Southwest Missouri State's Lady Bears reeled off a dozen straight wins to open the 1997-98 season. They went on to post a 24-6 record, finish second in the Missouri Valley Conference at 14-4 and win the team's seventh invitation in the last eight years to the NCAA Division I championship tournament.

What's more, the Lady Bears' rabidly loyal fans, the ones who filled SMS' 8,846-seat Hammons Student Center to capacity for almost every home game, quickly found a new superstar to cheer in Jackie Stiles.

The freshman from Claflin (Kan.) High School, who had set her state's all-time prep scoring record for both boys and girls, took up in Springfield where she had left off in Claflin, averaging more than 20 points a game. By season's end she had been named to two freshman All-America teams, made the Missouri Valley Conference's first team, was voted its top freshman and had won its player of the week award a record-setting three times.

Still, Stiles says she gets sick to her stomach every time she thinks of last season. The Lady Bears first round loss to Notre Dame at the NCAA tournament, after losing the Missouri Valley Conference title to Drake in the championship game, wasn't how the 19-year-old expected things to end.

``That was very devastating,'' she said of the season-ending losses. ``We never, ever want to let that happen again.''

Her coach, Cheryl Burnett, wholeheartedly agrees.

``We really felt like the Notre Dame game was the opening to a brand-new season,'' the veteran of 12 seasons at the Lady Bears' helm said. ``It definitely was a team we felt we could have, should have, beaten.''

The experts see things ending differently this year, with the Lady Bears favored by coaches and sportswriters to win the conference for the first time since Drake ended SMS' seven-year title run in 1996-97.

That's how Stiles sees it, too. Then, after that, she sees a serious run for an NCAA title.

``That's my goal,'' the sophomore says flatly. ``That's what we work for everyday. That's the team's goal.''

Burnett, who took the Lady Bears to a Final Four appearance in 1992, is a bit more guarded. Still, she admits she won't be satisfied if the team doesn't at least win the Missouri Valley Conference title.

With that goal in mind, the Lady Bears began nonconference play by blowing out Davidson 120-65 in the opening round of the Women's National Invitation Tournament, a game in which Stiles tied the team record with 41 points. The Lady Bears and Stiles both stumbled two nights later, however, losing a second-round game to Indiana 63-60 after Stiles, who scored 18, missed a free throw that would have tied the game with two seconds left.

The key to the Lady Bears' expectations this year is Stiles, who Burnett says is twice the player she was last year, a pronouncement that makes her soft-spoken superstar stammer in embarrassment.

That doesn't mean, Burnett quickly adds, that Stiles will average 40 points a game this year, though she is capable of it, her coach says, if her teammates simply gave her the ball all the time.

But the 5-foot-8-inch Stiles' presence will be felt, Burnett says, in the way she has improved as a playmaker, passer and defensive player.

What's more, she has a veteran team backing her up, with four starters returning from last year. And Burnett has answered her critics, who said last year's Lady Bears were too short to win a title, by recruiting 6-foot-5-inch Dzenata Kadic and 6-foot-3-inch Ann Cavey, both freshman centers.

The biggest of last year's starters, 6-foot senior Roshonda Reed, is also back.

But clearly the expectations of stardom fall heaviest on the modest sophomore from Kansas who is being touted around the SMS campus as a likely All-American.

``The number one shooter on our team is certainly Jackie Stiles,'' Burnett said. ``And she'll end up being the best passer in the country and the best defensive player before she's through.''