National Collegiate Athletic Association

The NCAA News - News and Features

March 10, 1997

Division I

No. 1-ranked Kansas leads field

Event: 1997 Division I Men's Basketball Championship.

Overview: Kansas has spent much of the season ranked first in the national polls. The Jayhawks won their first 22 games of the year before losing to Missouri in early February. Kansas was without the services of injured point guard Jacque Vaughn for the first 10 games and played without center Scot Pollard for eight games in February after he suffered a stress fracture. Forward Raef LaFrentz averaged more than 20 points in Pollard's absence and is averaging 19.0 points and 9.0 rebounds a game ... Wake Forest, Minnesota and Kentucky have jockeyed for position in the polls' Nos. 2 through 4 spots for most of the year. The Demon Deacons are led by center Tim Duncan, who averages 20.4 points, 14.5 rebounds and 3.4 blocked shots per game ... Minnesota clinched the first automatic berth in the NCAA tournament after sweeping though Big Ten competition. The Gophers are paced by Bobby Jackson, a senior guard who averages a team-high 14.4 points per contest ... Kentucky lost to Clemson in its first game of the year before reeling off 14 straight victories. The Wildcats are uncertain of the status of senior Derek Anderson, who injured a knee ligament in early February. Anderson was averaging a team-leading 18.6 points a game before the injury. Teammate Ron Mercer now leads the Wildcats with 17.8 points and 5.3 rebounds a game.

Field: The 64-team field includes 30 conferences with automatic qualification and 34 teams selected at large.

Dates and sites: First- and second-round games will be played at predetermined sites March 13 and 15 or 14 and 16. Regional tournaments will be March 20 and 22 or March 21 and 23 at San Jose, California (West); San Antonio (Midwest); Syracuse, New York (East); and Birmingham, Alabama (Southeast). The Final Four will be March 29 and 31 at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis.

Media coverage: All rounds of the tournament, including the Final Four, will be broadcast live on television by CBS Sports. Audio "cybercasting" of all games is accessible through the NCAA's Final Four World Wide Web site at www.finalfour.net.

Information/results: The fax-on-demand telephone number is 770/399-3060 (passcode 1915); request numbers are 1233 for the bracket/schedule, 5054 for semifinal box scores and 5055 for championship-game results. Game scores and pairings also will be available on the World Wide Web at www.ncaa.org. Scores from first- and second-round competition will appear in the March 24 issue of The NCAA News. Regional results will be published March 31. Results from the Final Four will be in the April 7 issue of the News.