'Past midnight, the downtown bars are humming with university students sucking down brews on five-buck unlimited beer night. One patron stumbles outside, twirling around a lamppost. A few tanked-up guys howl and whistle at women.

Two blocks away, on the frigid banks of the Mississippi River, a stone-sober student patrol wearing orange vests and sporting flashlights and radios linked to the police is on the lookout to prevent another heartbreak.

Three weekends ago, a highly inebriated basketball player at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse turned up dead, a likely drowning victim after a night of Oktoberfest revelry.

Lucas Homan, 21, had the equivalent of nearly a case of beer in his system, authorities said, and he was the latest victim of binge drinking that has led eight athletic young men to their deaths in the river from downtown bars since 1997.

...In Wisconsin, a national leader in per capita consumption of beer, fingering alcohol as a culprit can be highly unpopular.

...Homan, who weighed 205 pounds and was to start this season on the basketball team, began drinking at a house party around 6 p.m. on the first Friday of the city's popular Oktoberfest, his housemates said.

Homan later went to the downtown bars with friends who were visiting from his suburban Milwaukee hometown. He was seen hugging people on the streets and roaming from bar to bar. One of his friends, found stumbling on the streets, was taken to an alcohol detoxification center, according to city officials.

Two days later, Homan's body was found in the river.'