You know you want to hear more about it, so we'll lead off UA men's basketball notes with...

"The Shot" Day 4: UA head coach Lute Olson was so enamored with Miles Simon's 70-foot shot to beat Cincinnati that he's incorporated it into the practice routine.

"We have lay-in drills, 15-foot shots and 65-foot shots at practice," he said. After a pause he added, "The 65-foot shots are after the coaches leave the floor."

The man who made the shot that was aired on ESPN's SportsCenter three times Sunday night (and, as the UA sports information department correctly pointed out, is easily the early favorite to receive next year's ESPY as best collegiate basketball play) spent the last few days living with the fame.

"I didn't have any trouble sleeping (Sunday night)," Simon said. "I just returned a lot of phone calls. I've heard about it every five minutes, but it cooled down a little bit (yesterday)."

Simon was named Pacific 10 Conference player of the week, although his other 30 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists in wins over Arizona State and the Bearcats probably didn't hurt his chances.

Fortson ain't so tough: After the Cincinnati game, forward Joe McLean was worried about how his body would react to the beating 6-foot-7, 250- pound Danny Fortson put on him.

McLean was happy to report yesterday he only suffered a slight headache Monday.

"I was surprised, I felt pretty good," McLean said.

He should have, after holding Fortson, who averages 21 points and 10 rebounds a game, to nine points and five rebounds.

"Joe's defense was unbelievably strong. He was getting forearm shots to the back of the head," Olson said after seeing a game tape. "It got to the point where we couldn't afford to have him out of the game."

"Joe's a senior, he did what he had to do," forward Ben Davis said, who spent most of Sunday in foul trouble, which forced McLean to match up with Fortson as often as he did. "What he did took a lot of heart, especially with a guy 2-3 inches taller and 20-30 pounds heavier."

Tourney talk: Olson was optimistic that recent Pac-10 performances against nonconference opponents would help the conference's chances of sending five teams to the NCAA Tournament, despite the fact that Washington probably will find itself on the bad side of the bubble.

"Over the last couple of weeks with Cal and Stanford winning their doubleheader (Cal beat DePaul and the Cardinal downed Seton Hall) and our win over Cincinnati, it helps the league in determining how many teams we'll get in the NCAA," he said, adding the UCLA meeting with Duke Feb. 25 might also help in the power ratings.

Blair update: The longer center Joseph Blair remains ineligible because of academic probation, the less chance Olson feels his team's leading scorer and rebounder (at the time of his suspension Jan. 11) will return to the team.

"We've had one major workout with him, and the longer (the appeals process) goes on, the less chance I would say something would be done," he said.

More Blair: In what is probably considered an unlikely scenario, UA is 7-1 since Blair was declared ineligible, and have beaten both ranked teams (Cincinnati and UCLA) they've played. While Olson was pleased, he said his team could have done even better.

"We could have been 8-0, but we're playing as well as we're capable of playing," he said. "The bottom line is (the players) are great competitors. It's not like losing another player € JB led the conference in rebounding, was our top scorer and was, I think, second in the nation in shooting percentage. But they haven't said a whole lot about it. They just said okay, let's do what we can do."

Two-sport recruit?: When head football coach Dick Tomey signed quarterback Ortege Jenkins Feb. 7, he compared him to Pittsburgh Steeler Kordell Stewart, because of his athletic ability. But while "Slash" excelled at several different positions for the AFC champions, the 6-2, 218-pound Jenkins might excel at different sports.

"If he was strictly a basketball player, he would have been recruited by 90 percent of the schools in the Pac-10," Olson said of the guard from Long Beach Jordan (Calif.) High School. "He's the best player in Long Beach, and if you picked the top five players in Southern California, he'd probably be one of the five."

Olson said there was a chance Jenkins could join the basketball team next season if he was redshirted by the football team, allowing Jenkins to learn Olson's system. That would make the transition easier in following years when he would join the basketball team later because of the length of the football season. Olson said Jenkins told him he felt he would need to redshirt next season for football to learn the system to be a successful quarterback.

"He'll be athletic enough to play for us next season, but we'll see if he has the football skills," Tomey said.