r Page Eight
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
SundayMarch 20. 1977
a g E g~HM I G AI
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fyl ourt
SPRESS
Nice guys don't ...
..B; always finish last
By KATHY HENNEGHAN
LEXINGTON
IT HAPPENED - now it will just take some time to sink in.
The season is over. The Michigan basketball team "fell short"
of a national championship, granted. But think of what it
achieved.
The title isn't there for the taking, whether you're ranked
number one or ignored. I would hate to think that this season
would be remembered as a disappointing one.
And regardless of what a certain Detroit man wrote yes-
terday, Johnny Orr handled things far better than you might
expect.
Orr has not been the same as last season from this vantage
point. He no longer coaches a cinderella team, andthe pressures
that come when one is> expected to win sometimes showed -
Orr has been testy with the press, often with justification. But
it was sad to watch a man who seemed to enjoy himself so
thoroughly a year ago show signs of that pressure.
But the personal attacks on Orr were way off base.
The team was loose in practice Friday, and Orr was joking
with John Robinson moments before yesterday's tipoff. And after
the loss, when it must have been hardest, Orr was most gracious.
He made no excuses. implied no excuses.
I don't know him well, but I've been around him for two
seasons now. I would have been surprised if he had been
anything but gracious yesterday.
Listen to what UNCC coach Lee Rose said about the man.
After winning the Midwest Regional championship, here is the
first thing Rose said: "I've had the opportunity to meet some
class people in my profession, but Johnny Orr is at the top."
Class?' Johnny Orr? That's not what you thought is it? Orr
said Friday, "It's always been important to me to gain accept-
ance, and now I've received it every place except Michigan."
Give the man some credit. And if you think the team
choked, well, that's your prerogative.
UNCC a somebody
But think about the kind of team UNC-Charlotte is, the team
that knocked Michigan out of the picture. Those guys are young.
They game out of nowhere. Nothing was expected of them at the
national level. ("Michigan is playing UNC-Charlotte? Who are
they?")
Now think back to last season, and the season before that.
Isn't that the sort of club Michigan was?
Amidst the post-game chaos, UNCC's Cedric Maxwell, the
Regionals MVP and rightfully so, said, "It feels nice to be
recognized. We are winning and getting fan support. I think
every player we have has been overlooked."
And Kevin King: "We believe we can win it all. If we didn't
believe it, we wouldn't be this far."
And Lew Massey: "Nobody beats you when you play hard.
We get tired of hearing people say we shouldn't be here."
"A lot of people didn't know about us, but we're making some
echoes now," said Melvin Watkins.
Now doesn't that sound familiar? You have to respect a
team like that, despite Michigan's disappointment.
And you have to respect Michigan, last year's underdog but
this year's favorite. for the effort made. It's a bitter pill to swal-
low, but there should be no shame in this loss.
"It's very sad for me," said David Baxter, "because I never
played on a team with so much talent as this one. It's been a
team effort all the way and it breaks my heart. We'll be back
though. I'm still proud to be a part of it."
"Charlotte has a great team with character," said Rickey
Green. "Whether or not they put it together to win it all is a
different story."
Definite disappointment
All-American Green, along with co-captains Steve Grote
and John Robinson, played his last game for Michigan yes-
terday. Lexington closed out their successful collegiate ca-
reers, although yesterday's finish was not what they had
hoped for. But for the other players, there's another shot at it.
Take Tom Staton. The stats sheet doesn't tell the story, Sta-
ton was scoreless and fouled out with 9:17 remaining. But Staton
played a fine game until Alan Hardy, his roommate and close
friend, replaced him.
Watching Staton sit on the bench during those final minutes
brought to mind Wayman Britt, who 'found himself in the same!
situation against Notre Dame last year. You had to feel sorry
for the guy. Nobody wanted it more. Last year things worked out;
this year things were different.
"I had confidence in the man in there (Hardy)," said
Staton. "You don't worry about it when you know he willc
put out. But you sure want to be in there, of course.
"The season was a good one." Staton added. "If we went toJ
Atlanta, the season would have been a great one. Knowing we
should have been there is the biggest disappointment."
