THE LITTLE BIG MAN

He’s the Big Man on Campus, and the littlest man on the court.

Eastern Michigan’s Earl Boykins is a growing legend--and a shrinking one, if you believe the rosters.

Listed at 5 feet 8 when he played at Cleveland’s Central Catholic High, he shrank to 5-7 after he got to Eastern Michigan and 5-5 when he became a star.

He’ll be bigger than ever by the end of the day if Eastern Michigan can upset Michigan State in a first-round game of the NCAA East Regional tonight.

It’s a battle of Michigan, and the Eagles already have won one of these, beating the Michigan Wolverines in overtime earlier in the season.

Besides that, Eastern Michigan has certified upset credentials, after beating Duke in the first round two seasons ago, when Boykins had a 23-point game.

Boykins gets a lot of notice because of his size, but his statistics would earn it anyway. He has three 40-point games this season, and his 26-point average is second in the nation only to the 28-point average of Long Island’s Charles Jones--and Jones isn’t in the tournament.

Michigan’s Robert Traylor hasn’t forgotten Boykins, and he’s just as happy that it’s the Spartans, not the Wolverines, who must face Boykins when it matters most.

“He’s a great, great player,” Traylor said the other day, his eyes dancing. “Just an exceptional player. I don’t think anybody compares to him. You look at Muggsy [Bogues] or Spud [Webb], he’s just as quick as those guys, and they don’t shoot the jumper as well as he does.

“Watching him is incredible. I kind of watched him some myself when we played them. He’s such a fierce competitor.”

He’ll get no argument from Eastern Michigan Coach Milton Barnes.

“Earl may be the most competitive player I’ve ever coached,” Barnes said in amazement after the Michigan game. “He does not know the odds are against him. He’s 5-5, but he plays 7-5.”

Cal Coach Ben Braun gets the credit for recruiting Boykins--the son of a 5-8 self-professed gym rat and his 4-11 wife. Braun became a hot item after Eastern Michigan’s NCAA run two years ago--the Eagles lost to top-seeded Connecticut in the second round--and moved on to Berkeley.

Since then, the little player the Big Ten passed on has been named USA Basketball’s athlete of the year for leading the national under-22 team to the gold medal at the World University Games in Italy last summer.

That’s an honor won over the years by Scottie Pippen, Ray Allen, Shaquille O’Neal, Michael Finley, Christian Laettner, and Michael Jordan, twice. You get the idea.

The Eastern Michigan-Michigan State game is being billed as a matchup between Boykins, a senior, and the Spartans’ Mateen Cleaves, a 6-2 sophomore guard who was the Big Ten player of the year.

Cleaves was also the bust of the Big Ten tournament, going two for 18 as the top-seeded Spartans were upset by eighth-seeded Minnesota.

It was a performance Cleaves said he forgot on the ride home, but the fans haven’t forgotten, with somebody shouting, “Two for 18!” from the stands during the Spartans’ public shootaround Wednesday.

Cleaves raves over Boykins, but the taciturn-yet-straightforward Boykins admitted Wednesday he hardly has seen Cleaves play. Usually, it would be the overdog, not the underdog, talking that way.

“I’ve seen him play on film for five minutes today. Other than that, I’ve never seen him play,” Boykins said. “I know he’s aggressive and ready to get after it.”

Cleaves, on the other hand, has caught Boykins’ act more than once.

“I watched him a couple of times on television,” Cleaves said. “He’s a very exciting player. He can carry that team on his back, because he can dribble, penetrate and shoot. It’s hard to take the ball from someone so low to the ground. He’s cat-quick too, and he can shoot, so it’s going to be a challenge.”

Slowing Boykins has been challenging other teams for years.

The 89 points he scored in three Mid-American Conference tournament games this season broke the record set by Ron Harper in 1985.

With 2,193 points, he needs 27 to become the school’s career scoring leader, passing Kennedy McIntosh. Boykins already holds the career assist record with 623 and had a career-high 15 this season against Toledo.

Michigan State Coach Tom Izzo hadn’t seen Boykins much until now either, but the film he has studied caught his attention.

“I’m amazed at how skilled a ballplayer he is on the little things, like ball fakes, stepping through,” Izzo said. “I thought it was just quickness, but he has a lot of tremendous basketball skills. I haven’t gotten to see him a lot, but I’m really impressed, and I can see why he’s being looked at by pro teams.

“[But] I don’t want this to become an Earl Boykins/Mateen Cleaves duel,” Izzo said. “They’re very similar players in a way, but they’re very different players too. We’ve had games where Mateen has gone four for 14 against Indiana and we still won the game because of the other things he has done. We don’t look for him to score as much as they look to Earl.”

Eastern Michigan isn’t only a one-man team, though. Guard Derrick Dial, his companion in the backcourt, also played a role in the upset of Duke two years ago and averaged 21 points and seven rebounds this season.

But the Eagles can be hard to figure. They beat Michigan, but lost to Nevada Las Vegas and to Dayton and Arizona State as well, two bubble teams that didn’t make the NCAA tournament.

Boykins has a bit of a chip on his shoulder over what he perceives as a slight from the NCAA selection committee, which seeded the Eagles 13th.

“The way I feel, the seedings are a sign of respect,” he said. “The way the NCAA seeds you shows you how they respect you. I wasn’t happy with our seeding.”

He apparently wasn’t too happy with not getting All-American mention, either, but asked if it motivated him, Boykins sneaked a peak at Barnes and smirked.

“No,” he said.

Well, then. Would it mean more to beat Michigan State in the NCAA tournament than some other team?

No peek required. Boykins knew the right answer.

“No,” said.

“Earl’s ready to play,” Barnes said, a sly smile playing across his face. “That’s all I’ll tell you. Earl is ready to play.”