THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 7, 1995 TAG: 9501070347
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE CARLSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: TEMPE, ARIZ. LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
Arizona State center Mario Bennett doesn't know Odell Hodge, but he knows what he's going through.
They are soul mates, in a sense, fellow members of a fraternity that no athlete wants to pledge. Bennett - the best basketball player Old Dominion will face this season wearing colors other than Carolina blue - has experienced the pain, loneliness and frustration of fighting back from a torn anterior cruciate ligament.
Twice.
Tonight would have been a matchup of two fine post players when the Monarchs (5-7) meet the Sun Devils (10-2) at 9 p.m. Instead, the Monarchs' severely weakened inside game will try to neutralize Bennett and the rest of the 15th-ranked Sun Devils without the injured Hodge.
``He's got a lot of adversity ahead of him,'' Bennett, a junior, said of Hodge. ``Some days he might not feel like going in there and doing rehab. Some days it might hurt. Some days he might not progress, he might regress.''
Bennett knows knees, and said he feels a kinship with everyone who has experienced what he went through with the two injuries to his left knee.
Here's everything there is to know about Bennett's: blown out in the summers of 1992 and 1993, both times while playing pickup ball; twice underwent reconstructive surgery; one arthroscopic procedure; protected by a knee brace all of last season.
``It was hardest coming back from the second one,'' Bennett said. ``The first one I felt like everyone gets hurt at some time and faces adversity. The second one I started saying, `Why me?' I just wanted to cry.''
But this is no sob story. After sitting out a season and going 21 months without putting on an Arizona State uniform, Bennett returned to action in late December 1993. He earned first-team All-Pac-10 honors last season with averages of 16.2 points and 8.6 rebounds.
ODU assistant Jim Corrigan prepared the scouting report on the Sun Devils. He said other than North Carolina's Rasheed Wallace and Jerry Stackhouse, Bennett is the best player the Monarchs will see all season.
Bennett leads a balanced, talented Sun Devils attack in scoring (16.6 points per game), rebounding (7.8), blocked shots (2.6) and minutes per game (31).
More impressive is what he has done in the big games against other centers.
In Sun Devil victories over Michigan, Maryland, Oklahoma State and Vanderbilt, Bennett averaged 55 percent shooting, 8.5 rebounds, 2.5 blocks and 21.3 points. He battled centers Joe Smith of Maryland and Bryant ``Big Country'' Reeves of Oklahoma State to virtual standoffs.
``I feel I'm just as good as any of those guys,'' Bennett said while relaxing in the Sun Devils' locker room following Thursday's home victory over No. 9 Arizona. ``I just had to go about it a different way.''
That would be the hard way. Every game, the knee injuries are sent deeper into the recesses of Bennett's brain, but he admitted it's still hard at times to shake the worries of re-injury.
Arizona State's doctor recommended Bennett wear a knee brace this season, but he refused.
``He said, `No, I don't need to look down and be reminded every minute of it,' '' Arizona State coach Bill Frieder said. by CNB