Madness highlights first weekend of practice

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat Patrick Femerling Former UW center

Just like football in the late summer, mid-October brings with it a whole slew of hype and expectations as men's college basketball teams finally start practice.

And what better way to kick off the hype than with a little madness?

So fans from Stanford, Washington and even Oregon State crowded arenas late Friday night so that precisely at midnight, they could watch their teams show off for a little while.

Stanford used the occasion to not only celebrate what it has come to call the "Miracle Minute," referring to last season's last second win over Rhode Island to make it to the Final Four, but also to kick up expectations about a conference title and an NCAA championship this year.

Arizona, which held a Midnight Madness last year as a reward to the senior class, head coach Lute Olson said, skipped the event this year. Olson instead decided to start practice at 8 a.m. Saturday.

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Changing Faces

While Stanford will most likely be projected to take the Pacific 10 Conference title this year, thanks to virtually every important player from last season's team returning, most other conference schools have undergone major roster changes during the offseason.

While UCLA, Arizona and Arizona State, under new head coach Rob Evans, have reloaded through talented recruiting classes, other teams have been decimated.

Perhaps the biggest loss went to Washington when three-year letterman Patrick Femerling signed a contract with Berlin of the German professional league.

A 7-foot-1-inch center, Femerling and 7-foot Todd MacCulloch often paired up to present opposing defenses with tough inside matchups. Femerling is a native of Dusseldorf, Germany, and finished his college career third all-time on the Huskies' leader board with 84 blocks.

Other moves throughout the conference included UCLA reserve forward Kevin Daley transferring to Azusa Pacific and David Jackson, a member of Utah's NCAA runner-up team last season, transferring to Oregon.

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Cal recruits on hold

While Ben Braun has slowly built California into a conference contender, the NCAA hasn't helped him much.

Two Cal recruits, 6-foot-2-inch point guard Donte Smith and 6-foot-11-inch forward Solomon Hughes, have run into problems in becoming eligible to play this year for the Golden Bears.

Smith, who graduated from Anacostia High School in Washington, D.C., with a 3.4 overall GPA and a 3.64 GPA in his core classes, fell two points shy on the ACT for qualifying to play this year.

Cal officials made an appeal to the NCAA, but were refused. So the 1998 Washington, D.C., player of the year, who averaged 28.3 points, 6.2 assists and 5.7 rebounds per game last year, will have to retake the test and start attending school either this spring or next fall.

Solomon originally signed a letter of intent at Tulane, but changed his mind, thus becoming ineligible. Braun said Solomon, whose appeal is pending, was still on scholarship and attending classes.

If Solomon can't play this year, he will redshirt and still have four years of eligibility starting with the 1999-2000 season.

Seth Doria can be reached via e-mail at Seth.Doria@wildcat.arizona.edu.