Tuesday, December 11, 1973 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Pc~ge EIven Michigan tumps avi12 I 77-61 By JOHN KAHLER There is an old basketball saying that the good teams win the games they are sup- posed to win. The Michigan Wolverines gave that old bro- mide its stiffest test to date before overwhelming the Xa- vier Musketeers, last night in Crisler Arena 77-61. Xavier had a well disciplined team that, according to coach Johnny Orr, "Ran their offense as well as anyone has against us all year. Our players also say that they set up defensively bet- ter than anybody they had yet fac- ed." Under coach Tay Baker, the Musketeers went into the game sporting a 3-0 record. sparce crow f NiGHT EDITORS: BRIAN DEMING and ROGER ROSSITER GROU P GU ITA R L ESSONS 6 ConseCUtive Weeks, Materials Included, ON LY $12.00 We also teach flute, banjo, recorder, bass, sax, drums, pnano, oboe, and clarinet. FOR ENROLLMENT, CALL 769-4980: AN N A RBOR MUSIC MART AGAINST MICHIGAN, Xavier was clearly in over its head. Small but slow, it could get nowhere on the boards and was harassed into M ichign vpress. Yet th Muske- teers trailed Michigan by only 39- 35 at the half. The Wolverines jumped out to Michigan the lead. Following a IWAYMAN BRITT then t o o k Campy Russell long distance hit, charge, scoring on a fast break to Grote converted a three point play give the lead back to Michigan. off a steal, and added a tip-in as Grote shook loose for another lay- Michigan rolled to an early ten- up, and it was 39-35 at the half, point bulge. against a team the Wolverines The well disciplined Muskies did should have already run off the not rattle, however, and showed court. the mark of a well coached team Possibly realizing this, the Wol- by refusing to let the game get out verines made up for lost time at of hand. Mike Plunkett, a transfer the start of the second half, out- from Georgia, started hitting me- scoring the Musketeers 16-2 in a dium range jumpers, and Xavier brilliant early spurt. Keying the began to creep back. Michigan assault were the three sIttwasa slnowro cess,nhoweer uniors, Campy Russell, Joe John- through for tw more layupSo Russell started burning the Mus- move the margin back up to ten. lie defense with his now-familiar But then Xavier found center Jer- Ijumpers and twisting layups. He ry Foley loose underneath against fished with a game-high total of a lackadasical Michigan defense 22 points, in a fairly typical Russell and the margin dwindled away game. He also added 13 rebounds again. With less than a minute to to the Wolverine board effort. go in the half, the game was tied at 35-all. C. J. KUPEC, after two disan- 336 SOUTH STATE STREET Open 9:30 o.m. to 9:00 p.m. ALL THE DATES IMPORTANT TO MIDDLE EARTH! an early lead on some inspired play by freshman guard Steve Grote. Grote twisted through the Muskie defense for the first bas- ket of the game, and fed Campy Russell on a fast break to give ful court Blue defense ... . .something new By MIKE LISULL DEE-FENSE, DEE-FENSE is what the crowd screams at Madison Square Garden, but around Crisler Arena defense has been a forgotten aspect of Michigan basketball. However, last night was a different story as Michigan silenced the Xavier Musketeers 77-61. Michigan, and particularly coach John Orr, have been roasted both locally and nationally as a team that worked on scoring points, not playing defense. But apparently things have changed around Crisler Arena since everyone wanted to talk defense last night and mostly ignore everything else. Coach Orr was the first to get in the act as he gave his reflections of the game. "I thought we played some pretty good defense tonight, particularly in the first half," noted Orr. "Our goal was to hold them under 60 points, and I thought we could have If team he s pusick to praise th eplayers who hesthough tkeye th I dthou ght JoerJohnson came off a poor first half and played a superb second half," mentioned Orr. "He was the key to our defense in the second half." "We were unsure if Campy (Russell) was going to play tonight," Orr continued. "His knee has been bothering him (since a Saturday fall in Detroit) so we told him to warm-up and see how it felt. I thought he played very wvell, and boy he just played some great defense." Orr's charges were also quick to mention the importance of the Big 'D.' "At halftime we stressed better defense. In fact, after fense,"'reiterated Al-Am ericaniRusse who is better known Forehmafnsgur Saltee Grote was another starter who em- phasized the importance of defense. "We had a defensive let down against U of D and this game was very important to us, we had to prove to ourselves that we could come back. We did it with defense, good defense. I was really surprised how good it was. I played most of the second half and when I came out (after fourteen minutes) Xavier only had nine points."' While everyone was pleased with the final score and that second half defense, most of the reported crowd of 4,113 were her Wolverines had started wel rbutfaed i no their result only led by four at half time, 39-35. This affliction has plagued the roundballers in every game, but