It's never too early to start recruiting a player, as Deb Patterson has found at Kansas State.

	Kansas State's Deb Patterson began recruiting Nicole Ohlde when the center was just a high school freshman. Four years later, Ohlde was the Big 12 Freshman of the Year.

When Patterson left the staff at Vanderbilt to become K-State's coach in 1996, she was too late to make any inroads with the top player in Kansas, a kid by the name of Jackie Stiles.

So Patterson and her staff turned their attention to younger players. There was an eighth-grader in Marysville, Kan., Kendra Wecker; a freshman in Moundridge, Kan., Laurie Koehn; and a freshman in Clay Center, Kan., Nicole Ohlde.

All three eventually signed with the Wildcats and have been key figures in taking Kansas State to a national ranking.

"We heard about Kendra probably two months after we got here," said Patterson, whose Wildcats won Saturday before a school-record crowd of 13,466. "We were trying to get in on the Jackie Stiles sweepstakes, so to speak, and we heard about this phenomenal athlete in Marysville."

Phenomenal is right. Wecker scored 2,305 points in her high school basketball career, set a U.S. junior record in the javelin, was fast enough to run on a state record 400-meter relay team and led the state in kills in volleyball.

Wecker, a 5-foot-11 freshman, is averaging 16.7 points and leads the Wildcats in rebounding (8.1).

Once Patterson found out about Koehn, "I was in Moundridge as much as I could be in Moundridge," she said. Koehn, who sat out last season because of a foot injury, is Kansas State's leading scorer with an 18.6 average.

Then there's Ohlde, a center who played on the same AAU team as Wecker and Koehn. Patterson was with assistant coach Kamie Ethridge the first time she saw Ohlde and will never forget that moment.

"When she walked into the gym, she had a big, fat, red Nebraska jacket on with a big 'N' on the back," Patterson said. "I looked at coach Ethridge and said, 'This just won't do. We've got our work cut out for us.' "

Ohlde, who's now 6-4, was still growing in high school and was the least recruited nationally of the three.

"Most people looked at Nicole as tall and gangly, a kid who can't do this, can't do that," Patterson said. "Our impression was she had a chance to be the best player ever at Kansas State. It wasn't about where she was then. It was where we envisioned her going."

Ohlde was the Big 12's freshman of the year last season and is averaging 17.4 points and 7.8 rebounds now. It would seem that she is, indeed, going places. And so are the Wildcats.

Green Bay's Favre is Auriemma's 'hero'
Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma, a big sports fan, has weighed in on the Brett Favre-Michael Strahan flap. Or should that be flop?

Auriemma called Favre his "hero," and said it didn't matter that Favre was accused of falling at Strahan's feet to give him the NFL season record for sacks.

"Maybe if he thinks Strahan's a jerk, he won't do it," Auriemma said. "But this is one guy saying, 'I like that guy.' In the big scheme of things, 50 years from now, if nobody breaks that record, they're going to say Strahan's got the record.

"They're not going to say he sacked Brett Favre to get it and Favre let him do it. I'm glad it happened. Good for them."

Auriemma knows what it's like to become embroiled in controversy over a record.

A national debate ensued in 1998 after Auriemma arranged for Nykesha Sales, who had been lost for the season with a torn Achilles' tendon, to hobble onto the court and make an uncontested layup to break the school scoring record.

Auriemma: Big East not as easy as some think
On matters closer to his own sport, Auriemma said he's tired of hearing the Big East being put down as a weak league and that his No. 1-ranked team won't be challenged the rest of the way.

Until Boston College joined the rankings last Monday, Connecticut had been the only Big East team in the Top 25 most of the season. The Big 12 has seven ranked teams and the Southeastern Conference six.

"I'm sick of hearing how many ranked teams that teams played. There's teams ranked that shouldn't have been ranked," Auriemma said. "This ranked stuff, not ranked stuff is a joke.

"A lot of teams are finding out, including Tennessee, that playing at Boston College isn't easy, playing against Miami isn't easy. Stanford found out playing at Rugters isn't easy. Playing at Virginia Tech isn't easy."

Still, coach Sherri Coale of Big 12 favorite Oklahoma couldn't resist this line on the league's most recent teleconference: "I called Geno and said, 'Enjoy your Big East vacation, buddy. Some of us have to go to work.' "

Auriemma and the Huskies beat Miami 96-50 on Saturday.

Scouts making the rounds
Several representatives of WNBA teams were courtside for last week's Connecticut-Tennessee and Old Dominion-Tennessee games.

Brian Agler, coach of the Minnesota Lynx, said he needs post players to compete in the Western Division against Lisa Leslie, Sheryl Swoopes, Tina Thompson and DeLisha Milton. The Lynx pick sixth and want a player with size and versatility. Agler was scouting the post players for UConn -- Tamika Williams, Swin Cash and Asjha Jones -- and UT's Michelle Snow.

The Detroit Shock, represented by assistant coach Tom Cross, picks second. The Shock also checked out the pickings in the post, but a point guard tops the wish list. Cross cited UConn's Sue Bird and said point guard is "the hardest position to find. Sue Bird is as good as there has been in a long time."

Bird said after the UT-UConn game that the possibility of being a top pick was flattering, but her focus was her senior season.

Seattle Storm coach Lin Dunn, who picks first, said Tuesday that she was watching UT center Michelle Snow and ODU post players Lucienne Berthieu and Hamchetou Maiga. Dunn wanted to see Snow in the ODU game, because "I thought the game she had against Connecticut was not at all indicative of how fine a player she is."

Boyett's streak ends
Birmingham-Southern's Lindsay Boyett finally missed a free throw.

Boyett had made 64 straight when she missed her first attempt in a victory over Elon. She was three short of breaking the NCAA record of 66 straight, though she would not have received credit for doing so.

Birmingham-Southern is in its second season at the Division I level as a provisional program. The NCAA won't recognize any records by the school's players until the 2003-04 season.

Boyett made her final 24 free throws last year and first 40 this season. Ginny Doyle of Richmond set the NCAA record during the 1991-92 season.

Information from Scripps Howard News Service was included in this report.