Page Two, THE MICHIGAN DAILY Thursday, September 9, 1976 Baskc;tball.- Shooting for the top spot Fast Wolverines return four starters By KATHY HENNEGHAN The 1976-77 Michigan basketball team has its work cut out for it. Last year's second place finish in the national tournament is a tough act to follow. If the team has another success- ful season, it will come as no surprise. But if it falters by comparison, it will be undoubtedly criticized. Fortunately, four starters and a high- ly capable bench return. The only loss- es are starting forward Wayman Britt and reserve guard Lloyd Schinnerer. Star guard Rickey Green gave Michi- gan fans a scare when he considered foregoing his senior year for a pro career, but he pulled his name off the draft list well before the NBA draft. Johnny Orr, voted Coach of the Year by his colleagues, knows what he has to work with for a change. Prior to last season the Wolverines were an un- known quantity. First and foremost was the problem of replacing '75 captains C. J. Kupec and Joe Johnson. Largely through the efforts of assistant coaches Jim Dutcher (now head coach at Minn- esota) and Bill Frieder, Michigan had one of the top recruiting years in the country. Of the six newcomers, it became clear that Orr would bank on 6-7 Phil Hubbard in the pivot. The slender high school All-American from Canton Mc- Kinley made the transition from f o r- ward to center as quickly and as well as anyone could ask. Green, an All-American from Vin- cenes (Ind.) Junior College, became the heir apparent to Joe Johnson's guard spot. Amazing quickness made this crowd-pleaser virtually indispensable on the Wolverine fast break. If there was one star on last year's team, it was Green. He seemed reck- less on defense in the early going and sometimes tried to do too much, but he worked hard to fit into Michigan's team concept. Pre-season polls placed the Wolver- ines somewhere in the top twenty, but Orr was hesitant to make any bold claims because of the unproven new- comers and a tough non-conference slate. But experienced starters Steve Grote, John Robinson (a high school t e a m- mate of Green's) and Britt meshed with the new recruits better than any- one had dared hope. At season's start, a national championship seemed be- yond their wildest dreams. Nevertheless, come the end of March, the Wolverines were playing in the na- tional finals versus nemesis Indiana. But not only was Michigan playing in the national finals, when the buzzer sounded to end the first half, Michigan led 35-29. You know the rest. Indiana maintain- ed their undefeated record, pulling away from Michigan with a transcen- dent second half to win, 86-68. In the semi-finals, Rutgers, champ- ion of the East, proved to be a paper tiger despite its glittering 31-0 record. The Scarlet Knights' Phil Sellers had apparently never seen a defensive play- ed the likes of Wayman Britt. "Phil the Thrill" fell far short of his billing and brought Rutgers down with him, 86-70. Michigan's 21-6 record, 14-4 in the Big Ten, good for second place in the conference behind the Hoosiers, h a d earned the Wolverines a spot in the first round of the tourney against Wich- ita State. Behind by as much as 13 points in the second half, Orr took a gamble and called on freshman Tom Staton. Staton, who had played fleetingly dur- ing the regular season, turned the game around single-handedly, coming up with two crucial steals and scoring six points. Green swished a jumper with six seconds left to win it, 74-73. An impressive team effort beat Notre Dame in the regional semi-final, 80-76. Green scored 20 points, and once again Staton came through, scoring six, mak- ing a big steal, and holding Adrian Dantley without a basket for the last four minutes. Another bench hero, Dave Baxter, scored a career-high 18 points to spark a come-from-behind 95-88 victory over Missouri in the Regional final. T h e Tigers' Willie Smith was phenomenal with 43 points, but the more team- oriented Wolverines von the right to the national semis in Philadelphia. From the opening 90-63 rout of a veteran Vanderbilt club, the Wolverines proved themselves a force to be reck- oned with. What might have been a re- building year began to look like a chal- lenging one. A small team, Michigan compensated with great quickness and exceptional shooting. Michigan opened the Big Ten cam- paign by breezing by Northwestern, Minnesota and Wisconsin. When its fast break was thwarted, the team set up and ran its offense patiently and well. The bench offset foul trouble, and Orr was saying there was more talent on the team than at any one time in his tenure at Michigan. The Wolverines came of age in a hard-fought 82-81 loss at Tennessee. They stormed past their next five non- conference foes before losing at Ne- vada-Las Vegas in an unevenly offic- iated game. Then came the first of the three con- frontations with top-ranked Indiana. Michigan showed a lot of poise, bounc- ing back from a 16-2 deficit before los- ing, 80-74. The return match at Bloomington a month later was perhaps the finest ef- fort of the season. Before a national television audience, the Wolverines droped a thriller that they appeared to have won and many thought they had won. A controversial call at the buzzer ruled Kent Benson's