battle. An MRI on Wednesday revealed that she has torn the ulnar collateral ligament in her left elbow. The freshman forward will have surgery today at Manchester Memorial Hospital and could miss eight weeks.

Former major league pitcher Tommy John is among many who have had reconstructive UCL surgery. In SWIN CASH has the rebound in front HOLY CROSS Jones Bird Ralph Taurasi Conlon Czel Valley Johnson Williams Player FG FTReta A PFPts Rothemich Abraham O'Keefe Paukert O'Connor Artman Popovtcs Fitzgerald Ftynn Zawadzkas 2-7 2- 9 28 0-6 0- 6 1- 5 3- 4 0-1 0- 1 1- 3 00 1-2 0-0 4-4 0-0 12 0-0 0-2 0-0 33 Rigby Totals 20011-52 9-13 35 5 20 32 Three-point goals: 1 -1 5, 6. 7 pet. (Popovics 1-3, Paukert 0-4, Abraham f2, O'Connor 0-3, Alt-man 0-2, Flynn 0-1). FG pet: 21.

FT pet: 69.2. Team rebounds: 11. TO: 35 (Abraham 8, Paukert 6, Popovics 5, Rothemich 5, Zawadzkas 3, O'Connor 3. Altman 2, O'Keefe 2, Flynn). Blocks: 0.

Steals: 7 (Abraham 2. Rothemich, O'Keefe, Paukert, O'Connor, Zawadzkas). Holy Cross UConn UCONN Officials Kim Watt. Player FG FTReb A PFPts Abrosimova 21 Cash 18 5- 7 6- 7 1 13 2 16 of Totals Three-point 1-1, Jones 1-1, Johnson pet: 52.5, 18 (Valley 5, 2, Jones, Blocks: 6 Steals: 27 Bird 3, Taurasi Johnson 2, A Saturday. But he isn't.

At least that's what he says. "I learned this in high school," said Arenas, whose hometown is North Hollywood. "When you go all out for the big games, you get ready for it and you don't show up because you're just too ready. But if you just take it as a regular game and just play hard, things come. If I just go out there and try to do too much, that's when I mostly have bad games.

So I'm just going to go out there on Saturday and just play." Arenas, averaging 16.2 points and 4 rebounds, is perceived by some as a selfish player with a bad attitude. He and Wildcats coach Lute Olson have had their dis agreements. And Arenas has been in the coach's doghouse more than once. "He has that bad rep for some odd reason, I don't know, why," Gardner said. ARENAS "It's like people think he's the troublemaker on the team, a bad guy on the team.

I don't know why he has that reputation. I guess it's got to fall on somebody and it happens to fall on him." Arenas said the disagreements between him and Olson stem from his response or lack thereof when the coach is letting him have it. "I think he yells at me to see what I do," Arenas said. "And when he yells, I'm one of those people who just puts his head down and just dwells on it. I don't say anything.

I just dwell on it I keep my head down the whole time and I'm just taken out of my game. So he gets frustrated by me doing that. I think he does it a lot to see what kind of willpower I have, too." Arenas had a streak of 21 games in which he scored in double figures. Though that streak ended at the Maui Invitational, his offensive prowess is unquestioned. And defensively, his assignment is the opponent's best perimeter player.

He is quietly becoming one of the top players in college basketball. "I just don't really talk that much, that's all," Arenas said. "But no one can say I have a bad attitude off the court because I talk to everybody. I sign autographs at the mall and things like that. But on the court, it's a different story.

I'm trying to win and I'm just to myself." there is anybody," Calhoun said. "Duke could certainly make a case. Michigan State's style could make a caset but as far as seeing anybody in the country with five players as good as "I don't know if they're going to be the greatest team ever, but they can make a case that they're awfully good. Right now the most talented team and I think talent is a mix of ability and experience is Arizona." Robertson Ready Last year's meeting, the first between the teams, went the Huskies way, 78-69 at the Great Eight in Chicago. The Wildcats had no answer for Tony Robertson.

He had 15 points in 20 minutes off the bench. With Arizona coming up again, Calhoun said Robertson is beginning to play his best ball of the season. "I'm going to watch the tape again, do what I have to do because I definitely want to get off like I did last time," said Robertson, averaging 7.7 points and 2.1 rebounds a game this season. "I had a nice little game in Chicago at the United Center in front of all of those thousands of people. I hope to do it again Saturday at Gampel.

And I hope we win again." Give Arizona High Five MICHAEL McANDREWSTHE HARTFORD COURANT the outlet pass. UConn outscored Holy Cross 28-0 on the fastbreak. Cross Shoots By DESMOND CONNER Courant Staff Writer STORRS The Huskies are getting ready to play the best W'rtif 3111 yed I seas011, and the best they 11 play for sometime. They are also preparing for an Arizona lineup that many, in UCONN MEN NOTEBOOK cluding UConn coach Jim Calhoun, feel contains the most talented five players in the country. The No.

5 Wildcats (5-1) are so talented that starters Jason Gardner, Gilbert Arenas, Michael Wright, Richard Jefferson and Loren Woods returning for Saturday's game after serving a six-game NCAA suspension are all John Wooden Award candidates. The nation will get to see all five on the floor at the same time against the No.15 Huskies in a 4 p.m. game at Gampel Pavilion on CBS. The same five started last yeaft but due to injuries and suspensions, have not played together since last January, a span of 26 games. In that time, Arizona went 20-6.

"We haven't seen anybody with that kind of ability and I'm not sure 20032-6123 28 41 23 16 92 goals: 5-10, 50.0 pet. (Abrosimova 1-1, Bird 1-1, Conlon 1-1, Czel 0-2, Ralph 0-2, Taurasi 0-1). FO FT pet: 82.1. Team rebounds: 3. TO: Cash 2, Bird 2.

Ralph 2, Johnson Taurasi, Czel, Williams, Rigby). (Jones 2, Ralph 2, Taurasi, Williams). (Jones 5, Valley 4, Abrosimova 3, 3, Cash 2, Ralph 2, Conlon 2, Czel). Continued from Page CI Gampel hardwood after narrowly a steal. And there was the second-half three-pointer by Marci Czel that drew the biggest cheers of the night.

It wasn't just a fun house, though. The Huskies seemed anxious to show a renewed commitment to the kind of defense they have played much of the season. The Huskies allowed a backdoor pass from Amanda Abraham to Katie O'Keefe for the Crusaders' first basket. There was 18:42 left in the first half. Over the next seven minutes, the Huskies forced nine turnovers.

During that stretch, the Crusaders turned the ball over more frequently than they shot it and UConn was able to fu-e up its fast- break. The Huskies went on a 21-0 run to make it 24-3, and that was that. It was 50-19 at half-time. Holy Cross (4-5) shot only 21 percent for the game and was forced into 35 turnovers. The scoring during the run illustrated just how dangerous the Huskies can be when they are concentrating.

Cash scored six points and Ralph five. Jones and Tamika Williams had four each. Abrosimova had two. The passing was even more dazzling. The Huskies had six baskets on five assists during the burst and finished with 23 assists.

Jones and Abrosimova each finished with 13 points. Bird scored nine and Williams and Ralph eight each. 32 92 Art Bomengen, Angela Crawford, 10,027 at Gampel Pavilion..