Marxman

Morrison, 21, is certainly not the only college kid who wept when the alternative-rock band Rage Against the Machine broke up. But he's probably the first to berate himself after a game for "playing like a communist.'' He has teased his devout coach, Mark Few, by quoting Marx on a locker-room board: "Religion is the opiate of the masses.''

Few says college basketball hasn't had a personality like Morrison since Bill Walton.

"He's open to all thoughts,'' Few said on the phone. "He's well read. He's a great debater. He enjoys a healthy debate. When you cut to the core, some of the things he says, he doesn't believe. I find it entertaining most of the time.''

Teammate Sean Mallon put a slightly different twist on Morrison's locker-room rhetoric, telling the Oregonian, "Sometimes he doesn't know what he's talking about, but that doesn't stop him from having a strong opinion.''

Studying the Russian Revolution in a high school history class piqued his interest in Marx. He read "The Communist Manifesto'' and Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations.'' Despite his interest in political science, he's a sports-management major ("There's no money in philosophy"). As for the Marxism, he said, "I don't necessarily believe all of it, but some of it is reasonable.''