Well-Guarded But No Longer A SECRET

Because of a couple of guards named Miles Simon and Mike Bibby, Lute Olson finally has let his guard down.

After the way the Arizona Wildcats left Kansas, North Carolina and Kentucky by the roadside in the NCAA tournament last season, Olson finally can look at his hand and admire more than his neatly trimmed nails.

“Sometimes you look at rings and they’re so huge, they’re gaudy,” said Olson, whose teams averaged 27 wins the last 10 years but lost in the first round three times before last season’s improbable run to the NCAA title. “We just wanted a comfortable ring you can wear without taking up half your hand.”

With his first national championship in hand, Olson was so comfortable last spring he let his players muss his hair after the game. And with every starter back from the fifth-place Pacific 10 Conference team that beat Kentucky in overtime, 84-79, Arizona would seem like a clear No. 1 as the season begins.

But should it really be the second-ranked Kansas Jayhawks, 34-2 last season but sent home early by Arizona, which itself has left early so many times?

Or will it soon be No. 4 North Carolina, even without Dean Smith? Or No. 9 Kentucky with Tubby Smith as coach? How about a resurgent Duke team that is ranked third with a ballyhooed freshman class? And what about No. 7 UCLA, if the Bruins finally get their roster back to where it was in September?

One thing is certain: Arizona will have to have two very good weeks to remain No. 1.

The Wildcats could face Duke and Kentucky in the Maui Classic next week and will play Kansas in the Great Eight in Chicago on Dec. 2.

“We were a surprise a year ago,” Olson said. “We were talking about being a rebuilding team. We probably crept up on people.

“If we stay healthy and make progress, I think we have a shot [at repeating]. I told the players that in my opinion, we’d have to be 25% to 30% better this year than last year to do it.”

Bibby, the nation’s best freshman last season, has added about 10 pounds and is stronger in his upper body, which should help him defensively. Center A.J. Bramlett is said to be much improved, and the 6-foot-11 junior was at his best down the stretch last season, averaging 10 rebounds and a couple of blocked shots a game in the tournament.

But Arizona’s players got a taste of the challenge ahead on a tour of Australia last summer. They lost four of 10 games, and were only 1-2 against Australia’s 22-and-under team.

“In Australia, we got beat by 29, 30 points. It didn’t feel right,” senior swingman Michael Dickerson said. “It was like, ‘We’re not supposed to get beat. We’re the national champs.’ It showed us that even though we won, we’ve got to work hard.”

That’s fine with Olson. Everything seems a little easier with that ring.

“I think he’s changed,” Stanford Coach Mike Montgomery said. “I think he’s much more relaxed.

“He’s had the teams in the past, and whether he admits it or not, I’m sure that had to be a sticking point. He obviously had teams that could have won and didn’t. To have a team win it was a great thing.

“I think maybe there had been some defense mechanisms, maybe, for the media. But to win it, when something like that happens, that goes away.”

Arizona’s chances of winning again haven’t gone away--largely because Simon stayed.

Simon was the Final Four most valuable player as a junior after scoring 24 points against North Carolina and 30 in the final against Kentucky, but the NBA will wait.

“I was curious to see what decision he’d make,” said Dickerson, who edged Simon for the team’s season scoring lead. “I think he made the right decision.”

Simon sat out the first 11 games last season because of academic problems, and was under more scrutiny this fall. The Kansas City Star reported he had been on academic probation most of his college career, saying Arizona bent rules to keep him eligible, a charge Arizona denied.

Said Dickerson, “The thing is, Miles is probably the smartest person on our team. You wouldn’t know it with the eligibility problems. I think if he wanted, he could make straight A’s, but he knows he’s going to make millions. I can see how it would be kind of hard to put your energy into books, but you never do know.”

Sometimes the things that are supposed to pan out don’t. Witness all those Arizona teams that could have won championships. The Sean Elliott-Steve Kerr team that went to the 1988 Final Four. The Damon Stoudamire-Khalid Reeves team in ’94.

“You look at the two previous Final Four teams,” Olson said. “I don’t think last year’s team played nearly as well as those, but we’d hit a horrible shooting game from a key person. Mike Bibby and Miles Simon made the key shots when they need to be hit.”

That gives Olson guarded optimism.

“Look at the teams that win the NCAA championship,” he said. “Some win without a great inside player; some with one. The one constant is great guards. You have to have guards.”

THE TOP CONFERENCES

PACIFIC 10--The rest of the conference has learned that Kris Johnson might play for UCLA by mid-December and is waiting to learn the future of Jelani McCoy. Without them, UCLA is not the same team--not that J.R. Henderson, Toby Bailey, Johnson and Baron Davis are a bad nucleus. But with Johnson and McCoy, UCLA makes Arizona’s defending national champions a borderline pick even in their own conference. The only other competition might be No. 15 Stanford, with its terrific frontcourt. Tim Young, the 7-foot-1 center, has endured back trouble in his career, but Montgomery added two frontcourt recruits--twins Jarron and Jason Collins from Harvard-Westlake High. Replacing point guard Brevin Knight is an issue, too.

