College Basketball
Pac-10 notebook: Bad break is teaching hard lesson to Aaron Brooks

By Bud Withers
Seattle Times staff reporter

	Aaron Brooks
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No doubt, Aaron Brooks knew it was going to be a year of learning, going from leader of Franklin High's 4A state champions to starting point guard at the University of Oregon.

Surely, he didn't expect to be coming by his experience in quite this way.

Brooks is expected to be out six to eight weeks after breaking a bone in his wrist, apparently when he punched a basket standard in frustration at UCLA on Sunday.

"I just feel terrible for the kid," said Ben Howland, the first-year UCLA coach.

One of Howland's messages to his team Tuesday was simple: You can't take out frustrations on hard, inanimate objects.

"You can't hit the standard," Howland said. "He didn't even punch it that hard. He must have hit it just wrong.

"He's a good player. It's really just too bad."

Brooks, who scored 38 points in Franklin's title-game victory last year over Mead of Spokane, got tangled with UCLA's T.J. Cummings on a fast break midway through the first half Sunday. A foul was whistled on Brooks, and he cuffed the basket standard in frustration.

X-rays Monday revealed a break, and he had surgery to repair it.

"It's a tough lesson for him to learn," said Oregon coach Ernie Kent.

Doubly tough. If he had suffered the break during the first 30 percent of Oregon's schedule, he would have been eligible to redshirt, but the Ducks are past that point.

The break potentially could serve to keep Oregon out of the NCAA tournament. In Brooks' absence, the Ducks will sub Brandon Lincoln, with Vancouver, Wash. off-guard James Davis the backup.

"We talk about depth," said Kent. "Here's an opportunity to show how much that can help us."

Dynamic duo

There's no doubting the pecking order in the Pac-10 this year. It begins with third-ranked Arizona and No. 5 Stanford, in whichever order you prefer, and drops significantly from there.

Matchups between the two are thus more prized, and the first is Saturday afternoon in Tucson. It's not only a benchmark game for the league season, but for many seasons.

According to Pac-10 research, there have been only four previous games in league history, including the old Pac-8, matching two top-five teams. The last one, four years ago, pitted the same two teams, but before that, you have to go all the way back to March of 1981, when No. 5 Arizona State shredded top-ranked Oregon State's 26-game winning streak.

The other two such occasions were USC-UCLA matchups in 1971.

After last week's loss to Arizona, Arizona State coach Rob Evans gave a none-too-subtle vote for Stanford, saying, "We've got a better team coming in next week."

Earlier this week, Evans explained, saying, "I just feel Stanford's playing better basketball. They're not going to beat themselves. They're always going to play solid defense."

Arizona-Stanford has been an odd series, in which the road team has won the past three years. Asked whether it rankles Arizona fans that the Cardinal has that streak going at the McKale Center, Arizona coach Lute Olson said dryly, "We've beaten them the last three times at their place. That rankles their fans, too."

Oasis amid a drought

Beating a mediocre Cal team this year isn't reason for ticker-tape, but it represented a breakthrough for Washington State (7-5). Not only did it mark WSU's first Pac-10 road victory after 22 straight losses, it gives the Cougars seven victories earlier than they ever had them under Paul Graham.

"There was real joy," said first-year coach Dick Bennett. "There's only so much one can deal with in this competitive arena without getting your head down."

Nevertheless, Bennett says, "We told them not to celebrate as if it were never going to happen again."

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company