ST. PETERSBURG – Connecticut’s Ricky Moore might have created a monster that could come back to terrorize the Huskies tonight.

Ten years ago he met a younger kid who lived about a block away in Augusta, Ga., and the two played together in their first pickup basketball game. By the time Moore was a senior at Westside High School, he and William Avery, then a junior, were combining to form one of the nation’s premier prep backcourts.

“I kind of took him under my wing,” Moore said of Avery. “I knew he was coming to Westside and I thought he could help our team. It was different back then. I was more of an offensive player. We’d both play the point and we’d both score.”

Their roles are quite different today. Moore, a senior, is Connecticut’s defensive stopper, having relinquished the starting point guard job last year to Khalid El-Amin. Avery, a sophomore, is the starting point guard for Duke.

The two will see plenty of each other in Tropicana Field when Duke and Connecticut decide the national championship. Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun – who’s defensive philosophy is to cut off the head of the opposition’s offense – probably will defend Avery with Moore. Avery wants it to be a two-way street.

“I want to play against Ricky and I want him to play against me,” said Avery. “I hope he guards me. I want to show him I’ve learned a few things.”

Avery, who was raised in a house on the 2700 block of Hazel Street, saw Moore, whose family lives at 2600, use the hesitation dribble in high school and incorporated it into his game. He saw the tenacity with which Moore played and that made Avery a tougher player.

“First of all, Ricky is a winner,” said Avery. “Whether it’s basketball or ping pong, Ricky plays to win.”

Avery acknowledges that Moore, a 6-foot-2, 195-pounder who can cover point guards or power forwards, probably knows his game better than anyone in the country even though the two haven’t played together in some four years. Moore begrudgingly acknowledges that Avery is the one who pro scouts already are drooling over.

“He’s probably going to try to show me up,” said Avery.

Not so, says Moore, who also expects to see some time defending Trajan Langdon, the Blue Devils’ 3-point specialist. Just as Avery believes his game has improved, so does Moore.

“I don’t think William has seen a defensive player like me all year,” said Moore. “I think it’s going to be tough for him to do pretty much anything.”

Avery wasn’t opposed to getting into some trash talking of his own.

“I know he hasn’t been shooting the ball real well lately,” said Avery. “If he tries to go to the basket a few times, I’ll say to him, ‘C’mon make a jump shot. You can’t make a jump shot?'”

Moore figures most of the talking will come after the game when one is a national champion as well as having been a Georgia High School state champ in 1995.

“We’ll speak after the game,” said Moore. “We’re enemies right now.”