By Mark Whicker
The Orange County Register

A is for Arizona, which is not exactly storming into the tournament. Said Channing Frye: "They should send all of us to the NBDL," referring to the NBA's development league.

B is for the inseparable Cedrick Banks and Martell Bailey, the Illinois-Chicago backcourt. Counting high school days at Chicago's Westinghouse, they've played together seven years.

C is for Cuthbert Victor, Murray State's remarkable import from the Virgin Islands. At 6 feet 5, Victor is eighth nationally in rebounding, fourth in field-goal percentage.

D is for Duke freshman Luol Deng, whose father, Aldo, was a member of Sudan's parliament before he fled to Egypt, and then England, because of civil war. They do come from everywhere these days.

E is for Eastern Washington, the Big Sky champ. Don't mess with a team that habitually watches The Godfather on the team bus.

F is for the Falcons of Air Force, in the Tournament for the first time in 42 years, and they could have used some military preparation. They clinched the Mountain West regular season and moved toward cutting down the nets - but they couldn't find a ladder.

G is for Georgia Tech's Marvin Lewis, who has his accounting degree with a 3.8 grade-point average and was offered a job with Frazier and Decker, a high-end Atlanta firm. "I just like working with money," Lewis said.

H is for Rick Hartzell of Northern Iowa, the only athletic director who won't rage at refs, because he's a veteran Atlantic Coast Conference official.

I is for Martin Iti of Charlotte, the promising center who has a chihuahua named Shaq.

J is for Nick Jacobson, who won the Mountain West title for Utah with a bomb. But is he the best player in the family? His wife, Amy Ewert, was an All-American at Utah.

K is for Kirk Snyder, Western Athletic Conference Player of the Year at Nevada who scored 22 on a Santa Ana (Calif.) Mater Dei prep powerhouse that featured Cedric Bozeman (UCLA) and Jamal Sampson (California). Snyder wasn't good enough for the mighty Pacific-10, apparently.

L is for Liberty, Jerry Falwell's school. Guard Brian Woodson transfered there from Youngstown State and two junior colleges. The difference? "A lot less profanity," Woodson said.

M is Max Venable, former Reds outfielder. Son Will leads Princeton into the Tournament.

N is Nate Robinson, the former cornerback at Washington who keyed the Huskies' Pac-10 run. He's on the short list of guys you don't want to foul - Robinson, Florida A&M's Terrence Woods, Duke's J.J. Redick, Manhattan's Luis Flores, Saint Joseph's Delonte West, Providence's Ryan Gomes, Stanford's Chris Hernandez and Syracuse's Gerry McNamara all shoot 86.8 percent or higher.

O is for Omar Thomas, UTEP's leading scorer and a refugee from the tough corners of Philadelphia. His dad, Clayton, and his two brothers have been in jail the past 11 years on murder convictions.

P is for Chris Paul, Wake Forest's startling freshman point guard. Paul is famous for a 61-point performance at West Forsyth (N.C.) High, just after his 61-year-old grandpa, Nathaniel Jones, was beaten to death. Paul deliberately missed his final foul shot to remain on 61 points.

Q is for Quemont Greer, who has helped revive DePaul and who wears a tattoo that says, "Kill Or Be Killed." Hey, guys, it's only a game.

R is for Richmond's Mike Skrocki, a 1,000-point scorer who picked the Spiders over Big East schools because of, well, the school. "If I got hurt and couldn't play, at which school would I be most comfortable?" Skrocki asked himself, quaintly. He made the Atlantic 10's all-academic team in accounting.

S is for Squeaky Johnson of UAB. "My high school coach told me one time to make a squeaky-clean steal," he said, "and it stuck."

T is for Texas Tech's Andre Emmett, who set the Big 12 scoring record on a night when coach Bobby Knight achieved the Triple Crown of boorishness: He didn't let the P.A. man announce the record, didn't start Emmett and didn't make him available to the media. When Emmett pulled out of the NBA draft, Knight said, "It was that or work at a grocery store." Nice.

U is for Utah State, left out of the field despite an RPI of 43 and a 24-3 record against Division I teams. The Aggies beat Brigham Young, but the Friday loss to Cal State Northridge gave the committee an excuse. The committee chair is Iowa AD Bob Bowlsby, such a basketball savant that he fired Tom Davis to hire Steve Alford.

V is for Vermont's Taylor Coppenrath, who announced his season was over thanks to a broken schapoid bone in his wrist. "I threw up when I heard it," said coach Tom Brennan. He's better today. Coppenrath came back to score 43 points in the America East title game.

W is "We All We Got," Anthony Roberson's mantra for the turnaround at Florida.

X is the sign Pittsburgh's Carl Krauser makes after big buckets. It's his homage to The Bronx.

Y The Y is what they call Brigham Young, which enforces things by the letter. Center Rafael Araujo has all kinds of tattoos, but they're airbrushed out of his picture in the Cougars' media guide.

Z is for East Tennessee State's Zakee Wadood, who says he isn't sure what his Islamic name means but has heard it stands for intelligence. "We'll go with that," Wadood says.