BY GEOFF HOBSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Dan Dudukovich and Keith Gregor are friends, former teammates on a state championship team at Lakota High and groomsmen at another teammate's wedding.

But they'll find something to disagree about Thursday. Dudukovich, Butler's starting power forward, plays Cincinnati - Gregor's alma mater - in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

''Dan and I have been talking about playing UC for awhile,'' said freshman forward Mike Marshall, a St. Xavier High graduate.

Butler, the Midwestern Collegiate Conference regular and tournament champion, is making its first NCAA appearance in 35 years.

Ask Butler coach Barry Collier where he was in '62, and he says, ''I was learning to write cursive.''

This season Collier has strung together intense defense and three-point shooting (38 percent) nearly as good as its overall shooting of 45 percent. Butler has won 11 of its last 12, a stretch in which the Bulldogs allowed 60 points just once. Half their foes have shot less than 40 percent. Only Villanova, back in early December, shot better than 50 percent.

Their front line of the 6-foot-4 Dudukovich, 7-2 Rolf van Rijn and 6-6 Jon Neuhouser isn't as physical as UC. But they lost to Villanova by eight and Indiana in OT.

''We're a solid team that doesn't make many mistakes,'' said Marshall, who will come off the bench in Dudukovich's spot to muscle the likes of Danny Fortson.

''We play real great half court defense,'' said the 6-4, 230-pound Marshall, who grew up a minute's walk from Xavier University and could have been a linebacker at Michigan or Ohio State.

''It's a tough matchup,'' Marshall said. ''We have to play our defense and not make mistakes.''

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