COLLEGE BASKETBALL / NCAA MEN’S TOURNAMENT UPDATE : SOUTHEAST : Central Florida Needs Self-Help

Purdue’s Glenn Robinson has faced every kind of defense known to basketball.

“We’ve seen the 1-3-1, 2-3 and 1-2-2 zones, a box and one, a triangle and two, the press. They’ve double-teamed him, triple-teamed him,” Boilermaker Coach Gene Keady said. “We’ve seen it all and survived almost all of them.”

Robinson, who led the nation in scoring and is a unanimous All-American, and the Boilermakers have done more than survive. They went 26-4 on the way to winning the Big Ten title and being top-seeded in the Southeast Regional. Purdue plays Central Florida (21-9) in the first round today.

The Knights can hope that the only defense available works--Robinson himself.

“I feel there is no one in college basketball that can stop me,” Robinson said. “I can stop myself. It’s all on me. I have to play the way I’m capable of playing. Everything is up to me first.”

The College of Charleston, the unlikeliest of the 34 at-large teams selected for the NCAA tournament, dominated news conferences at Rupp Arena on the eve of its game against Wake Forest, and Coach John Kresse might still be giving interviews somewhere.

Wake Forest is a team from a league the Charleston coach and players are familiar with because of television. That’s the same reason so few people seemed to know anything about the College of Charleston.

“We watch the ACC on television and our guys are in awe of the names and the pros,” Kresse said in an opening statement that lasted nearly 10 minutes and included the word super at least 10 times. “It’s been a media blitz for us, but it’s been super. We have made time to practice, but we haven’t had time to eat and sleep and we’ve gotten to go to the bathroom just three times a day.”

The Cougars (24-3) come into the tournament with a national-best 16-game winning streak and haven’t lost since Jan. 15.