COLLEGE BASKETBALL NCAA WOMEN’S TOURNAMENT : Stephens Earns Share of Attention : Bruins: She downplays showboat label, but her intense play leads UCLA.

Maybe it’s the intense glare she often gives opponents.

It could have something to do with the taunting smile that accompanies the stare, or the way she shakes her fists in triumph after making a difficult shot.

Certainly, her mouth could be a factor, as it tends to shoot off at various times, on and off the court.

More than likely, however, it is a combination of these things, along with her energy level and talent, that has gained UCLA’s Rehema Stephens a reputation as a hot-tempered hotshot.

It’s a reputation she and her teammates think is unwarranted, but it’s one she will have to live with for the rest of her collegiate career, which could end as early as tonight when the Bruins (21-9) play Southwest Missouri State (29-2) in a Midwest Regional semifinal.

“She’s got a lot of mustard on that hotdog--that’s a fact,” Stanford Coach Tara VanDerveer said recently.

A pretty intense player?

“Yeah!”

One who plays an “in-your-face” style of basketball?

“She does that!”

One who makes lots of enemies?

“She’s got ‘em!”

So she does, despite the fact that UCLA Coach Billie Moore maintains that Stephens has matured and, as a senior, understands better “how to channel all her talent and emotion in a positive way.”

Stephens said she has been given a bad rap and isn’t different from any other player charged up for a game.

“During the game, we all get a little intense,” she said. “I have the loudest mouth out there, and so a lot of people hear me more than the others.

“It seems like, because I’m the main attraction . . . then everything is focusing on me.”

Good point.

Stephens has been the main attraction on the women’s team since she came to UCLA as a transfer from Colorado before the 1989-90 season.

And she has had some impact.

The 5-11 Stephens led the Pacific 10 Conference in scoring in her first season, averaging 20 points a game for a Bruin team that finished 18-12.

Last season, Stephens was not only atop the Pac-10 for the second consecutive season, but was the fifth-best scorer in the country with a 25.3-point average.

In January of last season, during her 44th game as a Bruin, she scored her 1,000th point, reaching that plateau faster than any other woman at UCLA.

But the Bruins fared worse than they did the previous year, finishing 15-13.

Stephens was good, there was no question.

VanDerveer once said of her: “Through her play, she’s a woman with girls sometimes. She can do things other people can’t do.”

Stephens scored 39 points against a highly regarded Stanford team this season.

Trouble was, Stephens was actually doing too much in the early stages of her college career. She was getting a reputation as a showboat, but there was little she could do about it.

Her teammates, according to Moore, were reluctant to contribute as she hoped they would.

“The bottom line is, (Stephens) carried us,” Moore said. “We were a very young team and we had a tendency in the stretch and in important times to kind of sit back and watch, and wait for Rehema to do something.”

Stephens tried and often did plenty, but she was getting frustrated. It showed through her eyes, gestures and mouth.

“I was very young and wanted to score,” Stephens recalled. “But I wanted to win big ballgames and we never were able to win those big ballgames.”

This season, things have changed somewhat.

The Bruins have already won some big ballgames. This is their first appearance in the NCAA tournament since the 1989-90 season, when they bowed out in the first round, and only their second appearance ever in the Sweet 16.

Stephens has played a major role in the Bruins’ success.

She has averaged almost 27 points against ranked opponents, and made a 17-foot jumper with 36 seconds left to lift UCLA over Texas last week, advancing the team into regional play.

“She is still capable of carrying the team,” Moore said.

But a key reason for the Bruins’ success is that Stephens has been getting help from others, notably Natalie Williams, who beat out Stephens for the team scoring title with a 22-point average.

“We’ve had a lot of players step up,” Stephens said.

Another reason is that her teammates have learned to deal with Stephens’ intensity level.

“It kind of helps us all when one person gets so intense,” said Amy Jalewalia, a 6-1 sophomore forward who has proved effective as the first woman off the bench. “Everybody else says, ‘Oh, yes,’ and goes along and brings up the intensity of the team.”

Stephens even seems to have mellowed. Off the court, she seems laid back.

But when she steps on the court tonight against a small but aggressive Southwest Missouri State team, little will have changed.

Stephens said so herself: “I just go out there and play the only way I know how and I’m not going to stop playing the way I know how just to satisfy somebody else.”

In the other Midwest Regional semifinal, Penn State (24-6) plays Mississippi (28-2).

No. 5-ranked Mississippi, is led by 5-10 forward Charlotte Banks, averaging nearly 15 points a game.

Susan Robinson, Penn State’s leading scorer, has been instrumental in the Nittany Lions’ success down the stretch. In a second-round game against DePaul last week, Robinson, a 6-1 forward, scored 26 points and pulled down 10 rebounds.