LOCAL PLAYERS HEAD FOR `THE BIG DANCE'

College basketball fans who have followed area high school hoops over the years might want to take special notice regarding the 1998 NCAA Tournament.

That's because three former local basketball stars will be taking part when first-round games are played Thursday and Friday.

St. Louis University's Corey Frazier out of Charleston, Nevada-Las Vegas' Tyrone Nesby out of Cairo, Ill., and Illinois-Chicago's Bryant Lowe, also from Cairo, will all be part of the 64-team extravaganza that annually captures the nation's sporting attention.

St. Louis (21-10), the No. 10 seed in the South Regional, will play Massachusetts Friday in Atlanta.

UNLV (20-12), seeded 12th in the East Regional, will take on Princeton Thursday in Hartford, Conn.

Illinois-Chicago (22-5), the ninth seed in the East Regional, will face North Carolina-Charlotte Thursday in Hartford.

* Frazier, a 6-foot-1 senior guard, has been a key player off the bench this season for a revitalized St. Louis program that has benefited greatly by the presence of Larry Hughes, the national freshman of the year.

After missing the first part of the season while gaining his academic eligibility, Frazier is averaging 5.1 points per game and has been a particularly crucial performer in recent weeks.

Frazier, who sat out his freshman season at St. Louis under Proposition 48 guidelines, averaged 8.5 points per game as a sophomore and 4.0 points per game as a junior.

A 1994 Charleston High graduate, Frazier helped lead the Blue Jays to a state title during his sophomore season and he earned Class 3A all-state honors as both a junior and senior.

* Nesby, a 6-6 senior forward, has been arguably UNLV's premier player the last two seasons and last week he helped the Runnin' Rebels make an improbable run through the Western Athletic Conference Tournament to gain the school's first NCAA tourney bid since 1991.

Nesby hit a short jumper late in the WAC tourney championship game against New Mexico, then clinched things with two free throws with 9.9 seconds left as the Rebels upset the Lobos.

Last season, Nesby averaged 16.5 points and 7.1 rebounds per game. He's averaging 15.7 points and 5.7 rebounds a contest this year.

A 1994 Cairo High graduate, Nesby was a Parade All-American as a senior, when he averaged 26 points and 17 rebounds per game. He helped lead the Pilots to a third-place finish in the Illinois Class A Tournament as a junior and then won the state tourney slam-dunk contest as a senior.

Nesby originally signed with Louisville but failed to make his ACT score so he went on to Vincennes (Ind.) Junior College and earned All-American honors before spending the last two seasons in Las Vegas.

"Tyrone was just a great player for me in high school," said former Cairo coach Bill Chumbler, who is now the coach at Paducah (Ky.) Tilghman. "He's a good kid and, from what I understand, he's got a good chance to be drafted by the NBA."

* While Nesby was one of the nation's top high school talents and heavily recruited, fellow Cairo product Lowe was definitely a late bloomer, according to Chumbler.

Lowe, after playing mainly on the Pilots' JV as a junior, blossomed some as a senior and averaged 24 points per game.

"Bryant was a good kid so we kept him around and his senior year he really came around," said Chumbler.

But Chumbler said Lowe stood only 6-2 and weighed about 165 pounds when he graduated from Cairo in 1992, so schools weren't exactly beating down the door to sign him.

"After he graduated, he didn't play for two years. He just stayed and worked out with us," said Chumbler. "Then all of a sudden he got to be about 6-6 and filled out."

Two years after graduating from high school, Lowe went to Rend Lake (Ill.) Junior College and became a two-year standout there. He then signed with Illinois-Chicago.

Lowe, a 6-5 senior forward, is averaging 15.4 points and a team-high 8.9 rebounds per game for the Flames, who will be making their first NCAA Tournament appearance. He's shooting a sizzling 56 percent from 3-point range.

Last year as a junior, Lowe averaged 11.4 points per game.