SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) – Emeka Okafor plays basketball as if he’s on a pogo stick.
Connecticut’s 6-foot-9 center is a shot-blocking machine, swatting away shots, altering others and intimidating nearly everybody who dares to take the ball near the Huskies’ hoop.
Stanford hasn’t encountered a player quite like Okafor this season. The fourth-seeded Cardinal need to find the right mix of when to attack and when to stay away from Okafor when they take on No. 5 Connecticut in the second round of the South Regional on Saturday.
“It’s easy to say you’re going to go inside and not worry about it,” Stanford coach Mike Montgomery said. “Okafor gets in people’s heads. You see guys make extra fakes and shuffle their feet. That doesn’t do anyone any good. You have to play your game.”
In Saturday’s second game, 13th-seeded Tulsa (23-9) faces No. 5 Wisconsin (23-7) in the Midwest Regional.
Okafor got BYU out of its game in the opening round. He blocked seven shots in the Huskies’ 58-53 victory and controlled the middle.
He forced the Cougars into numerous traveling violations and altered so many shots that Travis Hansen flung one ball over the backboard to avoid Okafor’s long reach. Okafor is so dominant that Huskies coach Jim Calhoun says he “makes the lane out of bounds.”
But the Cardinal (24-8) insist they won’t shy away from taking the ball to the hoop against the Huskies (22-9).
“We have to attack him. He can’t block all our shots,” Stanford forward Josh Childress said. “We have to go at him strong and hope to get fouls on him.”
Okafor got called for a foul on the first possession Thursday. Calhoun quickly began lobbying the officials not to call the game too closely, because he can’t afford to play without his star center. Okafor didn’t pick up another foul all game.
Most teams try to attack Okafor from the start, hoping to draw fouls. Stanford has the players to do it in 6-10, 275-pound center Rob Little and Childress, an athletic 6-8 swingman who takes the ball strong to the basket.
“That’s a big guy right there,” Okafor said of Little. “That’s been the trend so far. It’s going to be fun. I won’t be able to move him around as easily as I like. It’s going to be a battle.”
Okafor is a key to the Huskies’ offense as well. He scored 20 points in the opener, while the rest of the team shot 9-for-39 (23 percent).
But his biggest impact comes on defense, where he leads the nation with 4.8 blocks a game, and he’s a major reason why the Huskies hold opponents to 38 percent shooting.
Okafor saved the game for UConn on Thursday when he preserved a four-point lead by blocking Rafael Araujo’s shot with 1:43 left.
“I have coached him for two years, and I’m still amazed at some of the things he does,” Calhoun said. “The block and save yesterday was just an amazing, amazing play. We played that back again four times last night. He just does things because he’s an incredible athlete.”
Okafor shut down Araujo, who came into the tournament averaging 12.2 points a game and shooting 57 percent. He shot 2-for-11 and had four turnovers against Okafor’s tough defense.
The Huskies are used to seeing powerful inside players stay away from their dominating shot-blocker.
“I’ve seen it a lot this year that someone goes in and Emeka blocks their shot, and the next time they get the ball they’re pump-faking until they travel or throwing the ball out or throwing up some crazy shot,” forward Mike Hayes said. “He has such a presence in the middle. I’ve been going up against him for two years in practice … I’m just glad other guys have to do it in the games.”
Saturday’s second game will feature dominating defense of a different kind: Wisconsin allowed just 58.7 points per game entering the tournament – fourth-best in the nation.
Instead of controlling the game with a dominant shot-blocker like Okafor, the Badgers do it with suffocating man-to-man defense.
Wisconsin could be without guard Freddie Owens, who sprained his right ankle in the first half Thursday. Owens returned in the second half, but coach Bo Ryan wouldn’t say whether he would play Saturday.
The Badgers need Owens to keep up with Tulsa’s quick guards, who created open shots with their penetration in an 84-71 first-round win over fourth-seeded Dayton.
“Their guards are big, but I don’t think they’re as quick as other teams,” Tulsa’s Dante Swanson said.
Swanson and Jason Parker scored 24 points each in the opener as the Golden Hurricane shot 58 percent.
“It’s hard to simulate in a practice what Tulsa does because of how athletic they are, but we gave it a shot,” Ryan said.
AP-ES-03-21-03 2005EST
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