Georgia State

Jonathan Robinson, the suspect in the killing of a Pleasantville video- store clerk, was planning to spend a quiet Thanksgiving Day at his grandmother's home in Swainsboro, Ga. - until the police caught up with him. They spotted Robinson driving a stolen New Jersey car near the relative's house in a public housing project and called in extra help. Minutes later, Georgia state troopers and Emanuel County sheriff's deputies closed in. "Everybody knew who he was, and he realized we knew who he was," said Emanuel County Deputy Marty Mercer.

1. Missing ingredient While his strong nucleus of guards gets all the attention, La Salle coach John Giannini is touting the improved play of his freshmen big men, Jerrell Wright and Steve Zack. "We think we have a potentially great starting forward/center combination moving ahead into future years," Giannini said. "It's hard for big young guys to make the adjustment [from high school]. They're just going to keep getting better. This is a missing ingredient for us being a high-level team, but I don't think it will be missing for long.

David West became the first Xavier player to earn Associated Press all-American honors yesterday when he was announced as the leading vote-getter on the 2002-03 team. The three-time Atlantic Ten Conference player of the year was joined on the first team by fellow seniors Nick Collison of Kansas and Josh Howard of Wake Forest, junior Dwyane Wade of Marquette, and sophomore T.J. Ford of Texas. Earning honorable mention were Notre Dame's Matt Carroll, a Hatboro-Horsham High graduate; St. Joseph's Jameer Nelson; and Penn's Ugonna Onyekwe.

Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, 99, is in grave condition at a Los Angeles hospital, according to multiple reports Wednesday night. According to a report on Los Angeles television station KCAL, Wooden, who is in UCLA Medical Center, has not eaten in the last couple of days and is very ill. Wooden, nicknamed "The Wizard of Westwood," won an unprecedented 10 NCAA championships in his final 12 seasons, including seven in a row from 1967 to 1973. The first football game in 20 years between Penn State and defending national champion Alabama will be shown on Sept.

Nick Collison scored 11 of his 19 points in the opening 10 minutes of the second half and No. 4 Kansas pulled away to a 78-62 victory over host Princeton last night. It was the Tigers' third loss in three games against top-10 teams. The Jayhawks (7-1) seemed to have taken control in the first half, using a 10-0 run to take a 31-12 lead with 7 minutes, 44 seconds to play. But Princeton (2-6) closed the first half with a 12-2 spurt, and Ed Persia's buzzer-beating three-pointer made it 35-29 and had the sellout crowd of 6,854 at Jadwin Gymnasium thinking upset.

Attention college coaches: Scheduling matters. Remember that, and if you need convincing, just ask Georgia. Where other teams failed, the Bulldogs burst the NCAA bubble last night, receiving one of the 34 at-large bids to the NCAA tournament despite a 16-14 record. The reason, according to Mike Tranghese, the selection-committee chairman, was that they played the toughest schedule in the nation. Duke, Stanford, Illinois and Michigan State locked up the top seeds in the East, the West, the Midwest and the South, respectively.

Brandin Knight took control early with his quick cuts to the basket and pull-up jumpers and No. 4 Pittsburgh, in what was supposed to be its first big test of the season, cruised to a 69-49 victory over Ohio State last night in Pittsburgh. Knight, content to be a playmaker in Pitt's first six games against a decidedly soft schedule, scored 17 points, had six assists and teamed with teammate Julius Page to shut down Ohio State star Brent Darby. With the Panthers (7-0) playing tough, physical defense in a game in which much of the second half was spent at the foul line, Darby was limited to three points on 1-of-9 shooting.

Lefty Driesell, the 10th-winningest coach in NCAA Division I history, took over college basketball's least successful program yesterday when he was hired by Georgia State. Driesell, just 17 victories short of 700 for his career, will guide a team that has had just three winning seasons in its 34-year existence. "It's a good challenge," Driesell said in a telephone interview from his Atlanta hotel room last night. "It should be a lot of fun. " A news conference was scheduled today to introduce Driesell, 65, as the 11th coach in school history.

The desire by young Americans for personal power and material things could reverse civil rights gains made by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., according to civil rights leader Julian Bond. Young people today are complacent and laissez faire in their attitudes toward civil rights, Bond said in an address to about 70 people during an observance of Dr. King's birthday at Penn State's Ogontz Campus in Abington last Friday. Delivering his report card on the state of civil rights, Bond said that former hippies-turned-yuppies and those striving to graduate from college so that they could reap fat paychecks have failed society.