ORLANDO, Fla. -- Steve Francis had to swallow a lot of bitter pills on the way to the Sweet 16 yesterday.

And it all added up to making him so angry when the final buzzer sounded that he walked straight off the court with a scowl on his face, not stopping to talk to anybody or shake any hands.

"If I had gotten the ball in that last minute and gone in for a dunk, I would have knocked the backboard down," said Francis. "That's how mad I was. I was mad because of how bad I had played."

However, it seemed as if Francis was seething over the taunting he took from the Creighton fans over the final eight minutes.

"You can't dunk," shouted the bevy of Bluejays fans over and over in response to the fact Maryland's 6-foot-3, high-flying second-team All-American did not have a dunk in the game.

Francis appeared to be itching for one last opportunity to dunk in the 75-63, second-round South Regional victory over Creighton and, with less than a minute to go, he glanced briefly in the direction of the hecklers and turned back toward the court and watched teammate Terrell Stokes dribble the final seconds off the clock.

Francis never changed the scowl on his face and disappeared through the hallway to the locker room. He had to be chased down and brought back to do a post-game television interview.

"I heard the fans and I looked at them," said Francis. "But they weren't upsetting me. Hey, I've played at Duke and didn't get upset. This was a couple of hundred people compared to 8,000 at Duke. I was just mad because of the way I played and the way we let Creighton back in the game."

The rest of the bitter pills? Francis had to deal with a sour taste of blood in his mouth when he got hit in the face, causing him to bite his tongue, making a nifty move for a layup for a 55-36 lead with 15: 35 left in the game.

The junior whirlwind left the game for nearly three minutes for medical treatment.

While Maryland assistant trainer J. J. Bush attended to Francis at courtside, team doctor Leigh Ann Curl rushed down from her seat in the stands to see if her help was needed. Bush assured Curl that Francis was OK.

"I bite my tongue [a la Michael Jordan] when I'm driving to the basket," said Francis. "That's how it happened. But they did play a physical game on me. It wasn't just one guy doing it.

"There were a lot of guys working in a box-and-one on me. I thought for a while I'd never get the ball the way they were concentrating on me. That's OK with me. If they want to leave Terence Morris all alone in the middle, he'll beat them."

Morris scored a game-high 20 points and had 12 rebounds while Francis had 18 points, a game-high 13 rebounds, four steals, two assists and one block.

But Francis was unhappy with his seven turnovers and he had to be a little sore with the beating he took from the likes of Creighton's Rodney Buford and Ben Walker in the box-and-one.

"I don't know why they put all that attention on me," said Francis without cracking a smile.

When told that he was a second-team All-American, Francis said, "That's only on paper. You still have to go out and play the game. I saw a first-team All-American play on television yesterday and he tried to be so cool. That doesn't work."

Pub Date: 3/14/99