Carol Ann Shudlick, polite but polished, is fulfilling her obligation as media darling of the moment.

It's nearly five in the afternoon, a Monday, and the hours remaining for dinner, studies and sleep are growing shorter. It's already been a full day, with a senior's schedule of classes and a couple hours of practice, but Shudlick isn't packing it in just yet. Reporters call -- and wait -- as one of the marquee players in college basketball goes through the motions.

"If they shut me down, then there's other players," Shudlick says, patiently, having heard the "how do you handle the pressure" question more than once today, knowing there's another waiting. "It's really the outcome that counts. If they hold me below my average, other people step up."

Shudlick, a senior forward for the Minnesota Golden Gophers, is currently the second-leading scorer in the nation with 25.6 points per game, a number that sets her atop the Big Ten. A preseason first-team All-American and player-of-the-year candidate, Shudlick is a huge fish in the relatively small pond of Minnesota basketball.

A superstar on a mediocre team, she's got the team-speak and modest responses down pat. But judging by what her coach says about her, the modesty thing is no act. That's the kind of person Shudlick really is.

"I think that in some situations, an individual who receives that kind of attention doesn't know how to handle it well," Coach Linda Hill-MacDonald said. "But Carol Ann Shudlick is unique in that regard because she's very humble. She really does put the team before herself."

A small-town girl from Apple Valley, Minn., Shudlick has been groomed for the spotlight since high school. Minnesota's Miss Basketball in 1990, Shudlick posted 1,558 points and 1,111 rebounds in her prep career. Now with the Gophers, she's increased her celebrity with nearly 1,900 career points.

Though she overshadows the rest of the team, Shudlick draws no ire from her courtmates. The rest of the Gophers echo their coach in praising Shudlick for her humility, as well as her talent, and they don't seem to mind how much attention she gets, as long as she's helping the common cause.

"She can handle it, and that's great," junior forward Cara Pearson said. "She's real modest, and she deserves all the credit she gets."

As the interviews wind down, Shudlick's responses speed up slightly. She's still polite as ever, but anxious to finish up, get back to her life. She fields another query, one wondering about how she deals with the fame and attention, rare sensations for a female athlete. Does all this stuff bother her?

"It doesn't really get to me," Shudlick says, opening up slightly, veering away from the pre-fab responses. "When I'm at home, I just try to relax. Homework, talking to friends, stuff like that. When I'm at basketball, my focus is on basketball, and that keeps things in perspective.

"It's not like everybody's asking me for my autograph," she adds with a slightly embarassed laugh.

One last thing before she goes. Does Shudlick, an advertising major, think all those classes about the ad business have taught her anything?

"I suppose in a way it shows how you can't always believe what you read," she says.

Unless, of course, it's about Carol Ann Shudlick. It might seem to good to believe, but it's probably true.