DIRT ON THE FLOOR

Trevon Hughes still makes a square corner when he makes his bed every morning. It's all part of keeping his apartment bedroom clean and organized. "When I hang my clothes up in a closet, there has to be a certain space between the hangars. It makes it look neat. It looks good," said the University of Wisconsin men's basketball team senior point guard, whose Kohl Center locker also is the spiffiest among his teammates. That's what happens when you spend five years at St. John's Northwestern Military Academy in Delafield. Hughes, a self-described punk from Queens, N.Y., spent eighth grade and four years of high school at St. John's learning discipline, manners and team basketball . They might have been the most important years of his life. "All the stuff I gained at the military school, like how to be a gentleman and stuff, I use it all the time. It just comes out naturally," Hughes said. It's a classic tale. Urban brat moves to America's Dairyland and becomes a human being and a top-class point guard. But to know and watch Hughes is to understand the story is just beginning to be told and all bets are off about how it's going to end. The Badgers (2-0) need the 6-foot Hughes, called "Pop" by all who know him, to be at his best this week when they play three games at the Maui Invitational. They face talented Arizona (2-0) at 11 p.m. Monday in a first-round game. The tournament field is full of quality, veteran guards. For instance, Arizona senior Nic Wise is the Wildcats' unquestioned leader and is on a watch list for just about every postseason award. The Wise-Hughes matchup will be fun to watch. Hughes, who is 143 points away from reaching 1,000 for his career at UW, has the talent to outplay every guard in Maui as well as in the competitive Big Ten Conference. That's a bold statement. But his play has been bold, too, including his last-second score that beat Florida State in the first round of the NCAA tournament last March, and his game-winner at Virginia Tech last December. But just when he's on the brink of stringing together some virtuoso performances, he frequently stops himself and no one - including Hughes - knows why. His breakdowns on the basketball court are akin to throwing a muddy sock into his pristine locker. It's a big reason why no one lists Hughes as one of the nation's elite guards. "I let up sometimes," Hughes said. "When I stay aggressive all 40 minutes we can be a good team. We have the players and personnel in the locker room that can put up a good fight with any team out there. Sometimes it lies in my hands and, being the point guard, I can't let up. I have to stay aggressive all 40 minutes." Up and down Coach Bo Ryan was exasperated with Hughes' performance in the Badgers' 58-42 victory over Oakland on Wednesday night at the Kohl Center. Hughes had an All-American first half with 13 points, five rebounds, three assists and great defense in leading UW to a 34-23 halftime lead. But Hughes' second half featured two points, two turnovers and just one assist. "Some of those passes, there was no way in the world ..." said Ryan, whose eyes were rolling as he cut off the sentence. Hughes' inability to play at a consistently high level has dogged him since high school. "In high school making a big play early was important to him. It still is," St. John's coach Brian Richert said. "If you notice, like against Oakland, he hit a 3 early. I knew as soon as he hit that 3 that the game was on. "If he does something spectacular in the first minute or two of the game, he's going to have a great game. If he doesn't do anything the first four or five minutes, it'll be different. He'll always play hard but it won't be a special game." Richert, who is so close to Hughes that Richert thinks of him as his oldest son, believes Hughes is still maturing. "He's still a young man and he has come a long ways," Richert said. The St. John's coach said Hughes was rude and didn't trust the attention he was getting during his early years in Delafield. He didn't return phone calls from college coaches who were trying to recruit him and handed unopened letters from them to Richert. "It was the way I was raised. You always have to look over your shoulder and don't take no lip," said Hughes, who has seven brothers and sisters. "But that's what military school is for, discipline and stuff. It made me mature faster being away from my family." Hughes changed during his junior year at St. John's. He began to come out of his shell. Besides improving his game, he became a strong leader and a good student. "I hated my parents for sending me there, but now I look back and I love them for it," Hughes said. All about emotion Hughes, who remains a very private person, still has his moments. That's why Richert calls him Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. "One minute he's laughing and feeling on top of the world. Then the next minute you don't get anything out of him," Richert said. "Just like on the basketball court." Richert believes the answer to Hughes' problems can be found in how he treats the game emotionally. He thinks Hughes needs to come out of his shell after keeping his emotions in check out of respect for his teammates' talents. "I want the guy that says, 'Get on my back and let's go.' That's the Pop I know," Richert said. "He used to play at St. John's with a chip on his shoulder; he was a cheerleader, he was a coach, he was a mentor. He was everything rolled into one and I know Bo wants that out of him. He has told me that." Hughes wants that, too. He understands how playing at that intensity level will help UW win more games and, perhaps, make that final chapter of his journey to Wisconsin a memorable one. "When I go out and make plays and give my body up for the team, everybody wants to buy into that," Hughes said. He just has to add to his repertoire, much like how he makes his bed every morning and keeps his locker neat. Call it the St. John's way. "That's something that will ignite him," Richert said. "He thrives on that."