SPORTS The Michigan Daily Saturday, March 28, 1981 Page 7 Y Final Four set to face off in Philly @0@ ...Knight's Hoosiers ready to cage Tigers By JIM DWORMAN A Daily Sports Analysis After two trying weeks and 22 preliminary games, only the cream of the crop remains from the Mideast and Midwest regions of the NCAA basketball tour- nament. Would-be Cinderellas .like Wichita State, Kansas, end surprising St. Joseph's have finally been eliminated. Powerful "name" teams from these regions, such as defending champion Louisville, top- ranked DePaul, and always-tough Kentucky, have fallen by the wayside as well.. BUT THE TWO teams that have risen to the top of the original 24 school field, the Mideast's Indiana Hoosiers (23-9 and undefeated since February 19) and the Midwest's Louisiana State Tigers (the winningest team in the country at 31-3), truly deserve to be where they are. These two teams will fight it out today in Philadelphia for the rights to advance to Monday night's National Championship final against the winner of the North Carolina-Virginia game. The Indiana-LSU matchup may well be the best yet in the tournament. The contest features a couple of first team All-Americans, the Hoosiers' sophomore guard Isiah Thomas and senior forward Durand Macklin of the Tigers, and two of the best coaches in the nation, Indiana's Bobby Knight and LSU's Dale Brown. When the Hoosiers have the ball, Brown's Tigers should in some situations counter with a full or three- Indiana (24-9) vs. LSU (31-3) 12:45 p.m. (NBC-TV) cessful against the Hoosiers as it was against Wichita State, the Tigers' previous opponent. Knight's team is well-drilled in breaking the press, and Martin will not possess as great an advantage in speed over the Hoosiers' Thomas as he did against the Shockers' backcourt. When the LSU five gets the ball, they will attempt to play an up-tempo, running game. The Tigers.are most effective in this type of game, where they can best utilize the speed of Martin, Macklin and forward Leonard Mitchell. It is tremendously difficult to run against Knight's man-to-man, pressure defense, however. If the Tigers are in fact forced into a half-court game, their success will depend mainly upon the outside shooting of Howard Carter and Macklin's ability to work free inside against the taller Hoosier frontcourt pair of Ray Tolbert and Landon Turner. Indiana, on the other hand, will be happy to play a half-court game itself. Ever since Knight has been their coach, the Hoosiers have earned a reputation of being perhaps the best half-court team in the country. Prediction: Indiana by three. quarter court press. Such pressure has been the key to LSU's success thus far in the tournament, as Ethan Martin, the Tigers' lightning-quick guard, has repeatedly forced his opponents into turnovers leading to LSU fast break buckets. THE PRESS, however, should not be nearly as suc- ...ACC brawl: Tar Heels battle Cavs By LARRY FREED A Daily Sports Analysis North Carolina and Virginia have met before. In fact, the two Atlantic Coast Conference members have been seeing each other on the basketball floor each season for years. Virginia (28-3) got the better of both regular-season meetings this year, but today's reunion is a little different - it's for a shot at the national championship. In order to get that shot, North Carolina (28-7) has to accomplish something that no team in the NCAA tournament has done thus far: stop the Cavaliers' 7-4 All-American Ralph Sampson. But if any team has the arsenal to do it, it's the Tar Heels, who carry one of college ball's best front lines in 6-6 Al Wood, 6-9 Sam Perkins, and 6-8 James Worthy. WHILE THE TAR HEEL timber is neutralizing . Sampson in the front court, the key matchup will be taking place between "Wahoo" guard Jeff Lamp and North Carolina's Jimmy Black. Although over- shadowed by the trio of forwards, Black has engineered the Tar Heel four-corner offense as con- sistently as anyone since the Phil Ford era at Chapel Hill. The Cavaliers will have to rely on the outside Virginia (28-3) vs. North Carolina (28-7) 3 p.m. (NBC-TV) However, the decisive confrontation may take place off the court, between the two coaches. The two skippers' strategies are as opposite as their per- sonalities: Holland, who saves most of his coaching for practices, will let the Cavaliers run, while Smith, the ACC's answer to Bobby Knight, likes to keep his team in a controlled, work-the-ball-around, half-court attack. Look for the Tar Heel front line to collapse on Sam- pson, and Black to cut off