NCAA MEN’S FINAL FOUR : GAZE G’DAYS : Seton Hall’s Shooting Star From Australia Discovers Essence of Collegiate Basketball

Andrew Gaze understood the words of his American buddy, but he could not understand the sentiment.

“I would give anything to have a chance to play in the Final Four,” the friend told Gaze last year in Australia as they watched a videotape of the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. championship. “Anything.”

Gaze didn’t pay his friend much mind. He had played for Australia in the 1984 Olympics, and he would play again in Seoul. What more could there be?

There could be this.

Gaze, the 23-year-old from Down Under with the graying temples, and his Seton Hall teammates will play Duke today in an NCAA semifinal at the Kingdome.

“I always thought the Olympics were the highlight,” Gaze said Friday. “But I think this stands alone. . . . Now, I see that kids dream about it. I just appreciate being a part of it. I’ve never been part of anything like this.”

Neither has Seton Hall (30-6), which has made it to the Final Four in only its second appearance in the NCAA tournament.

Duke (28-7), however, is an old hand. Danny Ferry, Quin Snyder and John Smith, the team’s seniors, are playing in the Final Four for the third time, and they do not particularly care to go away empty-handed as they did in 1986 and 1988.

“We didn’t want to come to Seattle satisfied,” Ferry said. “We had a little trouble with that last year. Getting to the Final Four is great and all, but there are two more games to play, and that’s the goal.”

This is the last shot for the three Duke seniors and, in all likelihood, it is the last shot for Gaze, too.

NCAA officials granted him just one year of eligibility, and although Seton Hall is petitioning for another, Gaze is not inclined to accept it, even if it is offered.

Matter of fact, he plans to say G’day, mates, to Seton Hall within a week or so of the NCAA final. He will return to Australia to play for his beloved club team, the Melbourne Tigers--coached by his father, Lindsey Gaze--and to continue playing for the national team.

The thought of another year at Seton Hall hardly tempts him. After all, how he could he surpass this season?

“As far as I’m concerned now, this is it,” Gaze said. “Even if I was granted an extra year, after going this far, to the Final Four, it’s almost like this is enough. Thank you, I appreciate it.”

P.J. Carlesimo appreciates it, too. The addition of Gaze may have been the final key to this team’s success, and to a season that has made Carlesimo by unofficial count the first bearded coach to make the Final Four.

Carlesimo first gazed upon his future star when the Australian national team was on an exhibition tour of the Big East Conference two years ago. Gaze scored 46 against Seton Hall, and averaged 31 points a game against the conference. Carlesimo got another look when he coached a team of Big East all-stars during an exhibition tour of Australia. He put assistant John Carroll on the Gaze patrol, and after two years of phone calls, it paid off. Gaze came to Seton Hall.

Of all the Big East schools, why should he pick Seton Hall, one with a lesser recent tradition?

Ignorance, mostly.

“For all I knew, Seton Hall was renowned,” Gaze said.

Although he developed as a scorer, and averaged 24 points a game as an international gunner in the Olympics, Gaze has played down that style to fit in with the Pirates, specializing in the three-point shot.

Make no mistake, his teammates were wary of him when he arrived, this fellow with the accent who looked a bit like a professor to them.

It didn’t take them long to accept him, though. By the time they nicknamed him “Jack” after an Australian fast-food chain, “Hungry Jack’s,” he was part of the team.

He is the closest thing to a soldier of fortune in this tournament, and but for the fact that he is articulate and clearly bright, there might be more concern about Gaze’s one-year stint at Seton Hall.

He transferred to Seton Hall, moving credits he earned at Footscray Institute in Australia.

“He applied and was accepted,” Carlesimo said. “If he came back next year, we think he’d graduate.”

That is, of course, one large if.

But Carlesimo points out that Gaze chose to take a full load last fall, even though he was not required to for his eligibility.

“He’s a good student,” Carlesimo said. “I hope we can work it out (for him to get his degree.) . . . I think Andrew has done a lot more as a student than a lot of other people in the country. We at Seton Hall are proud of him.”

The Seton Hall-Duke game pits the assurance of experience against the charm of inexperience, and it has left at least one loyal Seton Hall fan torn.

That would be Dick Vitale, who went to school at a campus of Seton Hall at Paterson, N.J.

“My heart and my emotions are with Seton Hall, but my heads says Duke,” Vitale said Friday. “But (Duke Coach Mike) Krzyzewski plus Ferry plus experience equals the W.”

That experience is a large factor in Duke’s plans.

“Is there anything you did the last two times that you don’t want to do this time?” Krzyzewski was asked Friday.

The answer came quickly: “Lose.”

NCAA Semifinal Notes

Although much of the attention goes to Andrew Gaze and Ramon Ramos, Seton Hall’s leading scorer is guard John Morton, who averages 17 points a game. Gaze, Ramos and Daryll Walker also average in double figures. . . . Walker is expected to draw Danny Ferry in man-to-man coverage. What is his plan? “I plan to keep him under 30 points,” Walker said. “That and be myself--play good man defense.” . . . If Ferry were coaching against Duke, what defense would he assign? “Pressure man-to-man,” Ferry said. . . . Duke lost to Kansas in the semifinals last year. “That was about as far as that team could go,” Coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “This team is different.”