ALTHOUGH Iowa State and Utah haven't played one another since 1944, the year the Utes won the NCAA championship, today's second-round game will have an air of familiarity.

Which is hard to figure after a 52-year hiatus.It isn't that the schools are even remotely close. Utah is bordered by towering mountains; Iowa State is bordered by towering corn. Utah plays in the far-flung Western Athletic Conference, in locations like Honolulu, San Diego and Colorado Springs. Iowa State plays in Big Eight, in places like Manhattan, Kansas and Stillwater, Oklahoma.

If you come to play at Utah, you're going to want to bring along your snowboard and hiking boots. If you play at Iowa State, you'll mainly want to bring along a good VCR and a warm coat.

As far apart as the teams are, though, they won't be complete strangers when they tip off thisafternoon. They'll have a feeling of deja vu. The reason is that Iowa State's Kenny Pratt and Shawn Bankhead, and Utah's Ben Caton were playing in the same Scenic West Conference a year ago.

"It's like old home week," said Caton.

For Pratt, Iowa State's 6-foot-4 forward, it will be particularly familiar to play against the Utes. For two years, he lived only a long set-shot away from the University of Utah campus. He knows how to turn at the Boy Scouts office to get to the Huntsman Center. He knows you can eat late at TGI Friday's after the Ute games, and where the dollar movie theaters are. He even knows that if you're planning on watching NCAA basketball on LDS Conference weekend, you may have to catch it on tape delay.

Pratt first came to Utah to play at Utah Valley State College in Orem, during the 1993-94 season, after graduating from Taft High in Chicago. Thirteen games into the year, he left, transferring to College of Eastern Utah in Price, where he averaged 21.5 points and 8.3 rebounds a game last season.

Exactly how Pratt got from Chicago to the fringes of the San Rafael Swell is anyone's guess. "That's a long story," he says.

He was recruited to UVSC and, upon making a visit, decided Brigham Young was right when he declared that Utah indeed was the place to be.

Temporarily.

Why Pratt, who went on to make the All-Big Eight second team this year, didn't matriculate to the University of Utah, USU, Weber or BYU was apparently matter of three things: location, location and location. Oddly enough, neither Utah nor Pratt was terribly interested in the other when he finished up his season at CEU. The Utes made one cursory recruiting visit, but Pratt had already made up his mind.

"Utah is a lovely place," said Pratt. "But I wasn't interested in staying. I never intended to go to Utah. I wanted to get closer to home."

During his stay, Pratt took the time to familiarize himself with what kind of basketball was being played up at the U. It didn't take long to figure out Brandon Jessie and Keith Van Horn were all the names he needed to know.

"I used to go up to Salt Lake on weekends and play basketball at the University of Utah," said Pratt. "I watched those guys a couple of times but I never played with them. I sat on the sidelines and watched. The gym was packed all the time. But they're probably the two best players in Utah - besides Karl Malone and John Stockton."

Watching pickup games, though, wasn't the limit of Pratt's experience with Ute players. While at UVSC and CEU, he played against Ute guard Ben Caton - who was starring at Ricks (Idaho) College - as well as his future teammate at ISU, Bankhead, who was playing at College of Southern Idaho. He also met Ute guard Mark Rydalch during a Utah Summer Games tournament.

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"Yeah," said Rydalch, "I played against him. He lit us up. He scored 30."

Since then, Pratt has gone on to thrive at Iowa State. He needed the Utes like he needed a bleeding ulcer. Besides being named to the all-league second team, he earned Big Eight Player of the Week honors March 4 when he posted a career-high 31 points against Kansas State. He finished fifth in the league in scoring (16.9).

Meanwhile, Caton, who averaged 23 points, five rebounds and five assists in junior college, moved on to play at Utah, where he broke into the starting lineup his first year.

So if you see several players today, talking back and forth during warmups and timeouts as though they're old friends, well, that's because they are. It'll be just like old times. They may have gone different directions, but at least for a day, they'll all be back in the same place.

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