tip-in good, send- ing the game into overtime. Amazingly,, the Hoosiers never led in regulation play, but had the momentum to win in the extra period, 72-67. Michigan was clearly a team cap- able of rising to a challenge. But it was also a team guilty of mental lapses. In general, the Wolverines were at their best when fighting for their lives and at their worst in games they were ex- pected to win handily. Besides the In- diana games, the only Big Ten losses were a couple of road-game let-downs against Illinois and Minnesota. With all eyes looking forward to At- lanta, the site of the 1977 NCAA finals, the focus, of pre-season practice, this fall, will be on replacing Britt, the only starter gone from last year. Three players all with considerable experi- ence, are in the running: *Joel Thompson (6-8, 190). Now that dunking has been restored to the col- lege game, you may see Thompson in the line up. Easily the best leaper on the team, and maybe the best shoot- er. Lacks aggressiveness, and is not as quick as the other two contenders. Tom Staton (6-3, 185) Lighting quick swingman who was great in the tourna- ment. Similar to Britt - small but quick and an excellent leaper. Maybe the best defensive player on the team, but not much of an outside scoring threat. - Alan Hardy (6-6, 190) Has tremendous ability - can jump, rebound and block shots extremely well. Good quickness and defensive ability. Tried to go one- on-one too much last year, but could settle down with playing time. Fine shooter. All three are capable. Thompson and Hardy are better offensive players than Britt, and Staton could become as good ,as Wayman on defense. The abundance of talent hurt Mich- igan's recruiting effort, but the coach- es did sign 6-3 guard Mark Lozier from Logansport, Indiana, who is a great all-around athlete and plays a strong, aggresive game similar to Grote's. Phil Hubbard Johnn y Orr looks forward Sexciting race, full arena Basketball coach Jhnny Orr isathe winningest coach in Michigan history. Last year, after guiding his Big Ten second-place team to the NCAA finals, he was voted Coach of the Year by the National Association of Basketball Coaches. Now in his ninth year as head man, Orr is the dean of Big Ten coaches. This summer, Daily Sports Editor Bill Stieg and Executive Sports Editor Rich Lerner talked to Ort about his team and his career. DAILY: Michigan averaged 22 wins per year the last three years and finished second in the country last season, but attendance at home games has not been great, especially compared to other suc- cessful schools. What's your explanation for this? ORR: I don't think our fan support is that poor. We averaged 10,500, at home for the conference games, and this year we'll probably fill it. We used to have very good crowds, but that team of four years ago played so badly in some of those home gamesathat I think the fans kind of got down on us a little. But now, I've never seen people-not just in Mich- igan but acros sthe country-as elated or excited about any athletic team as they were about our team last year. I've gone back and forth across the country three times and I've never met anyone who doesn't have great praise for our xast year's team. They think we were the most exciting team, and they were thrilled. Coaches write me letters- I've got over 2200 letters-complimenting the team and the way we play and saying how they enjoyed watching us. I think this year our fans will really be there because we have most of our players coming back. I think Rickey Green is the most exciting basket- ball player in college today. There's no one who can touch him as far as excitement goes. All of a sudden-WHOOM!-he can make four or five baskets. If he goes out and plays like he did this year, he has an excellent chance to be selected Player of the Year, depending on how well we do. DAILY: After that team of three years ago, you were, under a lot of pressure for not having won with players that supposedly were very good and were highly sought-after. And now, the last three years, you've turned it around. What happened? QRR: I THINK OUR players are better than they were three years ago, though they were not as sought-after. The players we had before were overrated because they were so big. They could not perform the fundamental skills of basket- ball like the players we have now. Certainly we're doing a much better job of coaching. And that has a lot to do with Wayman Britt and Steve Grote. They come in with tremen- dous attitudes-super, super attitudes. The way they practice has become infectious. When we went to the tournaments this year-Wichita, Louis- ville and even at the national championship in Philadelphia-all the coaches who watched us play couldn't understand how we practiced as hard as we did. Or how we worked as hard as we worked and how we motivated the kids the way we did. Every coach comes to me and asks, "What did you do? How did you get your guys to do that?" I think we have that going for us now. It's just a natural thing-look at Rickey Green. He wasn't like that at first, but all of a sudden, jeez, he be- came that way. It's just that the other guys have come on. Tommy Staton is that type of hard worker. A lot of it has to do with the type of person you recruit. A lot of