SPOKANE, Wash. - Fans wear fake mustaches to look like him. They bid on eBay for a bit of his blood. Kobe Bryant shows up to watch him play.

A diabetic with floppy hair, leftist political views and a rock-star persona, Adam Morrison of No. 5 Gonzaga carries a swagger that is fast transcending college basketball.

Whether jawing at other players, baiting opposing fans or draining 30-footers, Morrison is the headline act whenever he steps on the court. There's some Jim Morrison, a touch of Larry Bird and a ration of Karl (Marx and Malone) inside that 6-foot-8 package, and lots of people want a piece of him.

“It's reached the point of ridiculous,” coach Mark Few said. “He's so not interested in all that.”

It's not as if the Zags (23-3) weren't already the darlings of fans who hate Duke, Kentucky and other hoops royalty. But with every game a televised sellout and Morrison's distinctive high-release jumper a mainstay on SportsCenter, this season is special.

“It's like being with the Stones and Beatles,” Few said.

Sports information director Oliver Pierce gets so many requests to talk to Morrison each week he has to sharply limit the player's interviews.

Morrison - “Mo” to his teammates - is in a nip-and-tuck race with friend J.J. Redick of Duke for the Division I scoring title, both averaging about 29 points.

Morrison and Redick share the cover of the current issue of Sports Illustrated and are the likely finalists for player of the year. Both are targets of relentless hazing by opposing fans. Stopping them is the goal of every defense.

Morrison has put up gaudy numbers this year, scoring 40 or more points five times and 30 or more 12 times. He is shooting 51 percent and makes 44 percent of his 3-point attempts. He shoots from everywhere, and dropped 37 points on Loyola Marymount in just the second half. He takes about a third of his team's shots.

“When I'm feeling it, the guys on the team don't mind me shooting it every time I get the ball,” Morrison said.

Morrison, a junior, is widely expected to forgo his senior year to enter the draft. NBA scouts have flocked to Gonzaga games like frat boys to a Paris Hilton car wash.

Morrison has declined to reveal his plans, and treats his celebrity with some amusement. Off the court, he is far less flamboyant. He tends to speak in a monotone, answers most questions in jock-speak and rarely has anything bad to say about anyone.

Morrison majors in sports management, but he has been smitten for some time by radical thinkers like Karl Marx and Che Guevara, whose poster is in his room. A television commercial for Gonzaga features Morrison exhorting classmates to pursue independent thought.

When ESPN came to Spokane recently, announcer Dick Vitale and his partners donned fake mustaches. The newspaper in Morrison's hometown of Spokane is running a contest asking fans to give the player an Extreme Mustache Makeover by voting for the style (handlebar, Fu Manchu, etc.) that would look best. The wispy real one is not an option.

A piece of bloody gauze that Morrison used to stop a nose bleed at Pepperdine was put on eBay for $1 and bids reached $60 before the seller pulled the item when Gonzaga objected.

Television cameramen catch Morrison checking his blood sugar or injecting himself in the abdomen with insulin during games.

At Pepperdine last week, fans surrounded the Gonzaga bus as it pulled up before the game and heaped abuse on Morrison.

The game drew a sellout crowd that included NBA star Kobe Bryant, former Zag and current Laker Ronny Turiaf, retired NBA star Reggie Miller and actor David Duchovny. They weren't there to see the Waves.

Morrison, who began commanding national attention as a freshman, plays the part of the brash rogue who pushes the limits. Even his teammates sometimes stand back and watch him shoot, something that drives Few crazy.

Part of Morrison's allure is his gamesmanship. He's constantly talking trash and grabbing opponents' jerseys. He pleads his case with referees. He flops to the ground when an opponent brushes past him.

“He's probably the least politically correct of any of our guys and he doesn't seem to mind inciting a riot in opposing gyms,” Few said.

“I've always had a little bit of a chip on my shoulder,” Morrison said “That's how I play the game.”

But Morrison is as likely to help an opponent off the floor as he is to shove him down. And the more you taunt him about that mustache, the more he responds by draining 3-pointers.

“He's awfully proud of it,” Few said.

After a recent win over Stanford on national television, in which Morrison scored 12 of his 34 points in the final three minutes, he acknowledged that all the exposure can be tough.

“There was a lot of hype and a lot of pressure put on me,” Morrison said.

“The whole week people were coming up and saying, 'You can't lose.”'

Few said that, like it or not, Morrison is the go-to guy.

“It's sad that we have come to expect those types of games from him every night and wonder what's wrong when he doesn't deliver,” Few said. “He always seems to play big in the big games.”