Jason and Jason

There isn’t much that can make a college basketball coach happier than a senior point guard. Not far down the list, however, is a freshman point guard good enough to handle the ball for four years.

This season, Arizona and Duke each have a talented freshman who might end up leading his school until 2003: Jason Gardner with the Wildcats and Jason Williams with the Blue Devils. Despite all their skills, both have big adjustments to make on two of the country’s most high-profile teams.

“You find out all those moves you used in high school don’t work here,” said Williams, who made the trip from New Jersey to Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, N.C. “They don’t work at all. It made me realize I have to stop doing all those fancy moves and keep it simple.”

Williams and Gardner are a rare breed. It isn’t often a player makes the move from high school to Division I with enough savvy, smarts and guts to run his own team.

There have been some others, including Duke’s Tommy Amaker and Bobby Hurley, Arizona’s Mike Bibby and Damon Stoudamire, and Indiana’s Isiah Thomas.

There are some among this season’s veterans, too, like Scoonie Penn, who started at Boston College as a freshman then led Ohio State to the Final Four last season; Khalid El-Amin who led Connecticut to its first national championship last season as a junior; Erick Barkley at St. John’s; and Mateen Cleaves, another Final Four participant last season with Michigan State.

But there have been some changes over the years.

“The young guys are much more aware now than they were five years ago of how critical strength is to their adjustment to college,” Arizona coach Lute Olson said. “Jason Gardner is about the same height as Damon Stoudamire was when he came in, and he’s 178 pounds compared to 142.”

Gardner is from Indiana, but he’ll have to get used to running an offense in the desert.

“We have a great team and I think the guys will help me out in practice and let me know what’s going on,” he said. “They can tell you what they did as a freshman. When I’m doing something wrong, they’ll let me know.

“Coach Olson has never really said anything about me being like Bibby or [Jason] Terry or anything like that. That’s really helped out a lot. I like the up-tempo style, and I love the weather out here. It’s a different atmosphere for me.”

The atmosphere will be different for Williams, too. But he’s up to the challenge.

“When it comes down to it, I like being under pressure,” he said. “I like to make the big play. I like to be in the middle of things.”

That’s fine with Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski.

“It’s a hell of an opportunity for him,” he said. “The biggest thing is to handle playing against this level of competition day-in and day-out.

“We have to give Jason Williams an opportunity to experience that and give him a system that uses his abilities, his strengths, and not expound whatever weaknesses he might have based on inexperience. I don’t think he has weaknesses, he’s inexperienced.”

Cincinnati will be coping with inexperience at point guard for the second straight season.

Steve Logan started as a freshman last season and now Kenny Satterfield from New York begins his career with the Bearcats.

“I knew I had a chance to come in and make an impact. I also knew it was going to take some time to adjust to the college game,” Satterfield said.

He’ll start the season as Logan’s backup but things could change as the season progresses.

“Kenny’s playing well. We’ll play both of them. They’ll both play a lot. They’ll both play both spots,” Bearcats coach Bob Huggins said. “Point guards have to have a high basketball IQ. They have to understand not only their position, but everybody else’s position in relation to what goes on and where they have to deliver the ball and so forth and so on, so that part’s hard.”

Logan has some advice for freshman point guards everywhere.

“You’ve got to be in control the whole 40 minutes. Being a freshman doesn’t mean anything as long as you can lead the team and be successful at what you do and win games,” he said. “You’ve got to make your team feel they’re confident in you.”