Saint Joseph’s Martelli and Nelson Receive AP Honors

Adding a flourish to the feel-good story of the college basketball season, Coach Phil Martelli and point guard Jameer Nelson of Saint Joseph’s were honored Friday by Associated Press.

It marked the first year since 1980 and the 10th time overall that the coach and player of the year are from the same school.

“Welcome to the sweet little club,” said AP editor Terry Taylor, who presented the awards.

Martelli said the honors should go to an entire Hawk team that won its first 27 games and advanced to the NCAA tournament’s round of eight before losing to Oklahoma State to finish 30-2.

“This is about honoring the team of the year,” he said. “I know somebody is going to cut down the nets here, but they won’t be a better team.”

The unselfish Hawks were epitomized by Nelson, a senior who set Saint Joseph’s records by averaging 20.2 points, 5.3 assists and 2.9 steals.

“Those numbers pale in comparison to who he is,” Martelli said. “He is the finest human being I’ve been around in the game of basketball.”

Martelli and Nelson also received the Rupp, Naismith and U.S. Basketball Writers Assn. awards.

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Georgia Tech Coach Paul Hewitt was a graduate assistant at USC under George Raveling during the 1989-90 season, and he hasn’t hesitated to call on him.

Hewitt gave Raveling some of the credit for Georgia Tech beating Kansas after he called Raveling shortly before the regional final.

“The kids went out with 25 minutes on the game clock. I said to one of my assistants, ‘Call Rav, see what he thinks.’

“[Raveling] said, ‘I’ll tell you one thing, you have to make Wayne Simien guard somebody, so you have to get Luke [Schenscher] the ball.’ ”

Hewitt took the advice and changed the plan for the outset of the game to get the ball to Schenscher, who was quickly fouled and ended up with 15 points in Georgia Tech’s overtime victory. Simien scored 11.

The trip to the Final Four has also proven lucrative for Hewitt, who agreed Friday to a new six-year contract that will pay him at least $1 million annually.

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Duke point guard Chris Duhon and Georgia Tech guard Jarrett Jack are cousins, but Jack said with a smile that he isn’t rooting for Duke.

Duhon, however, called to wish Jack luck.

“I was kind of surprised when I got the phone call,” Jack said. “We were on our way to practice. He told me congratulations, hope we take care of business, and hopefully he’ll meet us in the final Monday.”

Duhon’s goodwill didn’t extend to trying to recruit Jack to Duke. “I already had to battle Jason Williams and I wasn’t going to bring in another point guard,” Duhon said.

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Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski raised eyebrows when he said he never expected the NCAA to take action against his program despite the fact that Corey Maggette forfeited his amateur status by accepting money from his Amateur Athletic Union coach before enrolling at Duke.

The Blue Devils lost to Connecticut in the national championship game in 1999 when Maggette was a member of the team.

“I thought it was never an issue so I never paid that much attention to it,” Krzyzewski said. “I knew it would be handled properly.”

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Connecticut’s Ben Gordon is the top scorer in the Final Four, with a 22-point average in four NCAA tournament games.... Connecticut center Emeka Okafor’s limited playing time because of injury has reduced his blocked-shots average in the tournament to 2.25 a game -- a mark that Duke’s Shelden Williams shares. Okafor led the nation with 4.2 blocks a game during the season.