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College basketball

It will be a fight to the finish in Big 12

The battle for the Big 12 championship is going down to the wire, with fifth-ranked Kansas State and No. 10 Texas tied for first in the league with two regular-season games remaining.

But the title won't be decided by those two alone. Third-place Texas Tech is one game behind the Longhorns and Wildcats -- and both teams travel to play Texas Tech during the next week.

The Red Raiders host Texas (20-5, 13-1 Big 12) on Sunday at 12:30 p.m., and Kansas State closes out its regular season Thursday in Lubbock. Kansas State plays at Colorado at 8 tonight. Kansas State (26-2, 13-1) closed its home season Wednesday night with an 80-57 win over Kansas to finish 18-0 at Bramlage Coliseum. "I think it's a great accomplishment and tribute to these players," K-State coach Deb Patterson said of the unblemished record. "They are very young and they brought a great ability to focus and stay intense during a very long and challenging home stretch here. I look at this string that they put together and I think it's really tremendous and appropriate that this group, who has achieved so much in the last two seasons, would be a part of setting this kind of record. It's very special."

The Wildcats are winning, and a lot of fans are loving it. K-State has drawn 152,792 fans this season, surpassing the record home attendance set last season.

HOOPS, HIGH SCHOOL STYLE: WNBA stars Tamika Catchings (Indiana Fever) and Katie Smith (Minnesota Lynx) have been selected as co-captains for the 2003 Women's Basketball Coaches Association High School All-America Game on April 4 at Georgia Tech's Alexander Memorial Coliseum in Atlanta. Smith and Catchings are former WBCA High School All-Americans.

Twenty of the nation's top high school seniors will participate in the regulation college game, including Clearwater High's Dominique Redding. To get a feel for how elite the players in this game are, 14 have signed with college teams that in the Top 25.

No. 2 Duke, No. 6 North Carolina, No. 10 Texas and No. 11 Purdue have two recruits in the game, and top-ranked Connecticut and No. 3 Tennessee have one.

THE RUN HAS ENDED: Oregon's four-year run of leading the Pac-10 in attendance is over. The Ducks fell to second this season, averaging 4,433 (20th nationally). Washington leads the conference with 4,862.

TOURNEY TIME: The SEC tournament kicks off next week at Alltel Arena in Little Rock, Ark., with Tennessee again favored to win.

The Vols are No. 1 in the latest RPI poll, ahead of Connecticut.

Tennessee (25-3, 13-0 SEC) has won 16 consecutive games since its Jan. 4 loss to UConn and enters the tournament as the top seed in the SEC. The Vols finished their home season with a 20-point win over No. 17 Vanderbilt on Thursday night to win the regular-season title outright.

"Kids don't like to share, and coaches don't like to either, when it comes to winning a championship outright," coach Pat Summitt said. "They have fought through close games and have been gutsy. They are a great group to coach. They deserve this. Any team, to win on the road and the games we have won, deserves it."

Senior guard Kara Lawson scored a career-high 31 after spending the day worried that inclement weather in the Washington/Virginia area might prevent her parents from making it to senior night.

"It didn't look like they would be able to get here," Lawson said. "I was pretty bummed out about it, but the show goes on. I didn't want to let it affect how I played. They made it and everything went off well."

-- Antonya English covers women's basketball. She can be reached at (813) 226-3389 or english@sptimes.com.

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