CORAL GABLES, Fla. -- The pounding of hammers, rumble of heavy machinery and clamor of construction workers woke Miami forward Darius Rice at 6 a.m. nearly every day last year.

The building of the University of Miami's new on-campus basketball facility echoed from Rice's backyard into his bedroom in the Eaton Apartment complex. And while his sleep patterns suffered, Rice didn't complain.

"It'll all be worth it," says Rice, "just to see the students walking out of the dorms and to the games."

The sweet sound of basketball progress can be heard all around this football-crazed state, further proof that hoops can thrive in a pigskin stronghold. And while each of the Big 3 Florida schools are, as usual, playing a bowl game on New Year's Day or beyond, there's also a basketball buzz on each campus.

	Florida remains the Sunshine State champ this season, but the gap may be closing. The Gators beat both Florida State and Miami by a single point.

Billy Donovan continues to woo high-caliber recruits to the University of Florida with the same frequency that he applies hair gel. Some football zealots in Florida are even saying, half joking, that Ron Zook's coaching will turn UF into a basketball school. Up in the Panhandle, Leonard Hamilton's Florida State team boasts seven wins in its first 10 games, a harbinger for one of Hamilton's patented program revivals. And while the Hurricanes prepare to play for another national football championship on Friday night, their hoop bretheran look poised to make another run toward the NCAA Tournament under Hamilton's sucessor, Perry Clark.

The Big 3 programs' emergence should help keep in-state talent home, as going all the way back to Darryl Dawkins (Orlando to the NBA) and Howard Porter (Sarasota to Villanova), talent has sprouted in Florida. The recent problem is that guys such as Vince Carter (Dayton Beach to UNC), Keyon Dooling (Ft. Lauderdale to Mizzou), Tracy McGrady (Auburndale to the NBA) and Amare Stoudamire (Lake Wales to the NBA) have all skipped town.

"Florida has always had players," says Miami's Clark, "but a lot of people don't associate them with the state because they didn't play college ball here."

Now it's the job of three programs in three different leagues with three varied approaches to lock up the state. To their credit, they're all beefing up.

In vogue with their SEC and ACC pigskin brethren competing in the football arms race, both Florida and FSU have moved into $10-million practice facilities within the past two seasons. But the most noise, both literally and figuratively, comes from Miami.

With a construction worker's hard hat on his head and sawdust swirling through the air, Clark bounded optimistically through the new 7,200-seat arena earlier this month. The building puts Miami ahead of such schools as Georgetown, DePaul, St. John's and USC -- major-conference universities in large cities that lack a prime on-campus arena.

"It's a huge advantage anytime you have the opportunity to have your own facility," says Miami athletics director Paul Dee, "and have the excitement of your students right in the middle of campus."

So despite the Hurricanes' somewhat disappointing start (6-4), which includes an ugly loss at Florida Atlantic, Clark had a spring in his step as he gave a visitor a tour of the new Miami Convocation Center.

Clark knows he'll see immediate exposure results from the arena. North Carolina christens the Convocation Center on Saturday, complete with a visit from ESPN and Dickey V. Connecticut rolls in the next week for Big Monday, and Syracuse plays a CBS game there later in the month. That's a big deal, considering neither ESPN nor CBS televised a single home game for the enthusiasm-starved 'Canes in Clark's first two seasons.

"It's hard," says Clark, "when you're showing empty seats."

The 'Canes played their last game in the gritty Miami Arena on Monday night, beating Lehigh 68-62. Not only did the former home of the Heat and Panthers have the intimacy of the Pacific Ocean (the last row of the new building equals Row 21 of Miami Arena), students stayed away in droves because of the half-hour train ride and seedy downtown neighborhood.

The change from the Arena's docile atmosphere even excites UM President Donna Shalala, as President Clinton's former Secretary of Health and Human services anxiously pointed out where the "bleacher creatures" will be located. No one, though, is more giddy than Rice.

"I can't wait," he says. "First of all, people are scared to go downtown. Second, I just didn't like it. Our game the other night (against Arkansas Pine-Bluff), there must have been 300 people there. It was like a high school game."

So while the Hurricane football team marches onward with its 34-game win streak and attempts to win back-to-back national titles, Clark knows there's room to forge basketball tradition at UM.

"We are a football school, but that doesn't mean you can't be good in basketball, too," says Clark. "We're proud as hell of our football program and their tradition, it gives us something to go after."

Up at Florida, Donovan has exploited the school's football prowess as a recruiting tool.

When Mike Miller visited Florida all the way down from South Dakota, Donovan popped a surprise stop in his itinerary. Just hours before the Gators kicked off against Tennessee in a crucial game, Donovan and Miller chatted with UF head coach Steve Spurrier in his office.

