The NCAA News - News and Features

March 9, 1998

Division I Men's Basketball

Familiar foursome has inside track

Event: 1998 Division I Men's Basketball Championship.

Overview: Duke, Arizona, Kansas and North Carolina appear to have the inside track to the top seeds as conference postseason play looms .... Atlantic Coast Conference rivals Duke and North Carolina each have held the No. 1 ranking in the national polls. The Tar Heels' latest stint began with a dismantling of Duke and ended with an upset loss at home to North Carolina State. Duke resumed the top spot with a resounding romp over UCLA and won the regular-season rematch with the Tar Heels at Cameron Indoor Stadium. The return of 6-8, 260-pound freshman Elton Brand from an injury has sparked the Blue Devils, who look to reach the Final Four for the eighth time in 13 years. Duke also is strong on the perimeter with guards Steve Wojciechowski (7.3 points per game, 4.5 assists per game, 2.1 steals) and Trajan Langdon (15.6 ppg, 41.9 percent three-pointers) .... Junior Antawn Jamison leads North Carolina, winners of 20 or more games for the 28th consecutive season, with 23.4 points and 9.9 rebounds per game. Point guard Ed Cota (8.4 ppg, 7.8 apg); shooting guard Shammond Williams (16.3 ppg, 4.5 apg); and small forward Vince Carter (15.8 ppg, 5.2 rpg) round out a strong nucleus .... Kansas, a perennial favorite to reach the Final Four, has not advanced past the regionals since 1993. The Jayhawks will try again on the shoulders of player-of-the-year candidate Raef LaFrentz, who leads them in scoring and rebounding. LaFrentz is part of a senior class that has won four consecutive conference titles, the latest clinched with an 83-70 victory over Oklahoma at Allen Fieldhouse, where the Jayhawks have won a record 60 straight games .... Defending champion Arizona returns all five starters, including last year's most outstanding player, guard Miles Simon. But the Wildcats had to survive one-point scares from Arizona State and Oregon State to maintain their lofty ranking. Simon's buzzer-beater against Oregon State was the second of his career, the first coming on a 65-footer against Cincinnati in 1995-96.

Field: The 64-team field includes 30 teams from 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 12 and 14 or 13 and 15. Regional tournaments will be March 19 and 21 or March 20 and 22 at Greensboro, North Carolina (East); St. Petersburg, Florida (South); St. Louis (Midwest); and Anaheim, California (West). The Final Four will be March 28 and 30 at the Alamodome in San Antonio.

Media coverage: All rounds of the tournament, including the Final Four, will be broadcast live 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 bracket/schedule, 5054 for semifinal box scores and 5055 for the championship-game box score. 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 23 issue of The NCAA News. Regional scores will be published March 30. Results from the Final Four will appear in the April 6 issue.