FRIDAY, JANUARY 27,1967 THE MICHIGAN DAILY 'pA!!v Elvin xi FRIDY, JNUARa27,1907T ilEi VIIC.tIE~A11 IiAIVns.. 1ffl, YAUE SEVEN T Chance Leaves Dill Between Eras !I I By JOEL BLOCK Craig Dill is out of place in Michigan basketball history. He has reached his pinnacle in a waiting period between two bas- ketball eras. He is caught between the Caz- zie-Buntin glory years of the past and the Stewart-Sullivan dominat- ed years of the future. Dill's plight is not his fault, nor was he unaware of what was to happen when he chose Michigan as a senior at Arthur Hill High in Saginaw. "When the Michigan recruiters talked with me when I was in my last year at Arthur Hill, they told me how good the team was going to be in the next few years. I knew that Michigan was going to be great and I decided that if I couldn't make it on a very good team, then there wasn't much sense in playing." Go Blue Dill also got a big offer from hes father's alma mater, Michigan State, but he decided to go Blue. "I always had a great respect for Forddy Anderson who was State's coach at that time, and he as- sured me of a starting position for my three varsity years. At the time, their prospects weren't too good and I felt: ,Sure, I might be able to play three years but it also might have been on a rinky-dink last place team." So Craig Dill made his decision, a decision to wait in the wings be- hind such front-liners as Bill Bun- tin, Oliver Darden and Cazzie Rus- sell. Dill probably anticipated the bench-warming he'd do in his sophomore year, but not the boos he would receive during the few times he got into the game. Distracting Flak "I received a lot of flak from the crowds in my first two years and it was pretty distracting. The people were expecting a lot of things from me that maybe I should have done, but I didn't. I was really trying to impress them that I could make it, and when they got on me, I was really sen- sitive to it." "It (the hazing) began again at the beginning of this season but I CRAIG DILL think I've gotten over it now. I've resolved t: just go out and play the best I can. I don't care if they boo me the whole game long. It's not going to mean two cents to me." In trying to play the best he can, Dill uses some natural devices to prepare himself for a game and a few supernatural ones, too. "During the week before a game, all I try to do is to work hard during practices and if I do that, I'll be ready to. play that Satur- day. Then on the night before a game I'll just stay at home and listen to some popular music or a little Motown to get me up for the next day." Superstition takes over in his pre-game psychological warmup. On away games Dill takes along a special tie which he feels "psyches me up a little." Another device which Dill em- ploys is wearing rubber bands on his wrists just before a game. "In my junior and senior years of high school I did it all the time, but I quit doing it here when Darden and the other guys started to kid me a lot about it last year. Then I picked it up again at the be- ginning of this year and about five or six other guys on the team wear them too." Honey-eating is also a part of Dill's pre-game ritual. "I used to hate the stuff, but then I started eating it in high school and the trainer, Jim Hunt, said it was a good thing too because it has a lot of concentrated energy-produc- ing material." The last part of Dill's seir- psych plan is in the pre-game shooting drills. "Somehow I've got- ten into the habit of trying to take the last shot before the buzz- er signals the beginning of the game. I don't know why, but I also make it a practice to miss that last shot." . Temper Tantrums A problem of Dill's all through his basketball career at Michigan has been his temper. "During the first two years, I was put in for just short periods of time. In those type of instances you have to put out in a hurry to show the coach what you can do. This tends to get you keyed up and then when I made a mistake and the crowd got on me. I really got riled up." When Dill gets mad on the court he also becomes angry at himself for making the mistakes that he does. This has repeatedly hurt his play, because he keeps thinking about his past errors and doesn't concentrE,',e on the rest of the game. Return Against Iowa Dill had this problem his first two varsity years at Michigan, but he thought he had it licked this season. Then it came out in the Iowa game last Monday. "I wasn't prepared mentally for the game and when things went wrong, I lost my composure. I started yell- ing at the refs for some close calls when the game was tight but gen-, erally I've tried to keep my anger: inside of me." In his sophomore ard junior years, Dill lost some of the confi- dence he had in himself when he was playing high school ball. "Sure, you're bound to loose some self-confidence when you have to ride the bench instead of playing all the time. When you've got a starting position nailed down, you don't have that worry about lous- ing up during your short time on the court and you can concentrate on beating the other team." Inconsistent Rebounds One thing that Dill has been thinking about this year has been rebounding, or lack of it. Some games this year, notably Bowling od4fs ALL WOOL C.P.O." SHIRTS REGULARLY PRICED AT 9.95 NOW TODD'S SALE PRICED AT Light blue, black, camel, green, dark brown, navy blue, black & white check. Available in extra small through extra large sizes. SPECIAL-PONDAROSA SHIRTS all sizes in many colors 3.69 each or 3/$10 "0here the Style IS e 1209 South University loin The ailySports Staff U - -Daily-Thomas R. Copi SENIOR CENTER CRAIG DILL (4) goes up for a tip-in against forward Bill Bauck (34) and center Ed Schilling (35) in the Butler game earlier this season. Dill is currently leading the Wol- verines in scoring with an overall 18.3 points-per-game average. His 19.4 scoring average for confer- ence games places him ninth in the Big Ten after five games. eV OLSWAGCM OP AM200CA, 1M6. Pick up either Volkswagen in Europe. This Weekend in Sports TODAY Track-Michigan Relays at Yost Field House, 6:30 p.m. TOMORROW Gymnastics-Illinois (Chicago Branch) at Sports Building, 1:30 p.m. Track-Michigan Relays at Yost Fieldhouse, 1:30 p.m. & 6:30 p.m.' Wrestling-Michigan at Minnesota. Green and Michigan State, he has rebounded like a 6'10" center should, and then in Ether games, such as Northwestern and Iowa, he's had problems even getting near the boards. "I think I go into most games with the same attitude for re- bounding, but it turns out that a lot of the time you just don't do the things that you want to do. 