For Johnny Ort, Baxter, Statton, Phil Hubbard and the rest,c
there will be other times and other places. They'll make suret
of it.,,
"We had a great year." said Orr's assistant B1l Frieder.I
"These kids have done amazing things all year. But I'm disap-t
pointed, and not a damned thing is going to change it." -
Disappointment? -Sure, it's understandable. Excuses? No. Thec
operation has class.
Cornbread, L(
put brakes on
(Continued from Page 1)
the final and deciding moments of the game.
"Michigan's a great basketball team and we knew they'd
come back in the second half, said 49er coach Lee Rose. "We
knew they'd run at us and we knew their defense would come
on. But one of the outstanding things about our team was our
ability to maintain our poise until the end."
Center Cedric Maxwell scored 11 of UNCC's twenty points
in the final 12 minutes, most of them coming on drives over
his Michigan counter- part Pghil Hubbard, who sprained his
hand on.the opening tip. Maxwell's play earned him the most
valuable player award for the tournament.
IN ADDITION TO HIS SCORING, the 6-8 senior nick-
named "Cornbread" helped defeat Michigan with his all-
around play at both ends of the court ... and in the middle
too.
He outrebounded' Hubbard 13-7, blocked four shots and
had three steals, and just as significant, Maxwell, not the
49er guards, brought the ball up the court much of the
time on offense.
This tactic, employed by UNCC all year forced Tom Staton
to foul out trying to guard him, and Hubbard and Alan Hardy
also picked up fouls attempting to stop his full-court drive.
"I THINK MAX CAN DO more things better than any
other player in the United States," said Rose. "When you're
6-8 and show the mobility and agility that Maxwell has, we'd
be remiss if we didn't incorporate his skills into our attack."
In fact, it was Maxwell's lay-in over Hubbard that put
UNCC ahead .50-49, and Michigan never held the lead after
that.
"Me and Lew (Massey) discussed this play previously,"
said Maxwell. "I just laid the ball over Hubbard and be-
cause he was in foul trouble he couldn't do very much to
stop me."
AFTER THIS, MICHIGAN, who gained the lead by virtue
of its explosive running game at the outset of the second
half, slowed the pace of the game and could never quite
garner enough momentum to overcome the lead it once again
had lost..
"I told the team that when we caught them we just had
to suck it up for twelve minutes," said Orr. "Then there were
a few crucial plays, like loose balls which we couldn't come
up with. If we did it, it would have been a different ball-
game."
Hubbard, who scored eight points in the first eight minutes
Marquette
By The Associated Press i minutes left in the game. The fi
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. -' 6-foot-9 forward put in six a
Reserve Bernard Toone keyed a straight points to put Marquette
second-half comeback that led up by five, and the Warriors
Marquette University to an 82- never traided again.
68 victory over Wake Forest Toone finished the game with,
yesterday in the finals of the 15 points. Marquette was led by
NCAA Midwest Regional basket- Bo Ellis, who had 20 points, and
ball tournament. Butch Lee'with 19.
The Warriors now advance to Wake Forest was led by for-
the championship round in At- ward Jerry Schellenberg with 19
lanta against North Carolina- points. Rod Griffin had 16 and
Charlotte. guard Skip Brown had 10.
^* *
49ers
title drive
of the second half, tallied but four the rest of the game.
"WE TOOK Hubbard one-on-one on defense, and had a zone
on the perimeter," explained Rose. "It kept the ball away from
him, and we could dominate him." Hub picked up only seven
rebounds, considerably less than the 26 he had Thursday night
against Detroit.
Also, Staton picked up three quick fouls in 1:14 sending him
out of the game for good.
"When we lost Staton, it really hurt us. It took away from
some of our quickness," said Orr.. UNCC led only 52-51 at this
point.
"THAT ONE ref called four or five fouls consecutively,"
said Staton. "It seemed they were missing calls at our end and
making calls at their end. If you steal the ball and get a foul
called, what can you do?"
