White, a 6-foot-7 junior swingman, has been shooting with accuracy and confidence during practice this season after shooting just 38.4 percent last year, 23.8 percent from 3-point range.

The McDonald's All-American who transferred to UC from Florida in time for the 2002-03 winter quarter, will have to do better than that if the Bearcats' perimeter-oriented offensive approach is going to work.

"He shot it bad last year," said UC coach Bob Huggins. "He needs to consistently shoot it for us and he needs to rebound and defend. He defended last year. At the end, he might have been our best defender, but he didn't rebound. He's got to rebound."

With his uncanny jumping ability, White has made his reputation as a flashy dunker. But as he reminds anyone who asks, there's a lot more to his game than dunks. In fact, he had just eight dunks last year, fewer than guard Tony Bobbitt's 10.

White is one of the Bearcats' most versatile players. He passes so well he was used at point guard near the end of the season and he can run the floor as well as anyone on the team. He led the team in assists with 3.6 and scored 7.9 points per game.

"When people see 'McDonald's All-American,' they automatically think, 'scorer, scorer, scorer,' " White said. "I can (do that), but I do things differently. I affect the game in different ways, not just scoring."

Agreed. But what the Bearcats need from White this year are the points. He seems to have gotten the message.

"Even though I've been shooting the ball really well, I've really been working on trying to get the ball to the hole," White said. "If I play the two this year starting out, I'm going to be matched up with guys that are a lot smaller. I'll be able to shoot over them but at the same time I'll be able to overpower them. I'm going to try to mix it up."

Although he enjoyed playing point guard near the end of last season, White believes returning to the wing will allow him to make a more significant contribution this season.

The Bearcats would love to see a few repeats of his game last year against Saint Louis in which he scored a career-high 23 points on 10-of-14 shooting with 11 rebounds and seven assists.

"I went through a slump at one point," White said. "Another thing is I didn't take a lot of shots. When you don't take the best shots and you don't take a lot of them, it makes your shooting percentage go down. Hopefully this year I'm going to shoot a little more and shoot better shots."

How important is White to this team?

"If he plays the way he's capable of playing on a consistent basis, then he would be a guy who garner some all-league votes," said associate head coach Andy Kennedy.

"If he doesn't do that, we're going to be searching for some answers."

E-mail bkoch@enquirer.com