NEW ORLEANS -- ALEX JENSEN'S face is a road map of his basketball career. On it he can retrace the seasons along the thin red lines that run from his chin to his brow.
"This is from Kenny Thomas' knee," he says, pointing to a scar just above the bridge of his nose. "That was seven stitches."He points to a scar below his chin. "Mekeli Wesley's elbow," he says. "Eight stitches."
His finger moves to a deep red crescent scar under his left eye. "Jeremy Killion's elbow," he says. "Five stitches. I got it scratched again in Friday's game."
Jensen, still not finished with the guided tour, points to his right eyebrow. "I got hit with an elbow here one night. It took 15 or 20 minutes to stop the bleeding. I had to leave the game twice."
He points to the top of his head. "There are scars here, too, that you can't see," he explains.
Jensen has basketball memories written in the surface of his skin. "I have the school record for most stitches," says Jensen. "It's just bad luck, being in the wrong place at the wrong time."
It probably has more to do with Jensen's earnest, reckless style of play and his tendency to be in the thick of the action than it has to do with luck. He was sent sprawling to the floor three times against Arkansas State on Friday. It is a style that endears him to teammates and coaches and frustrates opponents.
"I love Al Jensen," coach Rick Majerus said Friday, for about the 200th time this season.
Jensen is the coach's pet. Majerus has had a few of those during his 10 years at Utah -- Craig and Mark Rydalch, Jimmy Soto, Ben Caton, Drew Hansen, M'Kay McGrath, Keith and Doug Chapman, Mike Doleac, Jensen. They are not the most talented players -- only one of them was what anybody would call a star -- but all of them played with passion and intensity and eagerly performed the blue-collar duties of blocking out, rebounding, defending and setting picks. They did the things that many players ignore because they don't make points or headlines.
Majerus, the former walk-on whose forte was setting picks (as in "Rick the Pick"), adores such players. In practice, they rarely draw his infamous wrath. In the press, where Majerus is stingy with compliments, they are lavishly praised. McGrath received more praise from his coach in a single press conference than Keith Van Horn drew in a season at Utah.
"I can't say enough about Al as a competitor or a player," the coach was saying on Saturday. "Basketball is the passion of his life. He loves to play."
Jensen, a 6-foot-7 forward whom Majerus brags can guard any position on the floor, will guard Miami All-American Wally Szczeriak, a one-man scoring machine, today in the second-round NCAA tournament game in New Orleans. They are a study in contrasts. Szczeriak is straight from central casting, handsome, muscular, a body like Adonis. Jensen is thin and angular. If he's ever visited a weight room, his secret is safe. A few years ago a coach jokingly asked Jensen if he could take a shower with him. When a puzzled Jensen asked why, he said, "Because I want to feel better about my body."
"He's not a chiseled guy," says Majerus. "Nothing about him speaks to him being a good defender. He's not exceptionally quick, but he is exceptionally tough. He's got great heart, and he's really smart."
Majerus loves Jensen so much that a couple of years ago he told friends that he was going to fly to London, where Jensen had been serving an LDS Church mission for 14 months, and try to talk him into returning home early. His friends talked him out of it.
"Coach doesn't yell as much at me," says Jensen, "but in a way it means more pressure because you don't like to disappoint him, and I've done that."
If Majerus has any complaints about Jensen it's that he's "too nice" and "unselfish to a fault." Jensen cares not one whit about scoring, the glamour job of the sport. Most players have to be told to shoot less frequently or more judiciously; Jensen has to be told -- begged -- to shoot more often.
The Utes require his offense because not only is Jensen an excellent shooter, but the Utes lack scorers. "If you don't score this season, we'll lose," Majerus told Jensen at the outset of the season. The coach, who writes the team's goals on a blackboard in the team room before each game, wrote next to Jensen's name one night: TAKE TWO BAD SHOTS.
"He does not enjoy scoring points," says Majerus. "I tell him to take bad shots all the time."
During one game, after Jensen passed up some shots, Majerus sarcastically greeted him as he returned to the bench by saying, "Congratulations, you're Mr. Sportsmanship, Mr. Congeniality and Mr. Mormon. "I put my hand out, and Alex didn't know what to do so he shook it," said Majerus.
Whatever Jensen's style is, the end result is victory. He played in only five losing games in three years of high school play. At Utah, his record is 86-14.
"My motivation is a fear of losing," says Jensen. "After losses I'm not hungry, I can't sleep, I'm moody, I don't talk. For a day or two all I do is think of how we could've won. I replay it over and over in my mind."
He will do anything that helps to win, including throwing his body onto the floor and blocking elbows with his face.
"All his teammates want him on their team," says Judkins. "He's the first one picked when we choose up sides in practice."