Slowly but surely, the 49ers widened their lead to 73-61
with only 2:34 left in the game. Already in the bonus situation,
eight free throws made in eight attempts, as well as Steve
Grote's fifth personal foul helped push UNCC to this nearly
insurmountable margin.
Michigan's final chances faded away for good as Rickey
Green missed the front end of a one and one when Michigan
had a chance to come within four *points of UNCC with still
fifty seconds left.
IT WAS just a case of the 49ers playing as well for the
last twelve minutes of the game as they had in the entire first
half.
Michigan had much trouble scoring against the UNCC zone,
and started to force shots up from the outside or make poor
passes inside. Hitting only one of the first eight shots, the Blue
quickly fell behind 7-2.
This pace continued much of the first half and Michigan
found its hopes for a membership in the final four on the wane
as the 49ers posted a 40-27 halftime lead.
"WE WERE just missing our shots," said Hubbard, whose
one for seven shooting exemplified Michigan's 33 per cent fre-
q'iency for the half. "I had it inside a couple of times and
missed and we were missing our outside shots. If we'd made the
shots we'd been taking. it would have been a different story."
Michigan burst out in the second half, however, outscoring
UNCC 20-8 mostly on layups due to the same running game
that had carried the team all season long.
But when the running game ceased to exist, as was the
case the rest of the way, Michigan couldn't score as efficiently.
And when UNCC refused to watch Michigan rob it of a
place among the elite of basketball, it showed the poise and class
deserving of one of the four best teams in college basketball.
Daily Photo by CHRISTINA SCHNEIDER
JOEL THOMPSON floats a lay-up over 49er Phil Scott in yes-
terday's heartbreaking loss to UNCC. Wolverine Phil Hubbard
eyes the action in anticipation of a possible rebound.
Staton
Robinson
Hubbard
Green
Grote
Thonson
Baxter
Ha~dy
Bergen
'rear
TOTAL S
MICHIGAN
FG FGA FT FTA R A T
0 4 0 (0 3 4 0
5 9 1 2 4 1 11
5 14 4 4 7 0 14
9 19 2 6 2 6 20
3 8 1 2 3 4 7
3. 5 0 0 1 0 6
2 7 0 0 0 0 4
3 8 0 1) 4 0 6
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
8
3o 74 8 14 32 15 68
UNC-CHARLOTTE
FG FGA FT FTA R A T
6 13 7 9 11 3 19
Massey
King
Maxwell
Kineb
Watkins
Gruber
Scott
Hester
Team
TOTALS
2
]0
3
0
3
16
10
7
3
1
0
2
5
5
2
0
'I
4
3
8
5
2
0
1
0
3
13
3
6
0
0
6
43
4
1
6
3
Q
0
fl
6
25
1
s
6
0
27 53 21 28
17 75
Score by Periods
MICHIGAN .. 2.
UNC-Charlotte . ,. 40
Attendance: 22,301
41 -68 Fouled out: Staton, Grote.
inals of the NCAA East Region-
Is.
Kuester directed the four-
corner offense over the final
15 minutes after Kentucky ral-
lied from a 13-point ,deficit
and closed to within 59-53. I
upon
Decons
The rest of the Tar Heels had!
no trouble from the foul line
against Kentucky. They con-
nected on 33 of 36 attempts, in-
cluding 16 straight in the second
half and their last 21 in a row.
* * *
vious outing.
But the Rebels pushed tl)eir-
running game into high gear
in the second half and wore
down the Bengals.
Forward Eddie Owens, who
scored 13 of his 24 points in the
second half, had a steal and a
stuff shot, then forced another
turnover and hit a jurnuer to
move Nevada-Las Vegas to a
65-57 lead with 14:25 left and the
Rebels were off and runniLg.
Tony Smith added 12 of his
18 points in the second half for
the Rebels, while Reggie
Thetis and Sam Smith scored
16 apiece.
Idaho State was unable to
work the ball into its 7-foot cen-
ter Steve Hayes, who scored
just six points in the first half
and 16 over-all. Ed Tmhopson
led the Bengals with 27 points.