our guys, one-on-one or individual- ly, are not as good as a lot of other players. But as a unit, boy, they play very, very well. DAILY: What is your idea of an ideal player? ORR: We want a player who really enjoys play- ing, who comes to practice on time, enjoys prac- ticing, works hard and plays the same way when the opportunity comes. The greatest example of that is Tommy Staton. He sat on the bench almost all year but his attitude was always super. He finally got a chance against Wichita State and you'd have thought he'd been playing all year long. That's just a super, super thing. - I don't think we have anyone on our team with a bad attitude. Everyone has a good attitude. Every- one wants to play a little more, there's no question about that. When we called on Tom Bergen, Tom Staton, Alan Hardy, and Joel Thompson, every one of them contributed tremendously to our success. ORR: My philosophy is to get the players to prac- tice as hard as they can practice, every time they practice, in hopes that when the game comes, they'll play as hard as they can possibly play. As coaches, our staff and I prepare them as best we can, so when the game comes we don't have any complaints. If we lost, we lost, and if we won, we won. If we get good enough players we are going to win the majority of our games. In the last three years, my staff and I have done the greatest coaching job in the country. We have not had great players. As a rule, we ,have had some players that have played very well. With Hubbard and Rickey Green and Campy Russell, we had outstanding individual players. But the rest of the players have not been like that. I think the way we got them to play together and the way we've blended their talents with our philosophy has been super. Our coaches certainly deserve a lot of credit. DAILY: When a player comes here, does he come mostly for basketball or for other reasons, such as academics? ORR: It depends on the player. Some kids, I "I think Rickey Green is the m o s t exciting basketball player in college today. He has an excellent chance to be selected Player of the Year." * I don't know what they're thinking. Are they coming to really be educated, or are they just telling you that? Is basketball their primary thing? I think most of the players that we and the big schools around the country get today certainly have ambi- tions of playing professionally. In their young lives they would be more apt to think about that than they would be to think about graduating college. As time goes on I think that will change. Par- ticularly when they get older and get to that time when they'd like to come back to school. When they don't finish, later on the majority of them see the importance of it. When you're talking to them, they've got big money, publicity and basketball on their mind. Dai Photo by PAULINE LUBENS Rickey Green ORR: No. Only under the circumstances of a long-term contract where I was guaranteed a lot of money. If things go wrong and they fire me, I still get the money. But by that time I'd be 54 or 55 years old and I'd have that much money I could retire. Now if I were a general manager, that would be something else. I don't think I'd want to coach. I don'tethink I'll coach anywhere else but Michigan. When I get out of coaching now, I'll get out for good. I won't change coaching jobs. I've had many opportunities in the last two years. I don't have any desire to be anywhere else as a coach. I like Michigan, I like Ann Arbor, and I'd like to make this my home. DAILY: You and the other Michigan coaches keep saying that Big Ten basketball is superior to the rest of the country. How can that be proven? ORR: I think it was proved last year when Indi- ana played Michigan for the national champion- ship. We beat the Missouri Valley champion on the way there; Notre Dame; the Big Eight cham- pion; the champion of the East, Rutgers. And then we lost in the finals to the Big Ten champion, In- although I thought their fast break was a little different than ours. They use the long pass more. But they like to run and UCLA likes to run, and they're in the West. Indiana, if they had the oppor- tunity to run, would run too. The difference is in aggressiveness. The Big Ten is much more aggressive, particularly than it is out East. I don't think Phil Sellers had seen de- fense like Britt played. We were a much more ag- gressive team than Rutgers was. It was the same way with UCLA against Indiana. They were almost dumbfounded the way the game went. Indiana was much the aggressor. I think that's the biggest difference I see between Big Ten basketball and the others. When we go away it seems we run into foul trouble more than we do in our dwn league. DAILY: How do you see the Big Ten shaping up this year? ORR: We will have an even stronger league than we had last year. Purdue has all their players back, plus Bruce Parkinson. Minnesota has their entire team back plus their new recruits, us having all our players back except Wayman and Indiana having a strong recruiting year. Those a .............................. ::" : ir.'::.........................:%i:?ti?{{},:iY.vn : : d:}: f? ?P: $ii: .$.c":?T: I}. i' :iv.' .:"i'+:":. 'v "In the last three years, my staff and I have done the greatest coaching job in the country."