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Week at a Glance

Handing out holiday gifts

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By Albert Lin, CNNSI.com

	´ Our New Favorite Player ´ Checking In ´ Benched ´ Storylines ´ Don't Miss It ´ Eric Chenowith Watch

In keeping with the season, it's time to present the Glance's holiday gifts for needy coaches, players and programs. With emphasis on the needy.

Duke: That Casey Sanders magically turns into a legitimate post threat.

Terence Morris, Maryland: Heart.

Virginia: A superstar to take the team to the next level.

North Carolina: A point guard, any point guard.

Clemson: A win at Chapel Hill, where the Tigers are a mind-numbing 0-45 lifetime.

Arizona: The entire team -- Lute Olson included -- together for a long stretch.

Steve Lavin, UCLA: That his team plays well enough for him to come back next fall, with a stellar recruiting class.

Luke Ridnour, Oregon: A college career, away from the spotlight, that lives up to his prep hype.

Wisconsin: Another NCAA tournament run to further legitimize Dick Bennett's system.

Indiana: Enough wins to get Mike Davis the job on a permanent basis.

Mike Davis, Indiana: A giant bottle of antacid.

Penn State: Another Crispin brother.

Minnesota: Nothing. Christmas came early when Rick Rickert signed with the Gophers.

Alabama: That Gerald Wallace stays in school for at least another year.

South Carolina: That prized freshman Rolando Howell makes an impact coming off his seven-game suspension.

Mississippi: That the country discovers Justin Reed before much longer.

Vanderbilt: To sign prep sensation David Harrison, son of Commodores football assistant Dennis.

Colorado: To sign prep sensation David Harrison, brother of Buffaloes forward D.J.

Missouri: That no underclassmen jump to the NBA, because the Tigers will be really scary next season.

Nebraska: That the athletic department can figure out how to turn cornfed linemen into basketball players.

Texas A&M: That Bernard King turns out to be 1/10th the player the other Bernard King was.

St. John's: That Mike Jarvis resists the NBA's overtures again.

Virginia Tech: That Michael Vick suddenly discovers basketball.

Seton Hall: That Eddie Griffin leads the team to a Final Four before turning pro.

Syracuse: Neverending respect for Jim Boeheim, if he molds these Orangemen into a season-ending Top 25 team.

Bob Huggins, Cincinnati: A redo on last year's recruiting to come up with juco guys who can actually play.

South Florida: That B.B. Waldon and Altron Jackson put the Bulls on the map, because if they can't no one ever will.

Tulane: To get swingman David Hawkins, who originally signed with the Green Wave, back from Temple.

Louisville: A new coach.

Next week: New Year's resolutions!

Charlie Bell, 6-3, sr., SG, Michigan State

A starter from Day One, Bell made his reputation first as one of the best rebounding guards in the nation and then as a staunch defender. Last year he proved he could handle the point when Mateen Cleaves was injured. It's easy to forget, then, that the last original Flintstone was a prolific scorer for Southwestern Academy, averaging more than 30 points each of his last two seasons. As a Spartans senior, he's leading the team in scoring while still logging a lot of minutes at the point. The versatility paid off Saturday vs. Kentucky, when Bell shot 1-for-11 and freshman PG Marcus Taylor missed the second half with an injury. Bell still grabbed seven rebounds and dished out eight assists (against one turnover) as Michigan State squeaked by the Wildcats.

David West: Xavier sophomore center is devouring foes inside, keying the Musketeers' upset of Cincinnati with 23 points (15-19 FT) and 13 rebounds, then notching 23 and nine in a win over Marquette.

Manhattan: David Holmes, a 6-7 forward from famed Oak Hill Academy and the best recruit in school history, is cleared to play by the NCAA. He will make his debut Thursday against St. John's.

B.J. Pratt: Denver (?!?) sophomore guard scores 17 of his game-high 24 in the second half, including a pair of free throws with 4.3 seconds left, to lift the Pioneers -- in their second year playing Division I -- to a 54-53 upset of Oregon State.

