Razorbacks

ATLANTA -- Amid the homogeneity of college basketball coaches, more afraid of offending the opponents at Rival U. than telling it like it is, stands Arkansas' Nolan Richardson. He has never feared telling it like it is, for the truth can hurt him no more than life already has.Richardson, who directs the second-ranked Razorbacks (33-3) into tonight's NCAA Southeast Regional semifinal against Alabama in Charlotte, N.C., is his own man and has been for a long time."I enjoy being me," said Richardson, 49. "I enjoy being the only coach in America that coaches this way. If everybody starts playing like me, I'll start walking."

The stench first wafted across the Arkansas border Feb. 28, three days before the Razorbacks were to play their final Southwest Conference regular-season basketball game against Texas.The university reported that its police and the Washington County prosecuting attorney's office were investigating an alleged on-campus sexual assault involving four members of its basketball team.Eight days later, on the eve of the Razorbacks' opening game in the SWC tournament, the police investigation ended.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Twenty seconds into the game, Grant Hill, maybe the most graceful player in college basketball, was on the floor, grimacing after he slipped and landed on his tailbone.After four minutes, Corliss Williamson, who entered as the most accurate shooter in NCAA tournament history, was 0-for-5 from the field and guilty of two turnovers.Initial impressions aside, the two most important players over the course of the NCAA tournament at times elevated the title game into the Hill and Will Show with their wide range of skills.

INDIANAPOLIS - A year ago at the Kingdome in Seattle, they played for college basketball's biggest prize. By winning, UCLA returned to the days of its long lost dynasty. By losing, Arkansas saw its chance at a dynasty derailed.Today, when the 1996 NCAA tournament opens its three-week run toward the Final Four, there is no talk of the Bruins repeating or the Razorbacks returning to their third straight national championship game. The mighty have fallen, if not off the map, then at least from the spotlight.

AUSTIN, Texas -- The NCAA men's basketball tournament bracket, a tenuously constructed thing to begin with, was shaking hard yesterday.Already missing two fourth seeds and three thirds, the bracket was about to lose a second seed and -- rattle, rattle -- a No. 1. Office pools throughout the land were about to collapse into debris piles of tiny black lines.At the Erwin Center on the University of Texas campus, 15,375 watching a thriller between Arkansas and Syracuse were assured that the basketball sky had begun to fall: "A final score from the West Region," the public-address announcer said, pausing poignantly during a timeout, "Missouri 74, UCLA 65!"

Capper to poor decision Mike Bianchi Orlando Sentinel Isn't the Arkansas radio reporter who got fired for wearing a University of Florida cap into Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino's news conference actually better off? Now when somebody asks her where she works, she doesn't have to turn red and answer sheepishly, "Hog Sports Radio. " But I digress. How far should partisan broadcasters go to support their team? Well, if you are directly paid by the team (like college and NFL play-by-play broadcasters)

Tianna Hawkins had 20 points off 9-for-9 shooting from the field, and the No. 9 Maryland women's basketball team cruised to a 76-36 victory against Brown in the opening round of the Terrapin Classic on Friday. Hawkins has created matchup problems for most opponents this season, and she wasted little time establishing her dominance against the Bears, as she scored 16 of her 20 points in the first half. Alyssa Thomas had 16 points and Katie Rutan added 11 points for the Terrapins (9-2)

Arkansas, an unranked team that rose to No. 17 with a 27-10 win over then-No. 2 Auburn last weekend, seems to be taking its cues from the 2002 and 2003 teams rather than the past two. By not looking ahead, the Razorbacks (4-1) have lifted themselves from a season-opening shellacking from Southern California to their stunning triumph over the Tigers. That's something the team hopes to continue, not only in its quest for a title in the Southeastern Conference, but also in today's game against apparently overmatched Division I-AA Southeast Missouri State.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Arkansas has one of the best benches in the nation, and it would have been deeper if two Baltimore standouts had been able to stay with the Razorbacks.In the summer of 1992, coach Nolan Richardson thought his program was getting Michael Lloyd, an All-American guard out of Dunbar, and Craig Tyson, a Southern grad and a Baltimore Sun Player of the Year, who had taken a circuitous route to Fayetteville.Lloyd's freshman year was the last in which the Southeastern Conference accepted academic non-qualifiers, but when he didn't meet the NCAA's standards for initial eligibility he turned down the Arkansas offer and instead enrolled at San Jacinto (Texas)

The Next Level is a weekly Recruiting Report feature that focuses on natives of Anne Arundel County, Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Carroll County, Harford County and Howard County who appear on NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision rosters. Chris Eckard, a senior at the University of Maryland and Baltimore Sun sports department intern, is your author. At 5-10 and 255 pounds, Arkansas junior fullback Kiero Small (Cardinal Gibbons) has one purpose for the No. 3 Razorbacks: to bulldoze.