Jackson faces long trip to shoot from long range.

Byline: UO NOTEBOOK By Ron Bellamy and Bob Clark The Register-Guard

The Register-Guard

NEW YORK - Luke Jackson still plans on participating in the three-point shooting contest that will be held Friday in San Antonio in conjunction with the Final Four.

That could mean an early flight out of here Friday morning, if Oregon beats Michigan tonight to advance to the NIT title game on Thursday, in order to arrive in time for the skills competition in the Texas city.

`I think it's at 3 (p.m.),' Jackson said of the three-point contest. `I'm not exactly sure what's going on with that. I'll worry about that later.'

One of the other competitors in the three-point shootout will be Gonzaga's Blake Stepp, who graduated from South Eugene High School.

`I like going against him,' Jackson said of his longtime friend. `It's just going to be who's hot.'

No third-place game

Effective this season, the NIT has done away with the consolation game, choosing instead to send the losers of tonight's semifinal games home on Wedesday.

Christine Fallon, the NIT public relations director, said that for the past eight to 10 years coaches have supported doing away with the third-place game, in part because one of the participants ends the season with two straight losses after winning at least three games to get to New York.

Fallon said the NIT Committee had been reluctant to do away with the game, wanting to keep all four teams in New York for the full tournament, but recognized that the game didn't draw well and wasn't being televised.

Fallon said Texas Tech coach Bob Knight, whose team won the third-place game last season, spoke convincingly then about doing away with the game, and that after polling members of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, the NIT officially eliminated the game about six months ago. Oregon played in the third-place game in its most recent NIT appearance in 1999, losing to Xavier after losing to California in the semifinals.

Loves Luke, too

Michigan coach Tommy Amaker joined the chorus of Jackson fans at his meeting with the media Monday.

`I'm very impressed with him,' Amaker said. `He's one of the very best all-around players that you'll see in college basketball. He plays with a savvy that's beyond his years.'

In scouting the Ducks, Amaker said the Wolverines have concentrated on video of the most recent games, which has only put an exclamation point on Jackson's importance to Oregon success.

In Oregon's NIT opener, Jackson scored 40 points against Colorado, including 31 of Oregon's final 33.

`I look for players who make their teammates better,' Amaker said. `The impact I've seen him make is to make other people that much better than they are, and that's the mark of a very special player.'

A milestone

For the first time in the history of the NIT, all four teams in the semifinals have African-American head coaches. Joining Ernie Kent of Oregon and Tommy Amaker of Michigan are first-year Iowa State coach Wayne Morgan and Rutgers coach Gary Waters, who was an assistant to Kent on the USA Basketball Junior National Team two years ago.

Vivid memories

Michigan coach Tommy Amaker hasn't forgotten the last time he coached against Oregon. In 2000, he was head coach at Seton Hall, which defeated the Ducks 72-71 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in Buffalo, N.Y., on Shaheen Holloway's basket with less than two seconds remaining in overtime. It was Amaker's first NCAA Tournament win as a head coach.

"It was back and forth the whole way, an NCAA Tournament type of game where you can't predict who's going to win," Amaker said. "I thought both teams played extremely well, and it was one of those games where it's unfortunate that a team has to lose a game like that. ... It was a fiercely competitive game, and a game played in the manner that both teams were playing their hearts out to win."

At the oldest

Already very familiar with the nation's second-oldest collegiate arena, their own McArthur Court, the Ducks on Sunday worked out at the oldest college arena, Rose Hill Gym on the Fordham University campus.

`It was a really old brick building,' Jackson said. `It's a lot smaller (than Mac Court). It's like a high school.'

Andre Joseph added that `it was very small, that's all I can say about it. They do have a very nice campus. It was gated off. ... You went through the 'hood, then all of a sudden this gated university was there.'

The Ducks practiced on Monday at a high school gym in Manhattan and will get their first look at Madison Square Garden during a shootaround this afternoon. The facility wasn't available to NIT teams on Monday because of a game between the Trail Blazers and Knicks, who also used it for their midday shootarounds.