The Latest Episode of Friends

To many, it is the “other” game.

To Oklahoma State and Georgia Tech -- and best friends Tony Allen of the Cowboys and Will Bynum of the Yellow Jackets -- it is the only game.

One of them will play for the national championship Monday. The other will ache as he watches.

“We talk every day, sometimes three times a day,” said Bynum, who became friends with Allen when he was in seventh grade and Allen was in eighth.

“All he’s been talking to me about since Christmas was we better make it to the Final Four, because they were going to be here.”

Let others imagine the national championship will be determined in the second NCAA semifinal game today at the Alamodome between Connecticut and Duke, the teams that were No. 1 and No. 2 in the Associated Press preseason poll.

Maybe it will. But last season’s champion, Syracuse, wasn’t even ranked before the season began, and Oklahoma State and Georgia Tech have come out of almost nowhere as well.

The Cowboys, a cohesive bunch of transfers who were ranked 25th in the preseason poll, lead this final foursome not only in scoring defense, holding teams to 55.5 points in NCAA tournament games, but also have shot better than any team in the NCAA field, 52.5%.

Georgia Tech, unranked before this season, is the only team in the nation that defeated Connecticut and Duke -- making it absurd to claim the Yellow Jackets can’t win the NCAA title if they reach Monday’s final.

“Every time we watch TV, everybody is talking about the other three teams and not us,” said Bynum, who transferred from Arizona to Georgia Tech early last season and has been a huge contributor off the bench since he became eligible in December.

“They can go on doing that,” Bynum said. “They’ve been discounting us all along.”

Bynum and Allen’s friendship grew out of a particularly feisty one-on-one game when they were in junior high.

“Once we got into it, we bonded,” Bynum said.

They are so close Bynum went to the Oklahoma State team hotel Thursday night to visit Allen, and suggested he might even go back before the game today.

“They knew he was my friend way before this basketball stuff,” Allen said, saying his teammates didn’t object to seeing Bynum in the hallway.

“When we get on the court, we’re not friends.”

After getting to know each other as youngsters, they played together in high school at Chicago’s Crane Tech Prep.

“It’s a public school -- a tough school, with a lot of distractions, right across from the projects,” Bynum said. “To make it out of there, it pretty much lets you know you can get out of anywhere.”

Allen, in particular, had his struggles, making two junior college stops, at Wabash Valley College in Illinois and Butler County Community College in Kansas. Shortly after he arrived at Oklahoma State, he was arrested for his involvement in a riot in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant in Stillwater. The charges were later dropped.

“He’s matured a lot,” Bynum said of Allen, who is expected to graduate with a solid grade-point average.

Theirs is hardly the only story of the Georgia Tech game-Oklahoma State game. B.J. Elder, the Georgia Tech guard who missed most of the last two victories because of a sprained ankle, is said to be close to 100%.

“B.J. instructed me to tell everybody his ankle is fine and they don’t have to ask about it any more,” Coach Paul Hewitt said, drawing laughter.

In the other locker room, Oklahoma State has a collection of transfers that melded into Big 12 champions.

Point guard John Lucas, son of the former NBA player and coach, is talked about most often after transferring from Baylor in the aftermath of the Patrick Dennehy murder.

He is one of four of Oklahoma State’s starters who transferred in, including Daniel Bobik, a 24-year-old junior from Newbury Park High who served a Mormon mission in the Dominican Republic before playing two seasons at Brigham Young and is married with a young son.

As for Allen and Bynum, they won’t be friends during the game today, but when it’s over, one will be congratulated and one will be consoled.

“That’s not in my thoughts right now,” Allen said. “We plan on winning. Winning is all we know.”

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

A Final Former

This season’s men’s Final Four is unique in that there are four pairs of players on different teams who were teammates in high school. A look:

* Georgia’s Will Bynum and Oklahoma State’s Tony Allen at Crane Tech Prep in Chicago.

* Duke’s Luol Deng and Connecticut’s Charlie Villanueva at Blair Academy in New Jersey.

* Duke’s Daniel Ewing and Oklahoma State’s Ivan McFarlin at Willowridge High near Houston.

* Connecticut’s Emeka Okafor and Oklahoma State’s John Lucas at Bellaire High in Houston.