It’s His Land of Enchantment

Usually the player who leads the nation in scoring is someone along the lines of Mike Helms of Oakland (Mich.) or Henry Domercant of Eastern Illinois.

Somebody you’ve never heard of, from a school whose nickname you might or might not know.

The name Ruben Douglas ought to ring a bell.

He started for Arizona in 1999 alongside fellow freshmen Richard Jefferson and Michael Wright.

Then he was gone, transferring to New Mexico after freshman Gilbert Arenas beat him out at shooting guard the next season.

You’ll find Arizona at No. 1 in the polls now, and Arenas and Jefferson are NBA veterans.

And Douglas?

He has resurfaced at No. 1 in the NCAA scoring statistics, averaging 28.5 points a game as a senior for the Lobos after bolstering his lead with a 43-point performance in a loss Monday to San Diego State.

(The fans got their money’s worth. San Diego State’s Evan Burns, the UCLA recruit who never played for the Bruins after failing to be admitted, scored a career-high 31 off the bench in the same game.)

As the season winds down, Douglas and New Mexico are 9-15 and close to handing in their jerseys. He’s one shooting star you don’t figure to see in the NCAA tournament.

Meanwhile, Luke Walton and his cohorts are ready to try to win a national championship, as Douglas is well aware.

“Aw, man, that’s your goal when you come to college, to get a ring,” he said. “But that’s a closed chapter in my life. Right now I don’t even know the new guys. Mostly I cheer for my boy Luke. They’re winning, and I just want him to do well.

“I made a statement when I left Arizona that it was a great program before I got there, it was great when I was recruited there and it would be great after I left. I just needed to go my own way.”

Douglas, who led California high school players with a 34.8 scoring average as a senior at Burbank Bell-Jeff in 1998, is not the only talented player to leave the Arizona program in search of playing time.

Dennis Latimore, a sophomore forward, became the latest this week after his playing time plunged to a minute here, five minutes there. Sophomore guard Will Bynum, who started a number of games as a freshman, cited playing time when he transferred to Georgia Tech this season after falling behind Salim Stoudamire. Last season, Travis Hanour left for San Diego State.

Had Douglas known Arenas would only play two seasons at Arizona before turning pro, who knows if he would have stayed.

“I just felt that because I left he was put in a position where he could leave early,” Douglas said. “I let it go when I left. That decision I made wasn’t spur of the moment. It was playing time. The role I had on the team was undefined. I didn’t want to be just another guy.”

He’s not just another guy at New Mexico, not with 10 games of more than 30 points this season, and three over 40, including another 43-point performance against Wyoming and 40 against Nevada Las Vegas.

A 6-foot-5 guard, he takes plenty of shots to get his points, but still shoots 41.6% from the field, 41.4% from three-point range and a stellar 84.7% from the line, while also leading the team in rebounding at 6.3 a game.

He’d like to finish the season as the NCAA scoring champion, but he’ll have to wait and see.

“I don’t want to do anything detrimental to my team. That’s what the coaches are stressing,” Douglas said. “This is great, but if there’s a six-point differential in the game and I need six points to get my average, I’m going to think about the team.”

It has been a rocky road at New Mexico, with plenty of turmoil under Coach Fran Fraschilla and a series of injuries and player defections under new Coach Ritchie McKay.

Nothing was more disturbing than senior guard Senque Carey’s two-week paralysis after a collision in a game in November. Carey, a transfer from Washington, can walk again but underwent surgery last month to remove a bulging disc and fuse vertebrae in his neck. He faces up to 18 months of rehabilitation.

“His spirits are up,” Douglas said. “I can say if I was in that predicament there’s no way I would have responded the way he has. It was like a breath of fresh air. I might have a test or problems with basketball, but look at what he’s done.

“Life is not peaches and cream.”

Tournament Talk

The new chairman of the NCAA tournament selection committee, Arizona Athletic Director Jim Livengood, is backing off comments that implied teams with less than a .500 record in their conference will be particularly hard-pressed to earn at-large bids.

“There is no mathematical line,” Livengood said. “There is no rule or principle we have that talks about not being able to have a team in the tournament with less than a .500 record [in its conference.]

“It’s a perception by some that teams with less than a .500 record shouldn’t be in the tournament.... If there’s a misperception, it needs to be blamed on me.”

But before teams such as Indiana and Alabama breathe any easier, they should keep in mind that while it might not be a hard-and-fast rule, it is often a line of demarcation.

Hoosier fans are up in arms over a team that is 16-10 overall and 6-7 in the Big Ten after losing Tuesday to Illinois by 26 points, leaving Coach Mike Davis criticizing the defensive efforts of players who have not lived up to their reputations as dead-eye shooters either.

The last team to fail to make the tournament the year after playing for the NCAA title was Syracuse, in 1997.

Alabama is trying to avoid going from the nation’s No. 1-ranked team to the National Invitation Tournament.

The Crimson Tide is 15-9 overall, 5-8 in the Southeastern Conference.

One factor that could help such teams is the parity that has resulted in major conferences, with several teams around the .500 mark. Unless the committee makes a major shift in favor of mid-majors over middle-of-the-pack teams from major conferences, a few teams at .500 and even below figure to get in.

“Our charge as a committee is to select the best 34 at-large teams,” Livengood said. “The factors include the rankings of our regional advisory committee of coaches, Division I record, the overall RPI, nonconference record, nonconference RPI, conference record, road record, record in the last 10 games, injuries to key players ... and records against other teams that are under consideration.

“Basically those factors all have the same weight.”

For the record, Livengood will excuse himself from the committee’s decisions on Arizona, just as other members withdraw from votes on their schools -- or for conference commissioners, their conference teams.

However, if Arizona were to win the NCAA title, Livengood, as the committee chair, would present the trophy to his coach, just as Kentucky Athletic Director and selection committee chair C.M. Newton did in 1998.

Could Rollie’s Head Roll Again?

Rollie Massimino won the 1985 NCAA title as coach at Villanova in one of the great upsets in tournament history, but he has seldom been heard from since his failed stint at Nevada Las Vegas ended in 1994.

Hired at Cleveland State in 1996, he is 90-111 at the school, 8-20 this season.

Among ominous signs reported by the Cleveland Plain Dealer are Athletic Director Lee Reed’s comments as he stood courtside amid a crowd of 1,229 in a 13,160-seat arena.

“You can’t fool them. You can’t use smoke and mirrors,” Reed said. “Why can’t we be Cincinnati? We can’t we be DePaul? Why not Temple or St. Louis?”

Reed wouldn’t discuss Massimino’s status except to say he has two years remaining on his contract and coaching evaluations are made after the season.

Franklin Edwards, a former Cleveland State star who is now a broadcaster, told the Plain Dealer, “I love Rollie,” but “I would hate to be Lee. It’s a real tough situation.”

Around the Rim

Here’s to Mount St. Mary’s Coach Jim Phelan, who will coach his final regular-season game Saturday after 49 seasons. In tribute to the only coach to have won more than 800 games and not be a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, a number of coaches around the country have pledged to wear bow ties Saturday, as is Phelan’s tradition. Among the coaches expected to participate: Rick Barnes of Texas, Bob Huggins of Cincinnati and Kelvin Sampson of Oklahoma, who plans to wear a bow tie on his shirt pocket instead of around his neck....

In a bold but probably necessary move, Florida Coach Billy Donovan made what might prove one of the crucial decisions of the season by benching senior Brett Nelson in favor of freshman Anthony Roberson at point guard last week. Nelson, a West Virginia player once touted as the next Jerry West, was shooting 29%.