Never mind that Spurrier took time to chat with Miller on a game day, but he also happened to know all about him. Leave it to Donovan, the fast talking Long Islander, to turn the perceived stigma of a "football school" into a positive.

Donovan lodged Florida in the SEC penthouse with his rob-the-cradle recruiting tactics in the mid-90's, identifying and pursuing players hard and early.

Remember how in 1998, at SEC Media Day, South Carolina coach Eddie Fogler criticized the ethics of Donovan's recruiting tactics? Well, now Fogler is doing color commentary for Fox, Donovan is churning out Top 20 teams and every smart school in the nation has mimicked his recruiting nuances.

"People have had success in Florida but never sustained it," says national recruiting analyst Dave Telep. "Billy Donovan, to his credit, refused to accept 'no' for an answer. The Gators were taking early commitments long before they were sheik."

When UF athletics director Jeremy Foley hired Donovan, he did so as much because of the up-and-down style he ran at Marshall as he did his résumé. Foley knew he'd have a much easier time selling run-and-gun to a fan base used to Fun-and-Gun.

Now, in his seventh year in Gainsville, the fact that Billy Ball is used as an axiom for an up-tempo style of play is a telling statement that Foley made the right decision. With Miller, who bit on the Donovan/Spurrier pitch, hitting key shots down the stretch en route to the NBA, Donovan guided UF to the 2000 NCAA title game.

But the real indicator of Donovan's success in football country may come from inside the O'Connell Center on a winter night, as 12,000 orange-clad Gator fans make it one of the country's toughest venues.

"If I'm sitting here and want basketball to be the most important sport at Florida, I'm not winning that battle," says Donovan. "But I can tell you this, when we're playing games on campus, there's a buzz and an electricity."

The base of Donovan's early recruiting actually came from Florida, as he credits Udonis Haslem, Major Parker and Brent Wright for building's UF's foundation. Donovan insists that there's good talent and coaching in the state.

	"	Donovan If I'm sitting here and want basketball to be the most important sport at Florida, I'm not winning that battle. But I can tell you this, when we're playing games on campus, there's a buzz and an electricity. "
		— Billy Donovan, Florida head basketball coach

Consider that South Florida established itself in Conference USA with Florida natives Altron Jackson and B.B. Waldon. Florida Atlantic, which made the NCAAs last season, boasts eight Florida natives on its roster. Florida International strung together a Top 25 recruiting class two years ago littered with Florida kids.

"There's a lot of talent in the state," says Donovan, "and the high school coaches don't get the credit they deserve for producing the players."

As Hamilton's team dives into ACC play at Florida State, a quick word of advice to anyone who bumps into him on the street in Tallahassee. Do yourself a favor and don't ask him what it's like to coach basketball at a football school.

"I am so sick and tired of people asking me that question that it's getting almost to be a little sickening," Hamilton said in a conference call last week. "Is Ohio State a football school or a basketball school? Is UCLA a football school or a basketball school? Is Texas a football school or a basketball school?"

His rant went on from there, further proving Hamilton still has all the media flair of a pile of mulch.

However, what Hamilton has done with FSU so far, even with its ACC opening loss to North Carolina, is nothing short of remarkable. He took Steve Robinson's rag-tag leftovers from a team that lost to Western Carolina and American last year and turned them into a 7-3 team with credible victories over Iowa and Miami.

Considering how he revitalized Oklahoma State in the late 1980s and established tradition at Miami in the 1990s, it should really come as no surprise.

Hamilton's no-nonsense personality and his team's roguish defensive style have branded an identity in Tallahassee. While the Seminoles will be prone to offensive lapses like the 18-point second-half outing against UNC, help is definitely on the way.

They've signed two top junior college players, 6-6 slasher Antonio Griffin and 6-10 center Diego Romero, to beef up the frontline. But the recruiting class gem comes from 6-5 Von Wafer, a late-blooming wing from Louisiana who has emerged as one of the nation's top 10 players.

There have been bursts of talent at FSU in the past, including Charlie Ward, Bob Sura and Sam Cassell in the early to mid-90s. But we all know what Ward is best known for, and the program, even with a Final Four in 1972, has never been sustained for a long stretch.

That's what Hamilton appears poised to change.

"It's no secret that Leonard Hamilton can coach," says Telep. "And with the guys they having coming in, they're going to be much more competitive than they have the last two years."

So with the Panhandle awakened, Gainesville rocking and Coral Gables bubbling with anticipation, the sound of progress continues to buzz through the Sunshine State.

Pete Thamel is a frequent contributor to ESPN.com and ESPN Magazine. He's based in Bartlesville, Okla., where he's writing a book about NAIA basketball. His e-mail is vpthamel@yahoo.com