One is enough for Budinger

His first January in a college uniform has convinced Arizona freshman Chase Budinger that Coach Lute Olson was right.

Trying to play both volleyball and basketball -- something he could have done at UCLA or USC but not Arizona, which doesn’t play men’s volleyball -- would not have been a good idea.

“It’d be like, insane,” Budinger said. “I can’t even imagine doing that.”

Budinger made a splash when he scored 32 points in his second college game, and he remains one of the best freshmen in the country.

But the red-haired athlete from Encinitas, Calif., so gifted he is an NBA prospect and a potential Olympic volleyball player, said Wednesday as he waited to board a plane for Arizona’s trip to Southern California that he has been dragging a bit.

He scored in single digits in two of the last three games, and had only four in the Wildcats’ loss to Oregon Sunday.

“I mean, I do feel a little fatigue,” Budinger said. “The season wears on you, and not just me. Your body goes through a lot. I’ve never experienced that, because I’ve never played at this level before. Right now, I’m just getting my mind-set right.

“I mean, this league [the Pac-10] is the toughest league in America right now, and every game is tough, and this is one of our toughest weeks. These two games are really big for us.”

Had UCLA Coach Ben Howland or USC Coach Tim Floyd been able to persuade Budinger he wanted to play at a school that had volleyball, he would be looking at joining another season in progress after March Madness.

Another season that would end in April, unless the volleyball team made it to the NCAA championship in May.

Olson, whose energy on the recruiting trail at age 72 is amazing to many, already had that argument down.

“SC and UCLA were trying to use that, obviously, in their favor,” the coach said. “But by the time we went through with him and showed him how many volleyball games you would get in and how many basketball games, it’s clear.”

Olson successfully made the same point to Jud Buechler, a two-sport athlete from the San Diego area of another era.

“It’s the same thing we told Jud,” Olson said. “If you make it in the NBA, you can play volleyball the rest of your life, with a lot of money in the bank.”

Buechler finished his career at Arizona in 1990 and played 12 seasons in the NBA, winning three championship rings with the Chicago Bulls.

He is retired and living in Del Mar -- and playing some beach volleyball.

Budinger comes from a volleyball family -- his brother, Duncan, played at Long Beach State and his sister, Brittanie, starred at San Francisco, where her number is retired -- but he said he gave up the idea of playing both sports by early in his senior year at La Costa Canyon High.

His decision eliminated any edge by UCLA or USC, his father’s alma mater.

“Volleyball wasn’t really a factor. All along, his goal was to be an NBA player,” Howland said, although he would hardly have objected to Budinger playing both sports.

“Whatever he wanted to do,” Howland said. “He’s a great player.”

Freshman of the year

Greg Oden still looks like a future No. 1 NBA draft pick and perhaps the once-in-a-generation big man many expect him to become.

But the freshman of the year is no longer the 7-foot Ohio State center. It’s Texas forward Kevin Durant, who shared most valuable player honors with Budinger in the McDonald’s High School All-American game last year.

“He’s a great player,” Budinger said. “Extremely long, unlimited range.”

Durant came up one shot short in the Longhorns’ epic, 105-103 triple-overtime loss to Oklahoma State Tuesday -- easily the best game of the season so far -- after Mario Boggan ended their spectacular duel with a game-winning three-pointer.

The final numbers for Boggan, a senior standout who had the game of his career: 37 points and 20 rebounds.

The final numbers for Durant: 37 points and 12 rebounds.

“An unreal talent,” Oklahoma State Coach Sean Sutton called Durant, saying Durant’s performance was the best he’d ever seen by an opposing player in famously raucous Gallagher-Iba Arena.

Durant, a lanky 6-9 slasher with a three-point shot, is the leading scorer and rebounder in the Big 12 and ranks in the top six nationally in both categories.

His 24.5-point, 11.1-rebound averages are plenty good.

But consider his recent run: 28, 26, 21, 21, 37, 34, 28 and 37 points, the last four totals against Big 12 teams.

He hasn’t had fewer than 12 rebounds in those eight games, and had 17 in one.

Widely pegged to be one of the first wave of one-and-done-with-college players created by the new NBA age limit, Durant is being projected as a top-three draft pick.

“People ask me, ‘Have we seen the best of him?’ ” Texas Coach Rick Barnes said. “No, we haven’t.”

A very good week

Virginia Tech Coach Seth Greenberg called it a good week.