no one can explain it. Orr is as baffled as everyone. "We start to run and then after while we tighten up mor imprtnl dfnsivey seems to atack the i.higut basketball team more than anyone's. When they're hot they are very hot, and when they are cold, boy they are really cold. The fact of the matter is after four games the only thing you can say about the Michigan basketball team is that they are 3-I. At times they have played well and at times they have played badly. They have had one consistently good game, (Southern Illinois) and one horrible game (U of D). However the important question on everyone' s mind is. Is this year's team better than last year's? At this time there is no way to make any realistic judge- ments, but a few things are clear. This year's team is a lot younger than the squad that played last year, starting three juniors, a sophomore and a freshman. "We're a young team, and I was really pleased with the determination they showed," smiled Orr. Russell, who was the only underclassman to start all the games last year feels that determination is a characteristic of this year's green squad. pointing games, showed some of the board power he was supposed to provide the Wolverines byvgrah- bing 15 caroms. "He was a little down on himself before," said Orr. "But I think he is coming around now." But, according to Orr, the key player in the second half was guard Joe Johnson. "Joe came back and played a superb second half," enthused the balding Wol- verine mentor. John disrupted the Xavier attack with his ball-hawk- ing, feeding Russell for several baskets and scoring a few himself on Superflv drives that got a mild rise out of the assembled 'mini- tude' in Crisler Arena. The Wolverines pushed the mar- gin to 20 points midwvav through the second period when the plucky Mi skies tried to null off a rally. The cause was hopeless as Orr emptied the bench and let the glamettx eand Foley lead Xav'ier with 18 and 19 noints, resnective- lv. Grote was the second leadling sc orer for Michigan with 15 points. 1of them in the first half. Ch'wk Rogers carme off the bench in the second half to score 8. and add his onme to the 1iW of c'onvidates for the second forward job. Xair xanp Doily Photo by DAVID MARGOLICK THE PLAY of the Michigan backeourt men, Joe Johnson and Steve Grote, was instrumental in the Wolverines' win over the Xavier Muskateers last night. Johnson, shown here driving to the bucket against Mike Plunkett (S4), tallied 11 points. TARHEELS WIN By 'I'he AVo( iated Pie~~s jilts EMU lfl(liVi(IU~lIy 1)OXCd arwi 014y ~ ~*fCenticore Booksho~s )~ Jonson Gate A vier Rogers D.Johnson schinnerer Kiizma Team Totals M. Piinkett Pehrwood Rippe Deidrick waison Laker Hubbard Team Totals SC' MICIGAN xavier Officials: Crowd: 41] FG FT 3-10 2-2> 5-11 1-2 6.-14 3-3 0-3 0-0 4-5 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 32-75 13-18 XAVIER R F TP 15 2 8 1 2 11 6 4 15 120 0 1 0 1 1 8 01 0 6 51 21 77 71 4 9 3 18 431 2 41 6 7 42 14 61 EFST LANSING-Junior ndsey iga State and led the Spartans to a crushing 91-69 victory over East- ern Michigan in nonconference col- lee bsketball last night.hed throvgh the second half, when Hairston scored seven points in a 16-point surge as Michigan State took a secure 71-53 lead with 8:45 remaining. Hairston had 21 points before fouling out with 4:43 left. Michigan State was ahead 47-27 at halftime and built up their big- gest lead of 50-27 a half-minute into the second half. Eastern Michigan's Gary Tyson', who led all scorers with 34 points, paced the 1HLros' comeback. Mike' Mack added gv points for ihe Eastern fell to 1-3.Itswas the fis feeting of the teams since 1945. The Hurons bottled up the Spar- tans' standout scorer, Mike Rabin- son, with astifling zone defense that held him scoreless fur the first 12 minutes of the game. ie finishe~d with 18 for the night. -7 -2 3-6 2-6 0-0 2-5 F-T 2-2 4-6 0-0 24-64 13-18 O)RE BY PERIODS 39 38-77 Bb35 26-61 Cats hw1ked Jim Eaddy, BbWortman .3 GREENSBORO, N. C. Sen ior center Bobby Jones pumped in 21 points and puilled down 12 rebounds last night to spark fifth-ranked1 1229 S. University 336 Maynard North Carolina to a 101-84 victory _______________________________ over Kentucky, the third straight _- -.--- .- . loss of the college basketball cam-- paign for the Wildcats. ~ rIt wast the fourt victory ina lantic Coast Conference, while the ' . Southeastern Conference Wildcats fell to 1-3. In a dramatic finish to the I.M. bowling campaign, Boze's Boozin' Bawlers took all three games and totals from I.D.G.A.F. for the league championship with a 37- 11 record. The Bawlers were led by former all-campus champ Dn Gorge audzel, M ik B zem a The turning point of the match came in the second game after I.D.G.A.F.'s Keith West closed with four straight strikes and forced Waidron to double in the tenth for the win. Waldron added about the victory, "The Union played tough, but we got a solid team effort."- WHO WAS IS Maybe Brian Laughton can help? Maybe the map of Narnia knows? C Find his books in theology, philosophy, literature and literary criticism. Without NARNIA he would be just another mortal. 7 volumes of chronicles.