I
The victory also postponed
the scheduled retirement of
Marquette Coach Al McGuire,
who had said before the game
that the Warriors had to hold
Wake Forest, which likes to
run, to less than 70 points to
win.
Toone came off the bench
when center Jerome Whitehead
picked up his fpurth foul with 16
' Tar heels ta e
COLLEGE PARK, Md. -
North Carolina was forced to
play all but one minute of the
second half without All-Ameri-
can guard Phil Ford, but senior
John Kuester calmly directed
the Tar Heels to a 79-72 victoryI
over Kentucky yesterday in the
ex
inl
F
fo
in
H
re
Si
sh
in
- ,.. .. . Rebels run
More sports on PROVO, Utah - Nevada-Las
age seven Vegas, the top scoring team in
the country at an average of 108
...................... ... .. ... .. .. ... .. ... .. ..................,points a game, pulled away from
In addition to a painful hyper- surprising Idaho State in the
xtended. right elbow, suffered second half and posted a 107-90
Thursday's semifinal game, triumph in the West Regional
ord was charged with his final.
ourth personal foul in the open- Nevada-Las Vegas, a school
g minute of the second half. which has climbed to national
e went to the bench and never prominence only recently and
eturned, telling coach Dean has never made the final four,
mith he didn't think he could trailed 52-51 at the half to un-
hoot free throws because of the ranked Idaho State. Idaho State
jury. had eliminated UCLA in its pre-
KNICKS PLUCK HAWKS
Tigers roar too late in slugfest
By The Associated Press
LAKELAND, Fla. -- The Chi-
cago White Sox scored 12 runs
in the second inning off De-
troit star Mark Fidrych, four
on' a grand slam homer by
Royle Stillman, and went on to
outlast Detroit 18-15 in exhibi-.
tion baseball yesterday.
Chicago pounded out eight
hits in the big inning, had three
hit batsmen and were aided by
two errors by first baseman
Mickey Stanley, which made 10
of the runs unearned.
John Hiller relieved Fidrych
to begin the third and was1
pounded for four runs, two
on a homer by Richie Zisk
followed by Jim Spencer's so-
lo blast.
Chicago added two more runs
in the sixth off Bob Sykes.
Detroit, which matched Chi-
cago with 18 hits, got solo home
runs from Ron- LeFlore, Rusty
Staub and Phil Mankowski.
Mankowski's came in the five-
run seventh off Jim York after held on to trim the Atlanta Knicks with
a two-run shot by Mickey Stan- Hawks 107-101 in a National as- had 22 and
24 points, Frazier
Shelton and Jim
apiece. Robinson
ley.ketbal
Ir,'- rT:..- , ris: i htf
1 Association game last IMcMillan 15
The Tigers scored seven runs 1t.
in the ninth off Larry Monroe, Atlanta, which trailed by as
three on a home run by rookie many as 22 points in the sec-
outfielder Tim Corcoran,~ who, ond quarter, rallied behind
is5 8-for16 so far in spring train- forwards Len Robinson and
ing, with three homers and JIohnDrew and pulled within
eight runs batted in. four with three minutes to go.
But Earl Monroe, who didn't!
Hawks hounded play in the first three periods
NEW YORK - Lonnie Shel-'( because of a foot injury, scor-
ton and Walt Frazier led New f ed six of the Knicks' final eight
'York to a 19-point lead in the 'points to clinch the victory.
first quarter and the Knicks I Bob McAdoo topped thej
led Atlanta with 34 points and
Drew had 26, including 14 in
the fourth quarter.
The Hawks missed their first
12 shots and didn't score a bas-
ket until 6:07 had elapsed. By
that time, the Knicks led 13-21
behind six points by Frazier.
New York steadily added to its
lead until a dunk by Shelton on
a breakaway made it 31-12 at
the end of the quarter. '
This, time, Michigan
did not have enough
By TOM CAMERON
Special to The Daily
LEXINGTON - The little skinny kids always seemed as
though they could overcome the most insurmountable leads.
