What's up everyone, this is Jawann. All of you have been great to me since I came here and I wanted to return the favor by writing a Diary for Ben and GOAZCATS.com.

My first semester officially ended this morning when I took my last final and I did pretty well. I came out with a 2.7 GPA and did fine. I studied a lot more than I ever have. You have a lot of papers and stuff but you also have a lot of free time in college, too. The hardest thing I did in school this semester was probably my 10-page context essay in English where I had to compare three stories we read to my life situation and personal aspects of my life. I got a C.

College is a fun life, though. I'm still a little homesick with missing my family and friends and the nightlife in Houston, but I've adjusted pretty well and the fans here have welcomed me and love me down here. Even when I have bad games they love me and you can't ask for more than that.

People will come up to me and say "Jawann, you're the best." All kinds of people, too, old people, students, everyone. Even when I got back from the Mississippi State game [Jawann went 1-5 with three points and three turnovers] people were still saying nice stuff to me. Maybe when I go 0-for-10 they'll not like me anymore. But I think they see that I do other things to help the team besides scoring like rebounding and playing defense.

I talked to my dad last night and he said that one of the things I'm not doing is relaxing and just playing my game like I did in high school. He said it looks like I don't want to make mistakes. But Coach Olson has this confidence in me and he's not going to take me out of the game for nothing. I'm going to start playing my game and show everyone what my game really is.

I've been playing great defense and rebounding well but now it's time for me to just play. And why not show my real game on our toughest road game so far (Saturday at No. 25 Marquette)? Especially since it will be against the school I was about to commit to. Ben knows this but I was very close to committing to Marquette before I chose Arizona.

Tom Crean and I were very close when he was recruiting me. I actually think I told him I was coming at one point. But when I committed to Arizona he called me and said "you made a good choice." I was about to go there, I mean really close. I would have started there this year basically but deep down inside I know that everything will work out.

I talked to my friend Malik (Hairston, Oregon freshman wing) yesterday and he said that (Oregon) is just a very young team. Malik is very, very good. They just got done playing against Illinois and he said they are great. I agree with him.

Illinois is No. 1 without a doubt because they play as a team better than anyone. They don't care who scores on their team, either. If you look at it, Roger Powell is usually their leading scorer but he's not a big time NBA prospect. Everyone knows the three NBA guys on that team (Deron Williams, Dee Brown and Luther Head) but they all pass the ball and don't care who scores. That's why they are No. 1.

But North Carolina is without a doubt the best team as far as pros go. I'd love to see them play Illinois. We have the same amount of pros on our team but we just have to get it going. (UNC point guard) Ray Felton is finding everyone and Mustafa (Shakur) has to do the same thing for us. He doesn't have to score to be great because he's already got the best wings in the country around him.

Right now I think the reason why we're not scoring a lot of points is because we're taking too many bad shots. We're also not keeping the (proper) floor spacing and there isn't any movement on the court. But you can't have movement when you're dribbling too much. Once we cut that down and play as a team we'll be fine.

We have all the right pieces and I believe that only we can beat ourselves. We haven't playing well but we're still winning and that should be bad news for other teams. They should be feeling nervous because once we get it going everyone will know what we know and that's that we're going to be in St. Louis in the Final Four. Everyone still believes that.

I'm not used to losing [Jawann went 39-0 at Milby HS as a senior last year] so I don't plan on doing too much of it this year.

___________________________

**Editor's Note: Jawann McClellan is a 6-5, 215-pound freshman wing for the 15th-ranked Arizona Wildcats. He was a McDonald's All-American as a senior at Houston (Tex.) Milby HS last year and is currently averaging 7.3 points and 4.0 rebounds per game as Arizona's sixth man.