Sports Illustrated GT Hoops Preview

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How lightly was Yellow Jackets senior center Luke Schenscher regarded a year ago? Consider: Not only did his mother, Barbara, send coach Paul Hewitt an e-mail before the season wondering if he wanted Luke back, but a sports-talk morning show (on Tech's flagship station, no less) poked fun at the 7'1" Hobbit-haired Aussie for being clumsy. Things got so bad that a couple of games into the season Hewitt called from his car and vented on the air. "I don't get heated too much publicly, but I was pretty upset," Hewitt says. "I thought what they were saying was off limits."

What's more, it was woefully premature. Schenscher popped for 19 points and pulled down 12 rebounds against Oklahoma State to make the Final Four all-tournament team. He won a cultlike following among Tech students (who proudly wear yellow luke schenscher has a posse T-shirts) and raised his stock so dramatically that prize recruit Randolph Morris spurned Tech for Kentucky to avoid competing with Big Luke for playing time. "Everyone has been coming up to congratulate me since the Final Four," says Schenscher. "I'm being looked at a lot differently than last year."