Friday, March 26, 1976 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page We Friday, March 26, 1976 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Nine RUNNING KEYS RUTGERS Inside Straight ndy Glazer_ _ Dear Joe .. . DEAR JOE, Hi, how're you doing? How's your father? I didn't get to see him much while I was home. I just had to write to you, Joe. There've been some strange happenings going on around here lately. Remember how I told you all about how this is a school for bridesmaids and choke artists. You know-the football team blowing it against Ohio State all the time, and the basketball team getting knocked out of the NCAA on missed shots in the last ten seconds-two years running? Always good but never great, that's the Wolverines. Joe, things have changed. The basketball team has really gotten it together. Oh, sure, they were supposed to be good this year, but Joe, they're IN THE FINAL FOUR! It's really amazing. The coach-Orr's his name, Johnny Orr- has taken a bunch of fine basketball players and turned them into just a super team. Let me tell you about some of them. First is one of our guards, Rickey Green. He's about six feet tall, and he is close to the quickest and fastest guy you've ever seen. I think the only players I've ever seen as fast as Rickey are Calvin Murphy and Nate Archibald. He transferred in from Vincennes (Ind.) Junior College, and no one knew what to expect of him. But he's done just about everything you could ask from a player, and he was so easily: the classiest guard in the Big Ten it isn't funny. The Big Ten, Joe, you might have heard of it. That's the conference with two teams in the final four. But enough gloating. Our other guard is Steve Grote, who's 6-3, built like a brick wall and tries to play defense like one. I was talking to Ted about Notre Dame's guards before we played them and he said "What're you worrying about? Green will leave one standing behind in the backcourt and Grote'll beat the crap out of the other one."1 Tough guy, this Grote. He's not too bad of a shooter, either, but he's in the line-up for his defense. Our forwards are bizarre, Joe. They're great, just strange. Johnny Robinson-they call him Johnny Rob-is one of them! He's 6-6 and really strong. But I can't figure out why the team's best foul shooter is also the worst outside shooter. He gets most of his points on great inside moves. And what a tournament player! Last year he had 28 against UCLA, and he just had 21 points and 16 re-, bounds against Missouri. The other forward is Wayman Britt, who is, ahem, 6-2. But nobody shoots over him. In fact, defense is his specialty. He's really taken it to some of the best forwards in the country, like Scott May and Terry Furlow, this year. I think his extra long arms help, but mostly it must be heart. Unless he's in foul trouble he always plays 40 minutes, and he just settles that team down whenever it needs it. Excellent at helping run the offense, too. Like I said, strange but great. At center we got this skinny guy named Phil Hubbard. He's af 6-7 freshman, but, man, can he rebound! He had 18 againstt Missouri. He was good from the start at shooting and re-c bounding, but now his defense is good too. Hub was Mr. Ohio in high school, and I think he's going to be Mr. Michigan before he graduates. You knew he was going toi be tough after the first game of the year, against Vanderbilt.I Everyone was passing the ball around, waiting to see who was going to start things, and Hubbard just takes the ball and, bam, two on a jumper. He did it the next time down, too. Got things rolling and we blew them out. He's super. The bench is really cool. We've got a guard named Dave Baxter whose dribble looks terrible until you realize he never loses the ball. There are a couple of freshman forwards, Alan Hardy and Tom Staton, who can run and jump and shoot with anybody. Staton's especially come along in the tournament. Hubbard's back-up is Tom Bergen, a great shooter. He reallyi did the job for us against Wichita State, after Hub fouled out. Joe, I know you live in the east, and you think we're the Michigan Spartans, but belive me, these guys are for real. They play together, as a unit, better than just about any team I've ever seen in any sport. And thanks to that team play they're winners, Joe-no mater what they do from here on this season will be remembered as a resounding success. I tell you, Joe, it makes a fella proud to go to Michigan. K nights shoot to fame By MARC FELDMAN Special To The Daily One of the fascinations w i t h college basketball is the regular- ity with which teams arrive and leave the national spotlight. In recent years, seemingly fiction- al schools like Long B e a c h State, Southwestern Louisiana and Jacksonville have appeared and fallen like shooting stars. While these schools seem to have basketball as the 1 o n e course of study and boast post- World War II founding dates, another university, with a 209 year history, in the center of the Northeast Megapolis, has made a belated yet spectacular move into big-time college athletics: Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights, 31-0, will meet Michigan in Philadelphia Saturday in the semi-finals of the NCAA basketball tourna- ment. RUTGERS is the State Uni- versity of New Jersey, the only state institution in the U.S. which cannot be identified by reading its name. But Michigan students are probably more fa- miliar with Rutgers than most, as New Jersey has traditionally been a fertile source of out of state tuition revenuetfor Rob- ben Flbming's accountant. Just ask your friends in t h e MICHIGAN'S WAYMAN BRITT goes high above Spartan dorm from Teaneck and W e s t Terry Furloy earlier this year. Michigan's tenacious little Orange if they ever heard of forward has taken on some of the best forwards in the nation Rutgers. They will answer, this year and has continued to shine as he did here against "Sure, that's where my parents Furlow. This Saturday will be yet another challenge for Britt wanted me to go to save them as he will be guarding Rutgers' All-American forward, Phil has never been the most enlight- Sellers. Britt's performance could be a key in deciding ened state in the financing of whether Michigan will move on to the NCAA finals, public education. (48th in a re- SEEKS THIRD TITLE USC si ssha cent poll) and kids in New Jer- ond fiddle to Sellers throughout Bailey averages about nine sey don't grow up dreaming his career, sleek 6-4 guard Mike I points per game. about Rutgers Stadium and don- Dabney of East Orange, N.J., While Bailey was highly ning the Scarlet of RU. is considered perhaps a better sought, Anderson was recruited Until this year, Rutgers stu- pro prospect. Dabney, Rutgers by only a handful of schools as dents and alumni shared the third leading all-time scorer, his high school team won only built-in inferiority complex of averaged 19 points a game and 22 of 67 games in his three-year living in New Jersey, halfway recorded over 100 steals. varsity career. Anderson re- between New York and Philadel- ceived scant publicity despite phia, and going to school 20 DABNEY, AS soft-spoken and averaging 27 points and 14 re- minutes from Princeton. Such modest as Sellers is bois-erous bounds, and shooting 70 per cent trauma affects many individuals and flamboyant, plays tenacious from the floor. forever.adefense and loves to take smaI- At Rutgers, Anderson imme- fler guards to the low poxst. diately became the sixth man BUT THINGS have changed Young insists on calling soph and has led the team in scoring around New Brunswick and in- forward Hollis Copeland poton- twice, against Syracuse and in fected New Jersey with some- tially the best player o, the the regional semifinal with Con- thing it never had before - squad, although the 6-6 leaper necticut. state pride, or more specifically, is the least consistant of the RUTGERS rarely goes oeyond Scarlet Fever. Rutgersstars.Copelandtburned the eighth man in crucial games Sine Rtges i suh alat- the nets in the recent barn- as 6-5 Steve Hefele and 6-0 Marc Since Rutgers is such a late- burner with St. Johns, canning Conlin have filled in capably. comer to the national spotlight, 11 of 14 shots in winning the The routs gave the end of the its schedule for the past seasQn ECAC tournament MVP. bench a lot of playing time this was certainly too easy. How- season, but they'll watch in Phil- ever, no one could have oredict- Sellers, Jordan, Dabney and selphia. ed the rapid transformation of Copeland all started for last The Rutgers game, like Mich-