Lamp's playmaking ability from the backcourt early in the first half. This will put a strain on Raker and Jones, not always known for their clutch shooting, to hit consistently from the outside to keep the game close. If they fail, Smith will make a chess game out of it by pulling his team into its patented four-corner offense. This strategy may not please the crowd, but it will give Smith a shot at his first-ever national championship. Prediction: UNC by five. AP Photo SHOOTING FOR THE TOP: Indiana's All-American Isiah Thomas (above) and his Hoosier teammates will be fighting for the right to be called college basketball's best team when they face LSU in Philadelphia today. The winner will go on to play in the championship final on Monday night. - U ~ shooting of Lamp, Lee Raker, and Othell Wilson to bring the Tar Heels out of their tenacious zone defen- se, for North Carolina will attempt to jump to an early lead on Virginia, and then fall back on their slow down offense to limit Sampson's effectiveness in the middle. SPOR TS OF THE DAIL Y: Razor Sharp By DREW SHARP A base ball strike ? ... .- i .. .It's a possibility Although the sports fans' focus today is centered on Philadelphia and the NCAA Final Four showdown, it is only a matter of days until it will shift to that annual ritual known as Opening Day. Major league baseball will open its 1981 campaign April 8 under a cloud of uncertainty brought on by the prospect of a player strike. The threat of a walkout has been brewing for some time, and should it reach the boiling point, it will put a screeching halt to the season on May 28. What's surprising, is the lack of fan concern being shown over the possibility of a shutdown. Granted, the deadline is still two months away, but considering the fact that the negotiators for the players and owners have been in a stalemate for over a year, it is highly doubtful to assume that a breakthrough will come about in the next nine weeks. Fans have fallen into an apathetic state in which they believe, as in the case of last season, that the players and owners will strike some type of accord to keep the ball parks filled this summer. Don't bet on it. Last year, the only thing the two sides agreed on was to keep talking through the year as the teams finished out the season. It is foolish to think that such a luxury would be granted again. The players performed and the negotiators talked, but nothing substantial came from it. Owners have a fat strike fund The owners made the agreement last season to buy some time so that they could enrich their already-loaded strike fund in order to weather a possible walkout the following year. They are well prepared for this moment, as are the players, and they are not going to back down in the face of pressure. It is going to be a battle of two strong wills. As is usually the case in these player-owner confrontations, it is the fan who winds up the loser if there is indeed a strike. "Hopefully, it won't have to come down to that, for the fans' sake," said Ray Grebey, the chief negotiator for the owners. "It's difficult right now to say what's going to happen as far as the talks are concerned. The owners have made their case known and will stand by it." The issue which the owners are stressing in the contract talks concerns free agent compensation. They want to receive a player in return when one of their own decides to part company for greener, more profitable pastures elsewhere. Naturally, the players don't want to yield this privilege to the owners for fear that it will all but wipe out the free agent system. The compensation format which the owners have in mind is as follows: a team which signs a free agent would protect 15 players on its roster, leaving its remaining ten players available to be chosen by the club which lost the free agent. That team would pick the one player who they feel would best make up their loss. The owners say that this formula will keep baseball from going downhill, but the players say no dice. Tigers back owners'plan "The Detroit organization feels very stronglv about this issue and sunnorts 'Mnine tj special to the Daily MIAMI - The Michigan baseball team lost twice yesterday, first to Glassboro State (of New Jersey), 7-5, in the afternoon, and then to the Univer- sity of Miami by the score of 12-3 in the evening. The losses drop the Wolverines' record to 5-6 on the season. Chris Sabo was certainly Michigan's most prolific performer of the day. The freshman from Detroit Catholic Central smashed a one-run homer in the