ATLANTIC COAST--Dean Smith watched from a Smith Center box as longtime North Carolina assistant Bill Guthridge won his debut as coach. But it’s Guthridge who is sitting pretty. Smith handed him a fourth-ranked team with forwards Antawn Jamison and Vince Carter among the four starters back from a Final Four run. Duke is resurgent with guards Trajan Langdon and Steve Wojciechowski leading a team bolstered by a ballyhooed recruiting class that includes Shane Battier, Elton Brand and Irvine’s Chris Burgess. Add a fifth-ranked Clemson team led by guard Greg Bruckner, and the ACC has three teams in the top five.

BIG TEN--The debut of the Big Ten Conference tournament this season leaves the Pac-10 and the Ivy League as the no-tournament leagues. No. 8 Purdue has guard Chad Austin and center Brad Miller among five starters back from a team that lost to Kansas in the second round of the NCAA tournament. Iowa, ranked 14th, has four starters back from a team that lost to Kentucky in the second round. Indiana? The 23rd-ranked Hoosiers lost one starter but already have lost their opener to No. 18 Temple. Michigan’s Robert Traylor is the league’s best player, but the program is a mess, thanks to the firing of Steve Fisher this fall because of links to much-scrutinized booster Ed Martin. Brian Ellerbe took over--what, with Bill Frieder available? Minnesota reached the Final Four last season, but is not the same caliber after losing not only guard Bobby Jackson and center John Thomas but forward Courtney James, who was suspended for the season after a misdemeanor assault conviction and has since left school.

SOUTHEASTERN--Like North Carolina, Kentucky has a new coach in charge of one of college basketball’s traditional programs. Tubby Smith shouldn’t miss more than a beat taking over for Rick Pitino, who finally jumped to the Boston Celtics. But Smith won’t have Ron Mercer, the sixth pick in the NBA draft after his sophomore season, and his own son, G.G. Smith, decided to stay behind at Georgia when his father left. The early pick to rule the roost? South Carolina’s sixth-ranked Gamecocks. Their outstanding combination of guards, Melvin Watson and B.J. McKie, led the other USC to an upset of then-defending NCAA champion Kentucky last season--only to be felled by Coppin State in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

WESTERN ATHLETIC--The San Joaquin Valley is now the nation’s transfer capital, with Jerry Tarkanian’s Fresno State team ranked 13th. California transfer Tremaine Fowlkes, USC transfer Avondre Jones and Syracuse transfer Winfred Walton will be directed by point guard Rafer Alston, hyped for his New York City playground play but prone to trouble. Alston was suspended for the first game and has been sentenced to three years’ probation for battering a former girlfriend outside the university’s weight room. Meanwhile, back at Nevada Las Vegas, center Keon Clark and UC Irvine transfer Kevin Simmons have to sit out a chunk of the season as an NCAA penalty for taking money from an agent. It all makes things seem wonderfully peaceful at No. 11 New Mexico and No. 16 Utah.

ATLANTIC 10--Kingston, R.I., is Jim Harrick’s new home, and you don’t get the feeling there are a lot of places there to run up a dinner tab. But Harrick could have ended up in worse places than Rhode Island to revive his career after being fired at UCLA. He inherited a terrific point guard in 5-10 Tyson Wheeler, and through some maneuvering of his own may get Lamar Odom eligible at the semester break. Odom left UNLV because of questions over his entrance test score. If Rhode Island has Odom, 10th-ranked Xavier may have competition in the Atlantic 10. Xavier has every starter back from the team led by guards Lenny Brown and Gary Lumpkin--high school teammates in Wilmington, Del.--that was ranked in the top 25 much of last season.

BIG 12--Kansas was the best team in the country most of last season and may be again. Losing to Arizona in the Sweet 16 didn’t sit well, the defeat ending a 34-2 season whose only other blemish was a two-point, double-overtime loss at Missouri. But on Dec. 2, No. 2 Kansas gets an early opportunity for revenge against No. 1 Arizona in a Great Eight matchup in Chicago. Senior Raef LaFrentz and junior Paul Pierce from Inglewood High are the best pair of forwards in the country, and could become the first teammates named first-team All-American since Michael Jordan and Sam Perkins at North Carolina in 1983-84. The Jayhawks lost guards Jacque Vaughn and Jerod Haase, but what they really need to lose is their growing reputation for underachieving.

BIG EAST--No. 12 Connecticut is the only Big East team in the top 25, and the conference is hardly what it used to be. UConn lost 13 games last season, but if the Huskies can keep players from mingling with agents, there is a lot of promise this season. Providence made the final eight before losing to Arizona in the final seconds, but the Friars have only one starter back. The conference player of the year, though, is back--Notre Dame’s Pat Garrity.

CONFERENCE USA--Charlotte is a Hornet and Tar Heel town, and North Carolina Charlotte still has a hard time making a dent in the local consciousness, despite a No. 17 ranking. Forward DeMarco Johnson is the conference’s best player and point guard Sean Colson had a 17-assist game against Houston last season. Troubled Cincinnati flamed out with a second-round NCAA loss to Iowa State, but still has forward Ruben Patterson. At 22nd-ranked Louisville, former USC guard Cameron Murray looks as if he’ll start at the position vacated by DeJuan Wheat. Freshman to watch: Saint Louis’ Larry Hughes, who stayed home to play for the Billikens.

