LSU Will Face Indiana; Las Vegas, Iowa Advance : MIDWEST REGIONAL : Tigers Stun DePaul, 63-58; Duke Falls by 6

Well, here we are in mid-March, with the college basketball season winding down toward its Final Four days. It must be time for us to start wondering why Dale Brown and his Louisiana State Tigers are still playing.

That’s right. Last season’s near-fairy tale is this season’s mystery. LSU, once assumed to be headed for an early grave, has risen to reach the NCAA’s round of eight.

Center Nikita Wilson had 24 points and guard Anthony Wilson had 17--including two of the biggest on a 17-foot baseline jumper with 25 seconds to play--to push LSU past DePaul, 63-58, in the Midwest Regional semifinals Friday night at Riverfront Coliseum.

The Tigers will face Indiana in Sunday’s Midwest championship game. The Hoosiers advanced with an 88-82 win over Duke in the first-ever coaching confrontation between Indiana’s Bob Knight and Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, one of Knight’s most prized and prominent disciples.

It was just last year at this time that LSU became the lowest regional seed ever to reach the Final Four. Now, the Tigers are one victory away from making a return trip. This from a team that went 8-10 and finished sixth in the Southeastern Conference.

Brown, one of college basketball’s leading salesmen, may have pulled off the sales job of his career this season. He somehow convinced his players to keep pointing toward March, even though things started going bad last April, and were even worse by mid-January.

It began when John Williams, a vital part of last season’s drive to the Final Four, decided to take advantage of the NBA’s hardship rule.

For Brown, the hardships continued when Ricky Blanton, the inspirational leader of the aforementioned drive, was lost for the season with a knee injury suffered in mid-November. Then, on the eve of the Tigers’ season opener, 7-foot 1-inch Zoran Jovanovich, projected as the team’s starting center, suffered a season-ending neck injury.

After all of this, the Tigers are within one win of a short but pleasant journey from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. Dale Brown’s reaction? Huh, Dale?

“I’m sorry, I’m still in outer space,” Brown said afterward. “You asked me what about Bo Derek? Have I ever dated her? No, I haven’t.”

Brown may have still been delirious from watching the inside job Nikita Wilson did on DePaul All-American Dallas Comegys.

Comegys, a finalist for the John Wooden Award, was averaging 22 points in DePaul’s NCAA tournament victories over Louisiana Tech and St. John’s.

Against LSU, he had 14, with only 4 coming in the second half. His only two field goals after halftime came nine minutes apart, and neither came in the final 4 1/2 minutes, when the Blue Demons certainly could have used them.

Comegys’ last basket gave DePaul a 55-54 lead with 4:38 to play. The Tigers regained the lead when Nikita Wilson put in an offensive rebound with 4:11 left, only to lose it moments later on Rod Strickland’s hanging, baseline jumper.

LSU took the lead for good, fittingly, when Nikita Wilson left Comegys in his wake on the way to a layup with 2:49 remaining. That made it 58-57, and there would be no more strange-but-true finishes in this tournament for the Blue Demons.

Said DePaul Coach Joey Meyer, who saw his team use an intentionally missed free throw to come back against considerable odds and beat St. John’s last Sunday: “I told someone before the game that I might have cashed in all my good luck chips last Sunday. I guess I did.”

There seemed to be some debate as to how Nikita Wilson could pretty much have his way inside against the bulkier Comegys. Meyer thought it was purely physical.

“We couldn’t run our offense,” he said. “They laid a body on us every time we tried to get the ball inside. Their physicalness (sic) took us out of what we wanted to do.”

Brown, in his own unique style, begged to differ.

“Nikita is not Rocky Marciano,” he said. “We’ve got Twiggy for a center. He’s only 190 pounds.”

This was the Blue Demons’ second straight appearence in the Sweet 16, and second straight sour trip home.

Afterward, Meyer was reminded that this season--which had included a school-record 28 wins and already far exceeded most expectations--had to end sometime.

“Yeah, but it could have ended in New Orleans,” Meyer said. “That would have been a lot nicer.”

In the other semifinal, forward Rick Calloway and guard Keith Smart had 21 points each to lead top-seeded Indiana (27-4) to its victory. Steve Alford added 18 as four Hoosiers scored in double figures.

Krzyzewski’s fears of Indiana’s offensive balance were realized.

“I tried to tell everybody beforehand that it wasn’t just, ‘Stop Steve,’ ” he said. “They have a lot of other things they can do.”

The Hoosiers gave a vivid demonstration of just that in overcoming an eight-point Duke lead late in the first half and putting the Blue Devils in an unsuccessful game of catch-up.

Duke took a 29-21 lead at the 10:07 mark of the first half on John Smith’s hook in the lane. From that point until intermission, the Blue Devils were outscored, 28-10. Calloway had 12 points in that span.

Guard Tommy Amaker, starting his 139th straight game for Duke, finished his college career with a team-high 23 points. It was Amaker’s three-pointer from the top of the key that cut Indiana’s lead to 78-76 with 2:59 to play. But that was as close as Duke could get.

Alford twisted through the lane for a reverse layup with backspin that made it 80-76, and the Hoosiers held on from there.

The Hoosiers played the way Knight taught them. Now they will meet LSU for the right to go on to New Orleans.

Said Krzyzewski, who had learned another lesson himself: “I’ll be rooting for them.”