Freshman Class Making It Look Like Basketball 101

As hypothetical chairman of the NCAA exploratory committee examining whether freshmen should be ineligible for athletic participation, I must humbly conclude the proposition to be, well, how to put this delicately, the dumbest ever conceived!

Or, haven’t you been paying attention?

The kids are not only all right, they’re awesome.

The argument that the ongoing exodus of underclassmen to the NBA would put an undue strain on the incoming high school class and compromise the integrity of the college game has thus far proved specious (you freshman kids, that’s a senior word meaning “having a false look of truth or genuineness.”).

Maybe it’s beginner’s luck, but six of the top seven schools in this week’s Associated Press poll would not be there if not for freshmen.

Fuzz faces also have played prominent roles for No. 9 Florida and No. 14 Duke, while we’re still waiting for No. 11 UCLA to unleash Jason Kapono.

Adjustment period?

Opening-game jitters?

Hey, ma, I wanna come home?

Hey, ma, just point me toward the gym.

North Carolina’s Joseph Forte opened his career by winning outstanding-player honors at the Maui Invitational, dropping a 24-spot on USC. Entering play this week, Forte was averaging 17 points and leading the Atlantic Coast Conference in three-point shooting.

Before Tuesday night’s loss to Connecticut in the Great Eight, Arizona rocketed to No. 2 in the polls with a freshman backcourt of Jason Gardner and Gilbert Arenas. Gardner had nine assists in his debut against Kansas State and Arenas, paying no heed to history, scored 20 points against vaunted Kentucky on Nov. 26.

Arizona Coach Lute Olson rode freshman point guard Mike Bibby to an NCAA title in 1997, but that was different.

“He did it with [juniors] Michael Dickerson and Miles Simon at the wings,” Olson said of Bibby, “where he had a great deal of help in terms of leadership.”

Stanford’s first-year tandem of 6-foot-9 swingman Casey Jacobsen and 6-11 string bean center Curtis Borchardt has kept the Cardinal on course despite the loss of leader Mark Madsen, out until the end of the month because of a hamstring injury.

Borchardt already has 13 blocked shots and Jacobsen, from Glendora High, is averaging 25 minutes and leads the team with nine three-pointers.

No. 1 Cincinnati has four guards on its roster; three are freshmen. DerMarr Johnson and Kenny Satterfield eased into their Bearcat careers by making the all-tournament team in the Thanksgiving weekend Big Island Invitation tournament.

Kansas returned to the top 10 for the first time in a year thanks to a freshman trio--Drew Gooden, Nick Collison and Kirk Hinrich--known as “the Triplets.”

“I can’t imagine any coach being any happier with three freshmen as I am,” Kansas Coach Roy Williams said.

Gooden debuted with 30 rebounds in three games to win most-outstanding-player honors at the Great Alaska Shootout.

The “Triplets” entered the week averaging 23 points and 17 rebounds, the most since the Jayhawks’ four-man freshman class of 1982-83.

Everywhere you look, freshmen are fabulous.

Duke freshman Nick Horvath beat DePaul last week with a last-second, three-point basket at Durham, N.C., and Horvath is the least heralded of a Duke freshman class that includes Jason Williams, Carlos Boozer and Michael Dunleavy, all of whom are contributing significant minutes.

The leading scorer for DePaul in the Duke loss? Freshman center Steven Hunter, who had 21 points and 10 rebounds.

At Florida, Donnell Harvey, freshman rebounding machine, is already drawing on-court comparisons to Dennis Rodman, while Michigan State rookie Jason Richardson looks better each time out.

North Carolina Coach Bill Guthridge thinks the new crop of freshmen may have caught opponents by surprise.

‘It’s the first time they’ve seen those players,” he said.

Guthridge has a point. Let’s check back on these hotshots in mid-February, when their legs start to tire, homesickness sets in, mid-terms are due and they get a second whiff of conference opponents.

Yet, there is no doubt freshmen are better equipped to contribute than ever before, mostly out of necessity.

“I’m not surprised,” Arizona’s Olson said. “These guys play so much basketball, and play against so many good players. They’re exposed to a totally different level of basketball as what they are exposed to just playing a regular high school schedule.”

