College Basketball | Oden, Gators make it a young man's game

If college basketball were tilting on an old, familiar axis, Greg Oden would be playing tonight in a glitzy but somnolent NBA arena. And somebody on the other team might be named Joakim Noah or Corey Brewer.

No, no and no. As the college season tips off tonight, new rules and novel thinking are in place, each element destined to dramatically impact schoolboy hoops.

Oden is the Indianapolis 7-footer and poster child for the first year of an NBA rule forcing high-school graduates to wait a year before they can be drafted. Instead of occupying the roster of the Toronto Raptors, who had the first pick in the pro draft, he's with the Ohio State Buckeyes, who suddenly will become a factor in the national-title race when Oden debuts in January after a wrist injury.

"I'm not sure there's been a better big man coming out, in terms of all aspects of the game — passing, scoring and shot-blocking," Arizona coach Lute Olson said last week at the Pac-10's media day. "He pretty much eliminates everything from 12 feet in. He has a chance to be another [Bill] Walton or [Kareem Abdul-] Jabbar."

If the fates, or CBS, have their way, Oden will run into Florida. It was the Gators who marched convincingly to the 2006 national championship, after which leading lights like Noah, Brewer and Al Horford were expected to bid goodbye to Gainesville and hello to a rookie contract.

They announced shortly after returning from the Final Four that they would take a pass on the pros for now. Refreshingly — stunningly — they then kept their word through the spring dance of posturing and agents and draft camps.

What's left for Florida is a rarity on the order of the hook shot — five starters returning to an NCAA championship team, trying to become the first to repeat since Duke in 1992.

Of course, the downside is that anything less than trophies and snipped nets is liable to be viewed as failure. Billy Donovan, the coach, is already bracing for that eventuality.

"I'm not going to allow anybody to take away from the enjoyment we're going to try to have, taking on the challenge of this year," he told reporters recently. "If we don't get to the Final Four, I'm not going to sit there and say, 'What a disappointing season.' "

Rest assured, there will be people who will do it for him. And there will be no lack of hopefuls looking to bump Florida from the winners' stand — among them, North Carolina, Kansas and possibly UCLA or Arizona.

Five more story lines

• Texas Tech coach Bob Knight will chase down Dean Smith for the career record for Division I victories (879), provided (a) he stays away from salad-bar dustups in Lubbock, and (b) he keeps star guard Jarrius Jackson, whom he recently booted for academic reasons and then welcomed back a week later.

Knight has 869 wins. If he aims to keep the record, he'll need to stay around awhile to hold off protégé Mike Krzyzewski of Duke (753).

• Without having coached a game yet at Indiana, Kelvin Sampson has firestorms licking at his backside. Sampson brings with him the baggage of hundreds of improper phone contacts while coach at Oklahoma, and a ringing endorsement last spring from ex-Hoosier Ted Kitchel, who told the Indianapolis Star he wouldn't have hired Sampson "to coach my fifth-grade girls team."

Sampson has already been controversial in the Big Ten. He turned around a commitment to Illinois by hotshot Indy guard Eric Gordon and signed him Wednesday.

• Bob Huggins brings his hard-bitten style of coaching to Kansas State, which hasn't been to the NCAA tournament since 1996.

• Billy Packer's favorite conference, the Missouri Valley, apparently isn't going away quietly. Packer, openly critical of mid-major representation in the NCAA field last March, looked foolish when the middies performed famously. Now, among Valley heavyweights Creighton, Missouri State, Southern Illinois and Wichita State, 17 starters return.

• Spokane County might have the nation's top scorer for the second straight year — Eastern Washington's Rodney Stuckey (eighth last year) following Gonzaga's Adam Morrison.

Mason's mark

Who's this year's George Mason, pulling off the D.C.-area school's improbable march to the 2006 Final Four? Nobody; that's why they call them miracles. Nor is that run likely to have a major impact on Mason's future on the floor. Usually, one year's emergence simply isn't enough.

Retire it at 65

Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim is one of those calling for a modest expansion of the NCAA field of 65 by seven or eight.

Please. The tournament works fine.

Five programs coming back

• Georgetown. Until last year, the Hoyas went to one NCAA tournament in eight seasons. Roy Hibbert, a 7-2 center, will help them repeat.

• Purdue. Boilers used to be a tournament fixture under Gene Keady, until things got stale late in his tenure. Successor Matt Painter has them on the way back.

• DePaul. Success has lately been sporadic at Ray Meyer's old school. But Demons had a 39-point win over Syracuse last year and return almost everyone.

• Kansas State. Huggins spent his off-year recruiting — selling himself, essentially — and pulled in two big-time prospects, Michael Beasley and Bill Walker.

• Texas A&M. What, big hoops in College Station? Aggies made their first NCAA since '87 last year, and should do better with guard Acie Law and forward Joseph Jones.

Five programs gone south

• Wake Forest. When Chris Paul left early in 2005, so, seemingly, did Wake's competitiveness. It could finish last in the ACC.

• Fresno State. It's been five years out of the NCAA tournament, thanks to departed Jerry Tarkanian and Ray Lopes.

• Nevada-Las Vegas. Funny thing about Lon Kruger: Good coach who can't seem to find the right professional fit. Now he takes on his son Kevin, who transferred from Arizona State for his last season.

• Pepperdine. Paul Westphal did for the Waves what he did for the Sonics. Now Pepp will try to reclaim past nastiness under innovative coach Vance Walberg.

• Missouri. The Quin Snyder soap opera ended, to give way to Mike Anderson's (ex-UAB) brisk style.

Five hot-seated coaches

• Tommy Amaker, Michigan. Something about ex-Dukies trying to make it on their own.

• Mike Brey, Notre Dame. Nice guy who finishes a close second in a lot of games.

• Dan Monson, Minnesota. Ex-Gonzaga coach has been there before, leading Gophers to the NCAAs in 2004-05 when it looked tenuous.

• Steve McClain, Wyoming. Cowboys figure to struggle in Mountain West.

• Jay John, Oregon State. Got a five-year extension in '05, so he's solid. But the Pac-10 is growing fangs and OSU faithful haven't seen as much as a .500 league record in 13 seasons.

Six guys worth cheering for

• Jaime Dixon. Pittsburgh coach lost his sister Maggie, the coach at Army, to heart failure at 28 last spring.

• Darren Cooper. Several close relatives of the ex-Eastern Washington guard died in a short period, and when his mother, Carrie Green of Portland, developed cancer, he transferred to a JC, cared for her and then enrolled at the University of Portland. No wonder the NCAA granted him an extra year of eligibility.

• Mike Sutton. The Tennessee Tech coach is fighting back from Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a devastating illness that paralyzed him in 2005. He coached from a wheelchair last year and still needs help to walk.

• Chris Gonzalez. The Western Illinois swingman was at Navarro JC three years ago when a team van was struck by a big rig, killing two teammates and leaving Gonzalez with a broken shoulder, hip, pelvis, ribs and a torn aorta. The hip required 27 screws and bolts, the aorta a patch of fabricated polyester.

• Dick Davey. The veteran Santa Clara coach's daughter-in-law Kathleen suffered cardiac arrest and brain damage doing pull-ups in her garage in 2004. She's been in a vegetative condition since.

• Sam Ashaolu. You won't see him on the floor this year, but he's made a remarkable comeback from taking two bullets to the head in the Sept. 17 shootings in Pittsburgh. He, and a lot of people, will be pulling for Duquesne.