Oklahoma

COLLEGE PARK -- They will not have to carry a prolonged losing streak back into their next Atlantic Coast Conference game. They will not have to carry the doubts that had started to seep into their thoughts.For the University of Maryland basketball team, Tuesday night's 89-78 upset of 12th-ranked Oklahoma at the Baltimore Arena provided something the Terrapins needed dearly: a second wind on what had started to look like a difficult season."The good thing is the players feel a lot better about themselves than they did going into that game," Maryland coach Gary Williams said yesterday.

PHOENIX, Ariz. -- He's "Doctor J. with a jump shot, a lock for the 1996 Dream Team," says San Antonio coach John Lucas.He's the one man Detroit wanted in a deal that would have sent Dennis Rodman to Phoenix.He's been called "unstoppable" by Charles Barkley. "He's just amazing."He's Richard Dumas and he's the fastest rising Sun on the Arizona basketball horizon, and he's lucky he hasn't killed himself.That because Dumas has a history of drug and alcohol abuse that dates back to when he was 12 years old."

Spectera Inc. landed a health insurance-management contract with the state of Oklahoma that has added 18 jobs at the company, most of them in Baltimore.The Oklahoma contract, covering 150,000 people for five years, is the first state-government work for Spectera's CARE case-management division. It goes into effect Jan. 1 and will be administered mainly from Baltimore, although Spectera also is opening an office in Oklahoma City.Odie A. Nance, chief of the Oklahoma State and Education Employee Group Insurance Plan, called Spectera "the most qualified vendor at the most affordable cost" in a news release issued by Spectera.

It was 1943, the United States was at war, and the first Rodgers and Hammerstein collaboration opened on Broadway, where it went on to make theatrical history. The show was ''Oklahoma!'' and was said to be one of the first musicals whose songs carried the plot forward.Whether or not the claim was valid hardly mattered. What did matter was that ''Oklahoma!'' with its immediately memorable score, was just what audiences needed, those who wanted to forget about the war for a few hours.The Burn Brae Dinner Theater is currently doing the musical, and if you want to see what the shouting was about, get over there.

FREDERICK, Okla. -- A dilapidated shell on the west side of town bore the first cryptic advertisement that something was amiss in rural America.It simply said, "Bloods."Then came graffiti on wooden barns, rickety tool sheds and the backs of stores on Main Street.One scribble in black paint said, "Police 187." Most folks in this tranquil town of 5,200 figured it was just juvenile gibberish.But Police Chief Jack Whitson read it as a warning that trouble was moving into this farming community, which lives off the deep, rich red Oklahoma earth.

Despite losing to Nebraska on Saturday, Oklahoma remained an eyelash ahead of Miami in the latest Bowl Championship Series rating yesterday. But the third-place Hurricanes aren't panicking yet. They have closed to 0.12 of the Sooners and figure to pass them if they win their remaining games. Two days after Nebraska defeated Oklahoma, 20-10, in Lincoln, the Cornhuskers and Sooners flip-flopped at the top of the standings. The top two teams in the final BCS standings Dec. 9 will meet in the Rose Bowl.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- Virginia is ranked ahead of Oklahoma in the national college football polls. The Cavaliers have won more games than the Sooners during the past three seasons.Yet Virginia players and coaches admit that a victory against Oklahoma in Sunday's Gator Bowl would rate among the Cavaliers' most significant triumphs ever."I think it would be as big as any because the name is Oklahoma," offensive coordinator Tom O'Brien said. "There might not be 10 programs in the country with the name of Oklahoma."

RICHMOND, Va. -- In person, an autograph will do. But over the phone, you need a little more when your hero calls. There was no such luck for Sherri Coale, Norman (Okla.) High School's girls basketball coach in 1995. "I'm looking around, trying to find anyone who will pay attention, so I can tell them that I'm talking to Geno Auriemma," Coale said about a call she received from the Connecticut coach, who was coming off an undefeated season and national championship. "I could hardly breathe, and there was no one in the office."

When "Oklahoma!" arrived on the New York stage in April 1943, it redefined musical theater as an art form.It was the first collaboration of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, the first Broadway musical to use elements of classical ballet (the choreography was by Agnes de Mille) and the first to integrate songs with the plot to move the action ahead. When Laurie asks Curly how they'll get to the party, he sings "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top" -- and that fringed surrey carried us into a new era in musical theater.

NEW YORK -- Adam Keefe, a red-haired Stanford junior with shoulders about as broad as Kevin McHale's, will play center for the Cardinal tonight (9, ESPN) against Oklahoma in the championship game of the National Invitation Tournament at Madison Square Garden.But according to several of the pro scouts Keefe drew to the semifinals Monday night, he is a made-to-order power forward, marked for delivery to the National Basketball Association."He is an excellent inside player who can shoot from the outside," said Hal Wissel, a former Fordham coach who scouts for the Milwaukee Bucks.