SPORTS

Friday, March 20, 1981

The Michigan Daily

Red-hot Orangemen burn Blue

..../

(Continued from Page 1
The second half, however, was all Orange. Bruin
opened the stanza with a fast-break slam, and the
home team was off and running again. Five minutes
and six Schayes points later, Syracuse had opened up
a 61'50 lead on their visitors, prompting a Michigan
time out.
 tHE DAMAGE had been done, however. As
Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim noted, "Once we
got into our running game, they couldn't do much
with us."
The Wolverines never got closer than nine for the
rest of the game and fell behind by as much as 19 with
five minutes remaining.
"Syracuse was tremendous," said Frieder. "But a
Orange Crush
SYRACUSE

lot had to do with our defense. Toward the end they
just ran past us."
The game began just as it ended as Syracuse broke
out to an early 4-0 lead. Behind an effective full-court
zone press and seven points from Bruin, the
Orangemen reeled off a 9-1 spurt on the Wolverines
midway through the period to go up, 18-7.
McGEE'S FIRST FOUR points of the night helped
cut the lead to seven a few minutes later, but Syracuse
wasn't about to let up. Schayes (12 first-half points)
icked up where Bruin left off, scoring repeatedly
from outside over Michigan's 6-8 Paul Heuerman to
lead his team to a 30-17 advantage with 9:43
remaining before the intermission.

It was then that the Wolverines began to come back
in earnest. With the Blue regulars (who Frieder had
replaced with the likes of seldom-used freshmen Dan
Pelekoudas and M.C. Burton earlier in the half) back
in the game, Michigan outscored the Orangemen 13-4
in a four-minute span to pull within four, 34-30 at the
5:40 mark.
"We couldn't stop them, just as they couldn't stop
us until we went back into a zone (late in the first
half)," said Boeheim. "We decided to follow McGee
whereever he was going. After the first half; they
missed a few shots inside, but they really didn't get
too many chances."
Syracuse advances to the semifinals along with
West Virginia, which beat Minnesota, 80-69.

Min

Rautins ........... 37
Bruin ............. 34
Schayes.........331
Moss ............. 31
Santifer ...........33
Waidron............17
Kerins ............ 7
O'Neill..----....3
Sheehey........... 2
Payton...........2
Davis ...:......... i
Team rebounds
TOTALS.........200
Technical fouls-Bruin
Fouled out- None

I

fg/a ft/a R
7/14 2/2 13
8/10 2/4 2
10/14 2/2 9
1/1 0/0 0
9/11 3/4 5
4/5 0/0 1
0/0 0/0 0
212 0/0 0
0/0 0/0 1
0/0 0/0 0
0/0 0/0 0
.2
41/57 9/12 36

A
5
1
4
8
6
0
2
0
0
0

PF Pts
2 16
2 18
4 '22
2 2
4 21
0 8
1 0
0 4
1 0
0 0
0 0

MICHIGAN
Min fg/a ft/a

R A PF Pts

Johnson ends career.
on ironic, sad note

McGee..........
Garner..........
Ileuerman .......
Bodnar, Mt...
Johnson .........:.
Pelekoudas ........
McCormick .......
Burton..........
James...........
Bodnar, Mk ...
Person..........
Hopson ..........
Brown..........
Antonides .........
Team Rebounds

37
32
28
28
31
4
14
5
5
6
4
4
1
1

14/27
3/6
5/10
2/6
5/11
1/1
2/4
0/0
1/2
0/1
0/3
0/1
0/0
0/0

2/3
3/3
2/2
1/1
0/0
0/1
2/2
0/2
0/0
0/0
0/0
0/0
0/0
0/0

2
2
3
3
0
2
2
0
0
0
0
0
0

30
3
12
5
10
2
6
0
2
0
0.
10
0

26 16 SI

SYRACUSE'S EDDIE MOSS blocks Mike McGee's path to the ball in last
night's NIT quarterfinal. The Orangemen defeated the Wolverines, 91-76.

HALFTIME-Syracuse 46. MICHIGAN 42
Attendance-20,695 1

TOTALS ......... 200 33/72 10/14 26 10 13 76

Friends sonetimes question
i!!taste i ois

By SCOTT M. LEWIS
Special to the Daily
SYRACUSE, N.Y. - For the five
senior members of the Michigan
basketball team, last night's game
against Syracuse represented the third,
and as it turned out, the terminal stage
in their quest to win a national tour-
nament - a feat which has eluded them
during their college careers.
But for one of the seniors, Johnny
Johnson, the game took on added
significance. For him, playing on
Syracuse's court was an altogether
ironic situation.
IF JOHNSON HAD had his way a few
years ago, he would have transferred
from Michigan to Syracuse, a school
only 120 miles from his home in Buffalo.
After his sophomore season - a season
in which he languished on the bench un-
der former coach Johnny Orr - John-
son reportedly asked the college coach
to approach Syracuse's boss, Jim
Boeheim, on the possibility of tran-
sferring.
"It's very ironic, but I don't dwell on
it," Johnson said in an 'interview
published yesterday in his hometown
paper, The Buffalo Evening News. "I
just wanted to win so we could go to
New York City (site of the finals Wed-
nesday)."
Fortunately for Michigan, the
Orangemen weren't interested in John-
son. Boeheim told the coach that he had
already landed a 6-4 guard, Tony Bruin,
who possessed greater t quickness and
leaping ability than Johnson.
SO THE sharp-shooting guard repor-
ted to practice in Ann Arbor in the fall
of 1979, itching for playing time but
realizing such prospects were dim un-
der Orr. Although the two refrained
from arguing, in public, Orr and John-
son never did see eye to eye on a num-
ber of issues of mutual concern,

specifically the latter's amount of
playing time
Midway through last season, Johnson
received his chance. He finished the
year in the starting lineup, averaging
8.6 points per game and displaying one
of the finest shooting touches in the con-
ference. Yet despite the strong finish,
Johnson was still uncertain of his
status.
That uncertainty ended on March 31,
the day Bill Frieder succeeded Orr as
coach. "I jumped for joy," Johnson
said. "I knew I would get a chance.
Maybe he .(Orr) would have let me play
my senior year, but he might have just'
sat me down again."
JOHNSON'S ROLE was clearly
defined this season: help Mike McGee
in bearing the scoring burden.,For the
most part he has filled the role most"
adequately (14.5 points per game),
although Frieder expressed
dissatisfaction over his "lack of con-
sistency" during the middle portion of
the Big Ten season.
Just as Johnson -has developed into a
player who almost certainly will be
chosen in the NBA draft, so, too, has he
developed as a person. Some of his
earlier problems were self-created. "I
just wasn't ready for the change of at-
mosphere from high school to college,-
Johnson said. Nor could he easily ad-
just to the fact that a 37.3 scoring
average in high school does not
automatically guarantee playing time
in college.
It took patience on Johnson's part and
a coaching change for his talents on of-
fense to blossom at Michigan, just as
everyone predicted they would four
years ago. As the 1980-81 Wolverines
have grown into a highly respectible
unit, so has Johnson become the player
Michigan thought he would be four
years ago.

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