PHOENIX (AP) – Mark Gottfried never got this far in the NCAA tournament as a terrific player on some good Alabama teams.

So he more than most appreciates this ride on a Crimson tidal wave to the Phoenix Regional final Saturday against Connecticut.

“Alabama is a special place for me,” the Crimson Tide coach said Friday. “I wore the uniform and met my wife there, so I am really excited for our program. These guys have taken our program to a place that we’ve never been.

“We’ll be a lot more excited if we can get the job done tomorrow and get to the Final Four.”

The eighth-seeded Tide (20-12) beat top-seeded Stanford to get to Phoenix, then knocked off defending NCAA champion Syracuse 80-71 on Thursday night to advance to a regional final for the first time in Alabama history.

“We definitely feel like we are living the life right now, out here in Phoenix, having fun in the sun,” ‘Bama playmaker Antoine Pettway said. “But at the same time, it is like a business trip. We know we have a job to do.”

The next obstacle is UConn, the preseason No. 1 team in the country, an awesome assemblage of talent with the nation’s best big man in the middle.

“Man, we’re going to have to play close to a perfect game,” Pettway said.

“One to seven probably, they’re the top players in the country. But I think we can pull it off.”

Connecticut (30-6), the region’s No. 2 seed, outrebounded Vanderbilt 44-21 in its 73-53 pounding of the Commodores on Thursday night. The Huskies, winners of six straight and 11 of their last 12, are healthy and playing like the powerhouse everyone expected them to be.

“I feel the same way as I have all the way through,” UConn coach Jim Calhoun said. “We’re good enough to win the national championship. We just have to be good enough tomorrow to win a 40-minute game.”

Connecticut is much bigger than Alabama and almost as quick. The Huskies hold teams to a 37 percent field goal percentage, best in the country. Of course the Tide, like virtually every other team in the country, has no one to counter the Huskies’ Emeka Okafor inside.

“To tell you the truth, my game plan for this game is not going to be any different than for any other game I play,” Okafor said. “I’m going to go out and try to play my best. I understand that we’re a little bit more physical in the front court than they are, and we’re going to try to exploit that. But that’s our mentality every game.”

Calhoun said that he was impressed by Alabama’s poise down the stretch against Syracuse. But he said he preferred to play a team the Huskies haven’t played this season rather than to face a Syracuse squad for the third time.

No one can duplicate Okafor in practice, Calhoun said, but for a team facing him the third time “maybe at least the fear factor or the intimidation that he can cause in the post” would be lessened.

Jermareo Davidson, a 6-foot, 10-inch freshman, will be the primary defender against Okafor, although Chuck Davis undoubtedly will provide some help, and the Tide often slides into a zone defense.

“It’s time for me to step up,” Davidson said. “I usually step up against the challenges from the big guys, and I’m ready to do it now.”

The burden of high expectations seemed to weigh too heavily on the Huskies much of the season, especially when Okafor was injured.

He said he’s feeling fine now.

“We’re getting a little bit of swagger,” Okafor said. “Everybody’s really starting to mesh well. I think because of all the downs we’ve had, we’ve been able to come up good. We’ve learned from our mistakes.”

The last time Calhoun brought the Huskies to Phoenix, for the 1999 West Regional, his team beat another upstart, 10th-seeded Gonzaga, to advance to the Final Four and win UConn’s first men’s championship.

“I see a lot of comparisons,” the Huskies’ Taliek Brown said of that Connecticut team, “except they didn’t have someone like Emeka Okafor.”

AP-ES-03-26-04 1938EST