Cleaves and Peterson Are Wooden All-Americans

Michigan State guard Mateen Cleaves and forward Morris Peterson, whose team will play Wisconsin in Saturday’s NCAA tournament Final Four at Indianapolis, have been voted to the 2000 John R. Wooden All-American team.

Others voted to the 10-player team were Duke forwards Shane Battier and Chris Carrawell, Cincinnati center Kenyon Martin, Indiana guard A.J. Guyton, Iowa State forward Marcus Fizer, Notre Dame forward Troy Murphy, Stanford forward Mark Madsen and Texas center Chris Mihm.

The five top vote getters will be invited to an April 7 ceremony in Los Angeles for the presentation of the Wooden Award trophy to the nation’s outstanding player. Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski will receive the Los Angeles Athletic Club’s Legends of Coaching Award.

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Former Indiana player Daryl Thomas denied a recent newspaper report that Hoosier Coach Bob Knight struck him and former teammate Steve Alford.

Alford, now the coach at Iowa, also has denied the Houston Chronicle story in which another former teammate, Ricky Calloway, said he saw Knight punch Alford and slap Thomas.

Calloway, Thomas and Alford were teammates on Indiana’s 1987 NCAA championship team. Calloway later transferred to Kansas.

Said Thomas in the Bloomington (Ind.) Herald-Times:. “I heard my name mentioned that I was slapped around while I was at Indiana. Coach Knight never put his hands on me in a way to cause physical harm.”

Said Alford: “Nothing along those lines ever happened,”

Two weeks ago, former player Neil Reed, who transferred from Indiana in 1997, said in a CNN/Sports Illustrated interview that Knight once grabbed him by the throat. At the time he left, Reed said he had been physically abused by Knight but did not elaborate. Last week, university President Myles Brand appointed trustees to investigate.

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Notre Dame (22-14) and Wake Forest (21-14) play in the championship game of the National Invitation Tournament tonight (4 p.m. PST, ESPN) at New York. . . . Wisconsin (21-12) lost all but one point of a 15-point second-half lead before hanging on for a 75-74 victory over Florida (21-13) in the women’s NIT championship game at Madison, Wis. Florida missed two shots in the closing seconds. . . . UCLA, St. John’s, Kentucky and Kansas were selected to play in the Coaches vs. Cancer tournament Nov. 9-10 in New York. . . . Freshman guard DerMarr Johnson will leave Cincinnati to make himself available for the NBA draft, the Cincinnati Post reported. Johnson, a 6-foot-9 guard, was Cincinnati’s third-leading scorer at 12.6 points a game. . . . Oregon State point guard Deaundra Tanner says he likes recently hired Coach Ritchie McKay and will return for his senior season. Tanner, the leading scorer for Oregon State this season at 14.2 points a game, had considered skipping his final season to be closer to his 2-year-old son in Los Angeles. . . . R.T. Guinn and Rafael Berumen, two centers who played at New Mexico as freshmen, will not return next season, according to Coach Fran Fraschilla. Berumen, from Simi Valley High, was sidelined the second half of the season with a groin injury.