Ready to make Duke cry

ATLANTA – Glen Davis peered tentatively around the curtain, as if he was shy about appearing on the national stage.

Then he opened his mouth.

LSU’s behemoth of a center is rarin’ to get it on with top-seeded Duke at the NCAA’s Atlanta Regional, where he’ll get a chance to prove he’s one of the best players in the country.

“I want to have my own stamp of immortality,” Davis said Wednesday. “Every guy strives for immortality, wants to live forever.”

He’s certainly done enough to escape the shadow of Shaquille O’Neal, who patrolled the middle for the Tigers back in the early 1990s.

Already, Davis has taken LSU farther than Shaq ever did. O’Neal’s teams never made it past the second round. Big Baby – a once-derisive moniker that Davis acquired while playing football as a youngster – will lead the fourth-seeded Tigers (25-8) into the regional semifinals tonight against Duke.

So, enough with that talk about being “Baby Shaq,” a natural offshoot of a nickname that Davis landed after bringing his 6-foot-9, 310-to-320-pound frame to Baton Rouge.

“I hear it everywhere I go,” Davis said. “I should have worn my shirt. It says, ‘I am not Shaq.”’

Davis has put up some Shaq-like numbers this season, especially down the stretch. He scored more than 20 points in six of his last nine games.

“He basically carried us on his shoulders,” teammate Darrel Mitchell said. “He showed up big for us and he’s just a special guy.”