It’s Wait and See for UCLA, Davis

This basketball season is going to go forward on a knee-to-know basis.

Everyone needs to know how Baron Davis’ knee is before they know what to think of UCLA’s prospects.

With the first game little more than two weeks away, the Bruins’ point guard is not yet cleared to play--although he’s doing everything in practice but scrimmaging, less than eight months after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee landing on a dunk against Michigan in the NCAA tournament.

“You can see him itching to get out there,” said Coach Steve Lavin, waiting to put the nation’s best recruiting class into the hands of his veteran sophomore. “It’s difficult for him.”

Davis could get the medical OK as soon as his next exam this week. But even if he plays Nov. 19 against Santa Clara, his time is probably going to be parceled out at maybe 10 or 20 minutes a game while he recovers his conditioning.

“It’s something you’ve just got to wait on,” said Davis, who pegged himself at “88%” at this point. “I’m willing to wait. It would be nice to get back in time to play in the season-opener. If not, it’s something I’ll have to miss.

“Right now I’m close to being able to play. If they tell me two more weeks, it won’t kill me. I’ll wait, whether it’s the season-opener or sometime in December.”

Davis isn’t certain yet how close to his old self he will feel.

“I’m still kind of waiting to see,” he said. “When I play one on one, I kind of question it sometimes, but overall I’m doing a good job of not being afraid at all.”

Lavin is pleased with the smoothness of Davis’ recovery, particularly in some of the areas crucial for a point guard, “the stops, starts, changing direction, the explosiveness that’s really necessary at his position.”

He’s also relieved the Bruins have some depth at the point, with Earl Watson able to play the position and Ryan Bailey--Toby Bailey’s younger brother--eligible this season after sitting out following his transfer from Penn State, where he started at point guard as a freshman.

That’s important, because UCLA could run into some stiff competition quickly at the Puerto Rico Shootout Nov. 26-29, where the field includes Kentucky, Maryland and Xavier.

As for Davis, Lavin acknowledges he and medical personnel are taking a cautious, conservative approach.

“They haven’t yet given a specific time line, and that’s for good reason,” Lavin said. “They want to make sure he doesn’t put too much hope in a particular game.”

Holding Davis down can be something of a challenge.

Held out of scrimmages, one day he went one on one against locked-out Laker Kobe Bryant instead.

“He destroyed me,” Davis said.

Uh, that might not have been the knee?

“Can’t blame it on that,” Davis said. “Not at all.”

TURNING POINTS

Two plays last March are still reverberating for USC and UCLA.

For the Bruins, it was Davis’ injury on a driving dunk that has left UCLA with a hobbled leader now that J.R. Henderson, Bailey and Kris Johnson are gone.

“I don’t dwell on it,” Davis said. “It’s something I did. I don’t regret it. I just learned from my mistakes and move on from there.”

For USC, it was Adam Spanich’s last-second three-point shot in overtime that beat Arizona--depriving the defending NCAA champions of an 18-0 Pacific 10 season and putting an upbeat finish on the end of the Trojans’ 9-19 season.

“Since that, everyone’s had something to say to me,” Spanich said. “It gives us a lot of hope, a lot to look forward to. We started to show what we can do. Basically, it gave us hope.”

Never mind that Spanich’s shot itself was a joyously ugly one that somehow found a way to fall through the net.

“Hey, I’m not the most beautiful player ever,” Spanich said. “Ask my teammates, they’ll tell you I have some creative shots, a few crafty ways. I was just trying to win. It was a sideways leaner.”

The Trojans don’t have to wait long for Arizona to seek revenge. The Wildcats come to the Sports Arena on Jan. 4.

“We’ve got them early, playing them at home,” Spanich said. “I don’t know exactly how eager I am to go to their place, though.”

WHO’S NO. 1

Looks as if No. 1 is a Cardinal number.

Stanford is the popular pick for No. 1 in the nation in many preseason rankings, with Arthur Lee, Kris Weems, Tim Young, Mark Madsen and Pete Sauer all back from the Final Four team that took NCAA champion Kentucky to overtime in the semifinals.

Among the other picks is Duke, which has center Elton Brand at full strength after a broken foot cost him a chunk of a freshman season in which the Blue Devils were ranked No. 1 at times.

The other is Connecticut, which probably would be getting more notice if not for a few questions about Richard “Rip” Hamilton’s recovery from a broken foot this summer. But Hamilton should be fine--he has been cleared to play and the only concession being made to his injury is that he is pulled out of the hardest, longest practices after about 1 1/2 hours.

SCHEA STADIUM

Long Beach City College ought to see a rise in attendance this season--from pro scouts, if nothing else.

Already about half a dozen have stopped in for a look at practice.

That’s because Schea Cotton--once headed to Long Beach State, then UCLA and most recently North Carolina State and now suing the NCAA in the dispute over his invalidated SAT scores--is finally making his college debut, even though it’s on a smaller scale than he ever imagined.

“It’s pretty exciting. It’s growing on me,” Cotton said before practice the other day, a little more than a year after he was supposed to join Davis in the freshman class at UCLA, and only months after learning he wouldn’t be able to play at N.C. State. “It was tough in the beginning. Now I’m looking forward to playing,” he said.

The Vikings open their season Nov. 12 at the Victor Valley tournament in Victorville, play in the Irvine Valley tournament Nov. 19, then make their home debut Nov. 24.

“He could probably, if we really wanted to do it that way, score 35 or 40 points a game,” said Coach Gary Anderson, who has known Cotton for eight or nine years. “I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t average 20 to 25 playing within our team framework.”

The NCAA twice invalidated Cotton’s test scores after he was allowed to take the exam under special circumstances, receiving extra time and using a test with larger print.

He spent most of last year at St. Thomas More, a Connecticut prep school, where he took classes and played basketball, eventually choosing N.C. State.

But when he was prevented from attending N.C. State after his last appeal to the NCAA was rejected, he said he is through with the SAT and didn’t consider taking it again last month.

“Just the whole thing, the turmoil, now it’s pretty much behind me and I’m moving on with my life,” he said.

He is living at home--”Five minutes away,” he said--and taking a heavy load of classes at Long Beach City in an effort to get his two-year degree after playing only one season. After that? Pro basketball? Or another run at college, since he won’t need an SAT score if he’s armed with a degree?

“I’m leaving the options open,” Cotton said. “I just want to take this year and make the most of it.”

So does Anderson, who points to Cotton’s assist totals in a recent scrimmage and says he’d be pleased if he could help improve Cotton’s defensive game while he’s at Long Beach CC.

“I’m just happy he selected us to try to help him kind of patch up and go on,” Anderson said. “These unfortunate things have happened. Maybe they happened for a reason. Maybe he’ll be better.

“Comparing Long Beach City and UCLA and N.C. State--you can’t compare them. We’re just elated to have him here.

“Every day, every practice, I realize how lucky our team is. . . . This is a time to heal for him.”