Michigan would always come- back-U of D, Marquette,
Purdue, Illinois, Ohio State, Wisconsin . . .. they had done
it so many times. It was their "trademark" as coach John-
ny Orr put it. In the final seconds of the game Michigan
may have been the best team in the country.
But as they reached back to pull out yesterday's regional
final game against UNC-Charlotte, they found nothing-it
just wasn't there. Like the whole game, nothing fell for the
Wolverines in the final seconds. Yesterday's game was for
those big husky guys called the "Mean Green".
"EVERY TIME it was in our grasp, and there was a
loose ball or something, they (UNCC) would get it," Orr
said. "That's what makes you win - that's what we've
been doing all year.
"Those loose balls could have gone either way," he con-
tinted, "but they didn't."
The scrapping Wolverines did everything right in the final
minutes - they caused those loose balls, never let the 49'ers
waste the clock away, and brought the ball down and took
good shots.
But nothing would fall.
WITH THREE and a half left in the game, Michigan found
itself down by eight. In those three and a half minutes, the
Wolverines brought the ball down court 14 different times.
They took good shots, and had five chances at the free
throw line, yet scored only six points.
When only a few seconds remained, Michigan guard Dave
Baxter said, "we should have won this . . . game."
Maybe they should have, because the game was in their
reach. But for all the times they had done it before, it was
just not going to happen this time.
THE WOLVERINE'S first eight minutes out of the-locker
room after half-time made it look as though they were on
their way to just another comeback victory on the road to
Atlanta. After being 13 points down they took the lead by
ore..
"We knew they (Michigan) would come back," UNCC
coach Lee Rose said. We knew they would because Michi-
gan has class."
Three minutes after Michigan had caught up though,
Tommy Staton fouled out - and then a little later so did
Steve Grote. So when Michigan went back to pull it out,
they had to reach a little further.
"i THINK WE were very juiced up (after the half),"
Rickey Green said. "Going ot there and Pressing took a
little out of us but we just couldn't get the little extra effort
to t'ill it out."
"It, (himself and Grote) being out didn't hurt our mo-
mentum, it hurt our denth," Staton said.
Michigan needed only a little something extra-
maybe Grote and Staton could have provided it. Any little
extra might have had Michigan on the way to- Atlanta.
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SCORES
NCAA Tournament
1TNC-Charlotte 75, MICHIGAN 68
UNLV 107, Idaho State 90
N. Carolina 79, Kentucky 72
Marquette 82, Wake Forest 68
MHSAA Tournament
Class C
Redford St. Mary 88, Buchanan 59
Saginaw SS. Peter & Paul 75,
NBA
N.Y. Knicks 107, Atlanta 161
Cleveland 94, San Antonio 89
Chicago 104,-Seattle 92
NHL
N.Y. Rangers 5, Pittsburgh 2
Chicago 2, N.Y. Islanders 2
Toronto 5, Atlanta 4
l
t
T
c
CH URELLA COPS CROWN
Cyclones capture title
Only two of Michigan's seven wrestlers who
gained berths in the NCAA tournament in Nor-
mas, Oklahoma, remained in contention for
national titles going into fast night's action. The
performance of these wrestlers advanced Michi-
gan into a tie for ninth place so far with 41.5
meet points.
In the 150 pound class Michigan's Big Ten
champ Mark Churella upset top ranked Paul
Martin of Oklahoma State, 9-7, to gain entry to
Also, team captain Mark Johnson reached
the championship match-up by pinning Eric
Wais of Oklahoma State in 7:22°and then elim-
inating Penn State's Jerry White, 6-2. He will
face Chris Campbell of Iowa once again in a
repeat of last year's finals.
Johnson has met Campbell four times this sea-
son and managed one tie at best.
IOWA STATE clinched the national champion-
ship yesterday afternoon after the consolation
rouinds bhuscing a nteam point-totail of 90.5 for,
Goodbye Lexington
*.. and hello Atlanta!
At least that's w h a t
the UNCC players are E
waiving about. As for
the Wolverines, well,
just like the photo,I
they were blocked out'
of the NCAA picture
by the Mean Green.
The Wolverines, on'
the other hand, waved1
goodby to the nation-
al championship in