Ron Williamson: Though his team gets shellacked, the Howard sophomore guard lights up Georgetown for 41 points, hitting 11 of 17 three-pointers.

Jason Capel: Just 13 days after Brendan Haywood produced the fiirst triple-double in North Carolina history, Capel submits a 16-point, 11-rebound, 10-assist night against Buffalo.

Harvard: Overcomes four-point deficit with 18 seconds remaining to beat Dartmouth 79-78 in early Ivy League opener.

Baron Davis: Are you sure there's no way we can restore this electrifying high-flyer's college eligibility?

Tubby Smith: How can your Kentucky team blitz North Carolina in Chapel Hill and nearly beat Michigan State in East Lansing, yet be 3-5?

Loren Woods: So the Arizona center might be healthy. But he still looks as soft as he ever was.

UNLV: Somehow, clean program and Las Vegas just don't go together, and it's hard to see how they ever will.

Donald Little: Sophomore center fouls out in five minutes of action in Cincinnati's loss to Xavier.

St. John's: After such a promising start, what's happened, Mike Jarvis?

Working off the rust

With teams in the midst of finals and Christmas break coming up, we've already seen several upsets and close calls. Will Top 25 clubs need a game or two to regain their legs?

War of attrition

A host of top matchups this week will begin to separate the contenders from the pretenders. See Don't MIss It for more. (And we're not even counting traditional rivalries like Indiana-Kentucky and North Carolina-UCLA.)

Treading cautiously

Missouri may be in the Big 12, but the Tigers are facing a brutal three-game Big Ten stretch. After a tough double-OT loss at Iowa, will Missouri be able to save face Monday at Indiana or Thursday at Illinois? The Tigers may get a boost against the Illini, when McDonald's All-American Travon Bryant is eligible to join the club.

Tennessee vs. Virginia in East Rutherford, N.J., Tuesday, 7 p.m. ET

Two unbeatens square off with the talent-laden Vols and the more anonymous Cavs. We're starting to believe in Tennessee, which has a huge size advantage here, but Pete Gillen could engineer a surprise.

Michigan State at Seton Hall, Tuesday, 9 p.m. ET

The nightcap of the Jimmy V Classic is no less salivating, featuring probably the top two freshmen in the country in Spartan Zach Randolph and Pirate Eddie Griffin. Michigan State is the better team right now, but homecourt advantage and youthful enthusiasm could propel Seton Hall.

Duke vs. Stanford in Oakland, Thursday, 9 p.m. ET

While we agree that Stanford has the horses inside to exploit Duke's major weakness, until we see someone do it successfully we have to give the Blue Devils the benefit of the doubt. This should be an absolute war.

Tennessee at Syracuse, Friday, 7 p.m. ET

If Virginia doesn't make the first blemish on Tennessee's record, the Orangemen just might. Syracuse doesn't lose often at home, and its tough zone defense combined with a potential Vols letdown could spell ... well, let's just say we like the team in orange.

Another year, another underachiever to pick on. True, we could have flayed Brendan Haywood for another 16 weeks, but after Chenowith's performance in 1999-2000 -- the 7-1, 270-pound pivot regressed from 13.5 points and 9.1 rebounds as a sophomore to 8.6 and 5.6, losing his starting job in the process -- how could we resist? The senior needs to prove that last year was an anomaly; if he does that, KU's 24-10 record (11-5, fifth in Big 12) will have been one, too.

2000-01 stats: 13.2 points, 9.5 rebounds, 1.8 blocks in 23.1 minutes per game. After a decent performance against DePaul (he managed to stay on the floor 27 minutes before fouling out), Chenowith overwhelmed the undersized Tulsa frontcourt with a masterful 24 points (7-11 FG, 10-11 FT), 14 rebounds and three blocks in 30 minutes of action.

Come back every Monday for a new Week at a Glance.

 

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