Oklahoma

Bryant Reeves might get the last laugh on Byron Houston.Three seasons ago, Houston was the star at Oklahoma State and Reeves was a rookie, albeit a very large man on campus. Houston, who now plays for the Seattle SuperSonics, took a look at a soft 7-footer with a flattop, learned he was from the metropolis of Gans and a legend was born: Big Country.Give him a normal half against Drexel tonight, and Reeves will pass Houston and become Oklahoma State's all-time leading scorer in the NCAA tournament.

Let the college football playoff debate begin - again. With top-ranked Oklahoma and No. 3 Florida State heading toward a Jan. 3 showdown in the Orange Bowl in Miami, the first significant blip in the 3-year-old Bowl Championship Series has occurred. This will be no true duel for the BCS national championship. There will only be one scenario for an undisputed champion. Given their respective rankings, only a victory by the unbeaten Sooners will silence the skeptics who believe the one way to clearly define the season's national champion is with a playoff.

Keep reminding yourself that Oklahoma guard Hollis Price is tough and that he's a star, and you'll be OK. It saves the embarrassment of thinking otherwise after you check out the face that everyone talks about -- the one that earned the nickname "Webster," though it's more like Dudley from Different Strokes. It happens when you judge a book by its 405 area code and the seven national football titles that sit in Norman, Okla., and it happens when you decide to pay the most attention to teammate Aaron McGhee.

NEW YORK - College football has a new leading man. Matt Leinart was already the envy of the Southern California campus. With an unassuming personality and boyish good looks, Leinart became a star in Tinsel Town while leading the Trojans to a share of the national championship last season and a No. 1 ranking they held from start to finish this season. Last year, he replaced a quarterback who had won the Heisman Trophy. Now he has his own. Leinart, a 6-foot-5, 225-pound junior, was announced as the winner of the 70th annual Heisman Trophy last night in New York.

SAN ANTONIO - For Oklahoma guard Stacey Dales, tonight's women's national championship game against top-ranked and unbeaten Connecticut is the culmination of five years of hard work and a triumph over tough circumstances. When Dales, a fifth-year senior and two-time All-American and Big 12 Player of the Year, arrived in Norman from Brockville, Ontario, in 1997, the Sooners' program - which had nearly been eliminated seven years before - was coming off a 5-22 season. And Dales had to sit and watch her teammates slog through an 8-19 campaign in her freshman year, as she tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee in the season opener against Stephen F. Austin.

MIAMI - Any debate about this season's college football national championship ended quickly last night at Pro Player Stadium. Amid a flurry of Oklahoma turnovers and Southern California touchdowns in the second quarter of the Orange Bowl, the season-long filibuster on the BCS rankings suddenly became a moot point. Or, for the top-ranked Trojans, lots of points. Turning a bunch of bumbles and two fumbles by the second-ranked Sooners into nearly immediate scores, USC (13-0) embarrassed Oklahoma by taking a 28-point halftime lead and cruising to a 55-19 victory before 77,912 fans.

COLLEGE PARK - Late February film sessions in college basketball are usually nothing more than a brief refresher course of the upcoming conference opponent. Except for this week. No. 20 Maryland coach Gary Williams and his players had to spend much more time watching on tape what they have not seen in person for today's made-for-television, nonconference game against No. 16 Oklahoma. The game is a showdown between the Atlantic Coast Conference and Big 12 - an appetizer of sorts for next month's NCAA tournament.

NEW ORLEANS - They were supposed to be the newest addition to the list of college football's all-time greatest teams, joining a couple from previous generations that also wore the crimson and cream of the Oklahoma Sooners. Not yet a dynasty, simply dominant. Ranked No. 1 from the pre-season through their last regular-season game, this season's Sooners were simply waiting to be anointed. Instead, what Oklahoma did over the first three months was annulled by what happened in the Big 12 championship game.

Even a good team that considers itself a potential national champion has to recognize its limitations. In the eyes of Maryland basketball coach Gary Williams, the No. 2 Terrapins were reminded of some painful and useful truths in Friday's 72-56 whipping by No. 22 Oklahoma. While staggering to the finish line with their lowest offensive output since scoring 54 points in a victory over Wake Forest nearly five years ago, Maryland did just about everything wrong when it had the ball in its hands.

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Once already this season, Quin Snyder's Missouri team has faced the Oklahoma squad that stands between it and a Final Four appearance. That familiarity, though, does not bring a sense of comfort. The Sooners defeated the Tigers, 84-71, in Norman, Okla., on Jan. 21 for their eighth straight win in the series. Assessing what No. 12 seed Missouri has going for it against second-seeded Oklahoma, which just finished torching Arizona, Snyder said: "I'm not sure we have an advantage - we're trying to find some.