College Basketball

No matter how ugly it gets for Missouri this year—the Tigers dropped to a woeful 2-5 in the Big 12 after losing to Texas 78-74 on Sunday—the team as a whole can't possibly absorb as much abuse as Mizzou's senior shooting guard, Jason Sutherland, whose aggressive tactics have earned him the abiding wrath of Big 12 opponents and their fans, the grudging respect of coaches around the conference and our selection as the Most Annoying Player in Division I.

A decent guy and good student off the court, Sutherland is a consensus pain in the neck on it. He gets booed almost every time he touches the ball when the Tigers play at Kansas, and on Jan. 11 at Oklahoma State his aggravating, in-your-face play was rewarded with the most hostile razzing ever heard at Gallagher-Iba Arena. In a fairly typical game last week against Nebraska, Sutherland was charged with two intentional fouls—first for undercutting a Corn-husker on a layup, then for hacking another—in the first seven minutes, and early in the second half he was in the middle of a pileup that brought both teams' coaches snarling onto the court. Sutherland, who typically fans his opponents' fury by calmly walking away from the melees he instigates, escaped unpenalized, but his coach, Norm Stewart, was charged with a technical for screaming at his Nebraska counterpart, Danny Nee. After that storm had passed, Sutherland iced the game for Missouri with a clutch shot from the foul line.

"I play very aggressive, I always have, and I know it gets people mad at me," says Sutherland, who got into another dustup on Sunday with Texas swingman Kris Clack, who complained that Sutherland had been grabbing him throughout the game. "If I cause my opponents to lose their concentration, to be thinking about something other than what they should, great. That gives our team an edge."

"There's not a coach in our league who wouldn't love to have Sutherland on his team," says Iowa State coach Tim Floyd. "He and Jerod Haase at Kansas are two of the fiercest competitors in the nation. I love to watch kids play with that kind of passion. It's infectious to teammates. It instills the kind of competitiveness that you need to win on the road. I love Jason Sutherland."

Not everyone is so admiring. By the time Sutherland was a sophomore, one TV broadcaster had labeled him the Bully of the Big Eight, and another had called him the dirtiest player in the Big Eight. Says Sutherland, "I'm definitely not a dirty player."

Growing up in Spearfish, S.D.—where his parents ran a pest-control business, believe it or not—Sutherland became an age-group champion swimmer at 10. In high school he was state champion in the high jump and all-state as a quarterback and safety in football and was named the state's Mr. Basketball. Connie recalls that one year, after Jason made the winning shot in overtime in a basketball game between two undefeated schools, "we had to have a police escort out of there, the fans were so mad at him."

Sutherland finds a certain honor in drawing the ire of so many people. Of the cascade of boos that rained down on him in Stillwater, he said, "I'll always remember it. At least they recognize me for something."

Heir Jordan

It's hard to imagine that any team with Michael Jordan in the backcourt would struggle to have a winning record, yet that's the case with Penn, which was 6-7 at week's end after having upset La Salle 67-60 last Thursday. Still, in the Ivy League the Quakers were 2-0 and tied with Princeton for first place, thanks in no small part to a freshman who shares his name with the best basketball player of all time. "People hear me get introduced, and they assume I'm going to come out and light it up," says Michael Hakim Jordan, a 6-foot shooting guard. "But I know I'll never play like Mike. I'm even 0 for 1 on dunks this year."

After enduring more than a decade's worth of wisecracks, Jordan has cultivated a good sense of humor about his nominal coincidence. Hence his choice of uniform number 23. At the urging of older teammates, Jordan started wearing the number at Abington Friends School near Philadelphia, where he was an all-state guard his last two years. "When I got to Penn and 23 was available, I thought, Why not take it again?" says Jordan, who denies that his parents were prescient about his hoops talent when they named him. (After all, he was born in 1977, about a year before His Airness failed to make the varsity at Laney High in Wilmington, N.C.)