'I'm Screened Out' "I know several of the teams we've played, especially the small- er ones, have assigned one man to keep me away from the basket. It's in this type of situation when I'm screened out that I have my biggest problems in getting posi- tion." The new era of Michigan basket- ball will be dominated by the present highly-touted sophomore crop. The main characters will be Dennis Stewart, Bob Sullivan, Ken1 Maxie, and Dave McClellan but1 the plot they play won't be asl emotional as the last four years.1 Dill continued, "In the years" that I've played on the varsity,a there was always someone who sparked the team when we needed it. Two 'years ago it was Larry Tregoning. When he got juiced up, it fired up the whole team. And last year it was Cazzie who charged up the team. "But this year, the only way we get juiced up is if everyone does it together and it hasn't been often." Neither the two co-captains, Dill or Dennis Bankey, have been able to psych up the team. The reason lies in the unemotional personalities of the sophomore crop. They are an unemotional dlI bunch. They also are convinced that they will be the big men in Michigan's basketball picture in the next couple of years and con- sequently don't respect the last remnants of another era-Dennis Bankey and Craig Dill. LEAGUE STATISTICS: M' lcers Lead WCHA Offensive Play TRAVEL BUY OF 1967 EUROPE-3 TOURS $36900 include AIRFARE- HOTELS SIGHTSEEING OPEN TO ANYONE Contact MR. M. VERGANO CONLIN TRAVEL BUREAU NO 2-5587-NO 2-5588 ,n- N < E } S be ....; :ri i?; f .; ...'"}',ktifSa{04r"O rJ4JOht6 SJbC }'w. ." .. ... ' a I I By DAVE TuCKTON . Never do anything half way. This could be the motivating cliche in future games for the Michigan Hockey team which sports a '7-1 record and. a one game lead in the WCHA league standings at midseason. The Wol- verines, with a two game sweep over Colorado College last week- end have a 15-1-1 record over- all. The statistics mirror a true re- flection of the icers' success. In 17 games they have averaged 6.5 goals per game - 1.4 goals more than runner-up Colorado College. Forwards Dean Lucier with 9 goals and 8 assists, and Bob Baird with 9 goals and 7 assists in 8 games, are third and fourth res- pectively in individual scoring statistics. Michigan goalies have been tough on defense side. Puck stop- pers Harold Herman and Jim Keough have given up 28 goals in 8 games while stopping 240 shots for an average of 3.5 goals per game. This ranks the Michi- gan defense fourth in the extre- WCHA STANDINGS If you have a driving ambition to see Europe,the cheapest way to do the driving is in your own VW. And picking it up in Europe is the cheapest way to buy one. You can get a genuine beetle in more than fifty cities in twelve countries. And, if you want a VW with a little more room and a little more power, spend a little more money and get our Squareback Sedan. (It's just as genuine, but not so beetle-ish.) We'll attend to the details of purchase, delivery, insurance and licensing. And if the car needs servicing after you ship it home, we'll attend to that, too. If you think that's a lot to ask of a total stranger, come in and get to know us. W L T PCT. GF 'GA Pens Michigan North Dakota Denver Michigan Tech Colorado College Michigan State Minnesota Duluth Minnesota mely tough Western league. '7 8 6 4 4 4 3 2 1 2 4 3 4 6 8 9 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 .875 .800 .600 .563 .500 .409 .273 .182 45 40 40 31 26 39 39 45 28 28 30 22 32 48 55 62 51 47 78 54 45 84 86 92 Hockey Volmar's Reversal Michigan State, despite a 4-6 record, has the best goalie in the league, Jerry Fischer with a 2.0 average. Part of the reason for State's poor .record 'might be at- tributed to last year's top scorer, Doug Volmar, who this year tops WCHA skaters in penalties rather than points. Defensively, Michi- gan Tech shares the low mark as a team with North Dakota at, 2.8 per game. One reason behind Michigan's success might be due to their 'hard skating and checking all over the ice. The statistics con- firm the aggressiveness of the Wolverines play as they rank, sec- ond to Minnesota in number of pealty minutes served in over- all games. Michigan has displayed a well balanced attack all season. Doug Galbraith, sixteenth in scoring with 4 goals and seven assists, the Marttila brothers, Bruce Koviak, and Keith Magnuson have all been instrumental in the potency of the Michigan attack. Eight More Michigan has eight games re-1 maining on their schedule. They travel to Houghton next week for a two game series with Michigan Tech followed by a home game with State. After two games with Minnesota, the Wolverines finish at home with second place North Dakota. This final series will probably be decisive in determin- ing the WCHA champion. EUROPEAN MOTOR SERVICE By LEONARD A. BEECHAM, A.M.I. Mech.E. 25 Years of Experience on All Foreign Cars ALL BRITISH MECHANICS Ports for all foreign cars 24-hr. service for anything not in stock EUROPEAN MOTOR SERVICE Complete Auto Repairing 6 Painting Specialist Foreign Car Service 1946 PACKARD RD. - ANN ARBOR, MICH. Phone 663-5403 Rent, Buy, Sell ,Trade Daily Classifieds I HOWARD COOPER VOLKSWAGEN 2575 S. State, Ann Arbor, Mich. Please send me your free Illustrated brochure and price list.Ar Nam Dealer *Name Address '7City Zone_ State - --- - -- = Open Daily 8 A.M. to 8 P.M. Except Sunday's Next to the Party Store I I SORORITY OPEN RUSH REGISTRATION III I u HAROLD HERMAN DOUG GALBRAITH -'I Saturday Night at 9 P.M. at The ARK 11 III