after- noon game and added two more solo shots in the nightcap to bring his season home run total to four. MIAMI ONLY outhit 11-10, but Jeff Morrison, the winning pitcher, scat- tered the ten Wolverine hits and walked only four, while Michigan's hurlers, Mark Clinton (5 innings, eight hits, seven runs) and Dave Kopf (three in- nings, three hits, five runs) combined for a total of 12 walks. Michigan will close out its current 13- game spring trip tomorrow with an af- ternoon game against Florida Inter- national and another night game with Miami. The team returns home to Ann Arbor on Sunday and will open its home season at 1 p.m. against Grand Valley. Wisconsin 5, Northern Michigan 1 Special to the Daily The Wisconsin Badgers of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association defeated the Northern Michigan Wild- cats of the Central= Collegiate Hockey Association, 5-1, last night in thei, NCAA semi-final hockey game at Duluth. After a scoreless first period, the Badgers took a 2-0 lead after two stan- zas on goals by Ed Lebler and John Johannson. - WISCONSIN BROKE the game open in the third period on goals by Bruce Driver, Scott Lecy, and Ted Pearson. All-American Steve Bozek scored Nor- thern Michigan's only goal. The Wildcats' final record stands at 27-13-3, while the Badgers take their 26- 14-1 mark against the Golden Gophers of Minnesota for the NCAA champion- ship. Northern Michigan will play Michigan Tech for the consolation game. Gymnasts finish fourth Special to the Daily EAST LANSING-The Michigan a e o .a r . atke double drubbing highest point total in Wolverine history tied 4-4, Detroit, with the second-worst with a score of 138.2. Capturing first record in the league, scored the next 12 place was Ohio State which will now points. Despite a nine-point Celtics travel to Salt Lake City to compete in surge later in the period, the Pistons' the national meet lead never fell below 11. I1 SCORES THURSDAY Volleyball Independent AFROTC 15-15, Delta Darts 7-12 Dragon 11-15-15, Won Hit Bang 15-12-4 Fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon 15-15, Trigon8-12 Fiji 15-15, Phi Sigma Kappa8-8 Kappa Sigma 15-15, Theta Chi 5-5 Graduate DSD B' 15-14-15, Ambulance Chasers i1-16-12 Shortset 15-14, whammer 7-12 Kathy Beckwith had an outstanding performance for Michigan as she qualified for four individual events: the vault, uneven bars, balance beam and all-around competition in today's finals. Beckwith's 36.0 score in the all- around is a new school record. Miller coach of year PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Ralph Miller of Oregon State University was named Associated Press college basketball Coach of the Year for the 1980-81 season yesterday. Miller received 26 votes from a nationwide panel of 62 sports writers and broadcasters. Dale Brown of Louisiana State was second with 12 votes, and Ray Meyer of DePaul received six votes for third. Bobby Knight of Indiana had four votes and Gene Bartow of Alabama-Birmingham and Tom Davis of Boston College had three each. "Naturally, I'm very grateful and appreciative," Miller said at the presentation. "When a person receives an award like this, that has a personal connotation, though, you must consider the group of assistants I had and the team itself." Sampson honored PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Ralph Sampson, 7-foot-4 center who led Virginia to the NCAA Final Four this season, yesterday was named recipient of the Adolph F. Rupp Trophy as the Associated Press' 1980-81 college basketball Player of the Year. Sampson, a first-team All-American, was only the third sophomore to receive the trophy, sponsored by the Common- wealth Athletic Club of Kentucky. The others were Mark Aguirre of DePaul last season and UCLA's Bill Walton, who won it twice. LSAT G R E GM AT Test Preparation How do you prepare for these important tests? Get the facts no cost or obligation Miller ...coach of the year WAKE UP' to Midiga DT~ l Synchros third Special to the Daily. PALO ALTO, Calif. - The Michigan synchronized swim team climbed to third place yesterday during the preliminary rounds of the AIAW national championships at Stanford University last night. Ruth Pickett had an outstanding day for the Wolverines taking third place in the solo event, ninth in the figure com- petition, and competed in the trio meet which finished fourth. Pistons 115, Celtics 90 BOSTON (AP) - Terry Tyler scored 27 points and John Long added 20 as the Detroit Pistons rolled to an easy 115-90 National Basketball Association vic-