Then he realized what he’d said after a span of eight days in which his team upset No. 5 Duke on the road and No. 1 North Carolina at home.

“Obviously, that’s an understatement.”

It would be hard not to be happy for a team that has suffered through so much heartache in the last year or so. Allen Calloway, a senior on last season’s team, continues to battle a rare form of cancer. Forward Coleman Collins lost his father to lung cancer last year and other players struggled with the illness or death of close family members. Part of the fallout was a draining 14-16 season.

This season, the Hokies are thriving with a senior backcourt -- how long since you heard that phrase? -- of Zabian Dowdell and Jamon Gordon.

Still, Greenberg knows two upsets in January don’t mean things get easier.

Rewind to 1993, when Greenberg’s Long Beach State team upset No. 1 Kansas. Five days later, the 49ers lost to UC Santa Barbara.

And, on Wednesday night, Virginia Tech lost to Florida State, 82-73.

Brains and buckets

There is more celebrating at Caltech, where a week after the men broke a 59-game losing streak, the women broke their own 50-game losing streak with a 55-53 victory Saturday over Pomona-Pitzer.

“These are amazing women,” said Coach Sandra Marbut, who said she doesn’t need a calculator and a stat sheet because she has Meghan Kelleher, who is studying math and business management.

“I’ve got my little walking statistics machine,” Marbut said.

Rene Davis, who led Caltech with 18 points against Pomona-Pitzer, has another area of interest: “She wants to be the leading authority on the neurobiology of serial killers and see if there’s a way to help people with anger issues,” Marbut said.

“These women major in things like astrophysics. That’s Raquel Martinez. She’d love to work at NASA, but I don’t know if she’s narrowed it down to on the ground or going up there.”

The victory was the women’s program’s first victory over a Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference team since the women joined the conference in 2002, a streak of 70 games.

“We’re a women’s team on a math-and-science campus where there aren’t a lot of women,” Marbut said.

“Four years ago, we had one girl who played high school basketball, and we got beat by an average of 75 points a game that year. We lost by 100 points three times.”

This season, her 1-11 team’s average margin of defeat is down to 19 and, she said, “I would not trade this team for anything.”

robyn.norwood@latimes.com

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

The Times rankings

Robyn Norwood’s college basketball top 25:

*--* Rk Team (Record) Comment 1. FLORIDA (16-2) When in doubt, go with the defending champions. 2. UCLA (15-1) Bruins would be delighted to try April 3, 2006, over again. 3. WISCONSIN (18-1) NCAA tournament alert: Badgers have seniors. 4. NORTH CAROLINA (16-2) Go figure: Only losses are to Gonzaga, Virginia Tech. 5. KANSAS (16-2) Oklahoma State win looks even better after Cowboys’ epic vs. Texas. 6. OHIO STATE (15-3) Already good, Buckeyes should be better in March. 7. OKLAHOMA STATE (16-2) Just call him Super Mario Boggan. 8. OREGON (16-1) Bay Area trip could go a long way for Ducks. 9. PITTSBURGH (17-2) Panthers put another chink in UConn’s crumbling armor. 10. ARIZONA (13-3) Winning two or losing two in L.A. both seem possible. 11. TEXAS A&M; (15-2) Already-tough Aggies add TE Martellus Bennett. 12. ALABAMA (14-3) Vanderbilt’s 15 three-pointers would beat most teams. 13. DUKE (14-3) There is some suspense about where Duke will end up in ACC. 14. NEVADA (16-1) Fazekas likely to return vs. Fresno State tonight. 15. TEXAS (13-4) Loss to Oklahoma State was one terrific battle. 16. MEMPHIS (14-3) Won eight of nine, with only loss to Arizona. 17. LOUISIANA STATE (13-4) Glen Davis disappearing act isn’t only with weight. 18. WASHINGTON STATE (15-3) Three-point overtime road loss to Stanford no disaster. 19. KENTUCKY (15-3) Eleven W’s in a row after 4-3 start. 20. AIR FORCE (17-2) Utah shot 70% to beat Falcons. 21. VIRGINIA TECH (13-5) Any team that beats Duke and Carolina finds a spot in our top 25. 22. BUTLER (16-2) Victories over Notre Dame, Tennessee still calling cards. 23. CLEMSON (17-2) Tigers had it coming, but congrats on unbeaten run. 24. NOTRE DAME (15-3) Irish ran into a super ‘Nova. 25. USC (13-5) Trojans could go either way: next two weeks tell the tale.

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