Ron Kantowski on the girl with the unusual name taking her uncommonly good game at Centennial to the international level

the numbers

Wednesday, June 28, 2006 | 7:25 a.m.

Name: Italee Lucas

Position: Guard

Height: 5-feet-8

Weight: 152 pounds

School: Centennial High, graduating class of 2007

College: Verbally committed to attend University of North Carolina

High school honors: Parade Magazine second team All-America 2006, Street & Smith's sixth team All-America 2006, state MVP in 2004, 2005, 2006

Did you know: She wears No. 50 because it is unusual and because it means "police" in Hawaii.

It's safe to say Las Vegas loves its All-Americans.

Use the phone book as proof. We have All-American Adventure Tours, All American Blind Company, All American Building Consultants ... you get the idea.

Las Vegas also is home to an All-American girls basketball player, although you won't find her name in the phone book.

No, the best place to find Italee Lucas' name these days is on the back of a USA Basketball Women's U18 National Team jersey.

Lucas, a senior-to-be at Centennial High, was one of 12 players named to the 2006 USA U18 National Team that will host the FIBA (the international basketball federation) Americas U18 Championship for Women, today through Sunday in Colorado Springs, Colo.

The biennial tournament will feature national teams from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Paraguay, Puerto Rico and the United States.

Good thing they'll be playing basketball and not soccer, although Lucas probably wouldn't have minded kicking the spotted ball around with some of those South Americans. Before she became one of the nation's top girls basketball players, she was a pretty darn good soccer player.

So good, in fact, that her father said when she had to make a choice about which sport to pursue, it was difficult.

"At first, she wanted to be like Mia Hamm and go to North Carolina to play soccer," says Italee's father, LaMar.

Instead, she will go to North Carolina to play basketball, where she hopes to be like Ivory Latta, the Tar Heel guard who was named ESPN.com's player of the year.

Although she considers her 44-year-old father the best player she has ever played against, Lucas says Latta is the one she would most love to take to the hoop.

Well, there's always the WNBA.

For now, she's more than content to hoop it up for her country against her contemporaries from all those soccer-playing nations. In fact, she's pretty amped about it, or whatever word the kids use when they get excited these days.

"Pretty cool, yup," Lucas says by phone from Colorado Springs when asked about the honor of representing her country. "So far, this is the highlight, and it'll be even better once my dad gets here."

To paraphrase Paul Simon, this father and child reunion is only a motion away. LaMar Lucas said he's going to hold a lot of bake sales and wash a lot of cars, whatever it takes, to join his daughter in Colorado.

LaMar and Italee are so close that there are those who say they are still joined at the hip of their basketball shorts.

In high school, LaMar was a role player for the Clovis High team that won the 1979 New Mexico state championship. Clovis had a gunner named Bubba Jennings, who went on to star at Texas Tech. LaMar Lucas' job was to pass him the ball.

"There was one game where Bubba scored 75 points," Lucas recalls. "I think I had 26 assists. Otherwise, I was a pretty mediocre player."

He blossomed after that, going on to play at Wayland Baptist in Texas, which in those days was known for its women's basketball team, the Flying Queens.

After his college career, Lucas played pro ball in faraway lands such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Shanghai and a couple of places I can't pronounce, much less spell. But as the song says, he's never been to Spain. Nor Italy. So he named his first child after his favorite place, dropping the "Y" for double E's.

"Her grandmother was Ruby Lee," LaMar Lucas says, explaining the unusual spelling of his daughter's name.

LaMar Lucas became a fireman. He works out of Station 21 at Decatur and Russell with the Heavy Rescue squad.

"We rescue firefighters, all the dangerous stuff," he says, noting his professional life is a lot like Denis Leary's in "Rescue Me," only without all the crazy women.

Lucas' second wife, Tammi, is a former showgirl at Bally's. She's not crazy. He's crazy about her, though, and both of his kids. Italee has a handsome 14-year-old brother named Isaiah, who LaMar insists is going to be a model or an actor.

Together, they form a close-knit unit. It wouldn't be a stretch to call them the All-American family.

Especially now that Italee has the documentation to prove it.