WEST COAST--Will Pepperdine’s transfers be transcendent after the Waves endured a 6-21 record last season? Center omm’A Givens reemerges after following Coach Lorenzo Romar from UCLA, and guard Jelani Gardner joins him from Cal. Guard Gerald Brown, who sat out last season rehabilitating a knee injury after leading the league in scoring the season before, is back too. Don’t overlook Coach Phil Mathews’ San Francisco team. And of course, no one can overlook St. Mary’s Brad Millard--”Big Continent” at 7-3 and 345 pounds.

BIG WEST--Raymond Tutt is the most complete player at UC Santa Barbara since Brian Shaw, and is the nation’s second-leading returning scorer after averaging 24 points. Tutt, a high-scoring guard from San Pedro, started out at Azusa Pacific but proved too good for NAIA ball. The Big West’s best teams are the rebuilt program at Pacific and the troubled program at New Mexico State, where former Illinois coach Lou Henson came out of retirement after NCAA scrutiny caught up to Neil McCarthy. Cal State Fullerton, Long Beach State and UC Irvine bring up the rear, and how long ago does it seem that Schea Cotton was headed for the Pyramid to play with his brother James?

AND THE REST . . .

AMERICA EAST--So what if Boston University dropped football? Basketball is doing fine and BU could repeat as conference champion, with Drexel the main competition.

BIG SOUTH--Charleston Southern won the conference tournament for the right to become UCLA’s first-round victim last season, but North Carolina Asheville is the favorite.

BIG SKY--Can Cal State Northridge re-create the excitement of nearly reaching the NCAA tournament before losing to Montana in the final minute of the conference final?

COLONIAL ATHLETIC ASSN.--Old Dominion has established dominion over the conference under Jeff Capel, and the Monarchs are becoming a traditional upset threat in the NCAA tournament.

IVY LEAGUE--Princeton Coach Bill Carmody is doing just fine in his second season as Pete Carril’s replacement. The Tigers already have pulled off their first upset, beating Texas in the opener.

METRO ATLANTIC ATHLETIC--Fairfield reached the NCAA tournament with an 11-18 record last season and played North Carolina to an eight-point game. Don’t look for a repeat.

MID-AMERICAN--Eastern Michigan guard Earl Boykins is 5-5, but he stood tall for the U.S. 22-and-under team last summer, leading the team in scoring, assists and three-point percentage as it won the gold medal in an international tournament.

MID-CONTINENT--Valparaiso’s shooting star, Bryce Drew, is out until at least December because of a leg injury. His team misses him badly, but NBA scouts couldn’t miss his eight three-pointers in an NCAA tournament game last spring.

MID-EASTERN ATHLETIC--Coach Ron “Fang” Mitchell’s Coppin State team took a bite out of South Carolina in an NCAA upset, then threw a scare into Texas in the second round. Should Arizona be nervous Dec. 13 in Tucson?

MIDWESTERN COLLEGIATE--

Everybody loves an underdog, as Rollie Massimino proved at Villanova. But didn’t he overdo it by going 9-19 last season at Cleveland State? Keep on eye on his top-25 recruiting class.

MISSOURI VALLEY--It’s only November, but pencil in Illinois State as an upset special in March. Problem is, the Redbirds might be the higher-seeded team with all 14 players back from an NCAA tournament team.

NORTHEAST--Long Island guard Charles Jones has a measure of fame after leading the nation in scoring at 30.1 points a game last season. Teammate Richie Parker is still better known for a sexual-assault conviction.

OHIO VALLEY--Former UCLA assistant Mark Gottfried’s Murray State team is the favorite again, after giving Duke a first-round NCAA tournament scare last season.

PATRIOT LEAGUE--Colgate said goodbye to Adonal Foyle, the eighth pick in the NBA draft, and the league appears to belong to Navy and Coach Don DeVoe, the former Tennessee and Florida coach.

SOUTHERN--Tennessee Chattanooga became only the second 14th-seeded team to reach the NCAA’s Sweet 16, then lost Coach Mack McCarthy to an assistant’s job at Virginia Commonwealth, where he is head-coach-in-waiting.

SOUTHLAND--Conference member Texas San Antonio is the host school for the Final Four at the Alamodome, but otherwise, no Southland team is likely to see the second round. Only two of nine teams had winning records last season.

SOUTHWESTERN ATHLETIC--Jackson State takes an unorthodox approach to scheduling, but made the NCAA tournament last season with a 14-15 record that included losses to Arkansas, Mississippi, Memphis, Arizona, UCLA and New Mexico.

SUN BELT--In a take-this-job-

and-shove-it move, Bill Musselman bolted from South Alabama in October, saying he couldn’t work for the athletic director another day. New Coach Bob Weltlich gets four starters back from a 23-7 NCAA tournament team.

TRANS AMERICA ATHLETIC--Lefty Driesell, 65, takes over at Georgia State needing 17 victories to reach 700. That’s no cinch: Georgia State was 10-17 last season.