‘ZAG TIME

Gonzaga is so tired of its little-team-from-nowhere status it has thrown itself on the national stage this season with a nonconference schedule that has the bite of King salmon.

In a 10-day span starting last Saturday, Gonzaga will face Cincinnati, Temple, UCLA (on Saturday) and Washington.

“You might say the guy who did the scheduling doesn’t know what he’s doing, he’s a little crazy,” said first-year Coach Mark Few, promoted after Don Monson cashed his tournament chip and took the Minnesota job. “That would be me.”

Yes, Gonzaga was the story of last year’s tournament, drop-kicking Minnesota, Stanford and Florida before losing to national champion Connecticut in the West Regional final.

But Gonzaga, despite its funny name, was no Austin Peay-type fluke. The Bulldogs have averaged 19 wins a season in the 1990s, made five postseason appearances--three NIT, two NCAA--and won four of the last six West Coast Conference titles.

Few’s plan is to keep Gonzaga on the national front burner. The upgrade in schedule also will help the team’s Ratings Percentage Index, the power rankings used by the NCAA selection committee to seed tournament teams.

“We want to get our program to the point we play anyone, anywhere,” Few said.

The anyone Saturday is UCLA. The anywhere is Pauley Pavilion.

STATE OF THE STATE

What’s life been like at Michigan State without star point guard Mateen Cleaves?

“It’s like going to the prom without a date,” Spartan Coach Tom Izzo said. “It’s not a good deal.”

Well, it hasn’t been that bad. Ask Kansas. Michigan State is holding up much better than most of us expected, and better than Cleaves himself, probably out until early January because of a fractured foot.

Izzo said Cleaves, who returned for his senior season in part because of an early-season schedule that included North Carolina, Kansas, Arizona and Kentucky, has been pained on the pine.

After a recent game, Izzo approached Cleaves in the locker room.

“He was sitting by himself, he was in tears,” Izzo said. “He broke down. It was the first time I’ve seen him struggle with this. He just feels helpless.”

Cleaves should feel better knowing the Spartans probably can’t return to the Final Four without him, although breaking a superstar back into a winning lineup can be a delicate thing.

Kansas discovered as much in 1996-97, when point guard Ryan Robertson went 11-0 in place of Jacque Vaughn. Kansas kept winning after Vaughn’s return, but the Jayhawks’ dream season was ended with a loss to Arizona at the Southeast Regional at Birmingham, Ala.

“The problem we had was that Jacque was a different player than Ryan,” Kansas’ Williams said. “Our style of play changed a little bit.”

Williams thinks Michigan State can expect the same with Cleaves’ return.

“There will be some unsettled times,” Williams said.

NETS AND BOLTS

* Indiana pregame notes last Saturday recounting the 1998 Kentucky-Indiana game mentioned that Hoosier A.J. Guyton scored 15 points and Dane Fife added 10 in Indiana’s overtime loss, but failed to note that Luke Recker led the team with 18 points. Sounds like Recker has been expunged from Hoosier history after becoming the latest disgruntled player to transfer out of Bob Knight’s program.

More Recker: His decision this week to transfer from Arizona to Iowa is not happenstance and sets up a great future Big Ten grudge match pitting Iowa Coach Steve Alford and Recker, disgruntled former Hoosiers, against Knight, their former coach.

* Looking ahead: In what could be a Pacific 10 matchup of top five teams, Arizona plays at Stanford on Jan. 8.

* What price glory? The University of Connecticut reportedly spent $60,000 to buy NCAA championship rings for 298 staff members and, yes, even the players. The school’s coaching staff and top administrators received rings worth $495.50 apiece. The players’ rings, mostly cubic zirconium stones, cost $199 each.

* Utah senior forward Hanno Mottola, who tore left knee ligaments Nov. 9, has begun light running and might be back in the lineup by late December. News flash: The 4-2 Utes, who have fallen from the top 25, need Mottola.

* Last March, North Carolina lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament to Weber State. Last week, the Tar Heels lost their first home opener in 71 years, to Michigan State. How is second-year Coach Guthridge holding up? “I know when Dean Smith was head coach and I was an assistant, people were critical of him from time to time,” Guthridge said. “And if people can be critical of Dean Smith, a lot more can be critical of Bill Guthridge.”