., f 1w w ww w' ww ws -lw- -,Wr Paae 14 -- Wednesday, November 30, 1983 - The 1~ 4 The Michigan Daily - Wednesday; Nov Season for SuCce I]' iI fil II rnrnT1r I 'I IIC By JIMNDWORMAN If you think Bill Frieder had a tough time rebuilding Michigan's basketball team,imagine Don Sicko's task at Detroit. The former Michigan assistant found nothing but an empty arena upon his arrival at the city school in 1982. "There was a game played here - the last game that the previous coach (Willie McCarter) coached - and the attendance was 811 and I guess that just told it all," said Sicko while searching his Calihan Hall office for a cigarette. The 37-year-old helped Frieder recruit much of the current Wolverine roster. And recruiting was Sicko's first priority at Detroit. "WE WANTED TO do a much better job, first into the Detroit area and then expanding out into the state of- Michigan," he said. "When I got here, there was a 13-man roster. Two players were from suburban Grand Rapids. One was from suburban Detroit. The other' 10 came from Texas. West Virginia, Tennessee, New York, 'The program was really a wreck. It began with outright talent. There wasn't a lot of it. The academic situation was in a sham- bles. Scheduling was a mess. Yeah, you name it, and the program was at a low ebb.' --Detroit coach Don Sicko Lurne-meUL mi ian progam a UUUU, -Dut McAdoo and a combination of leftovers from McCarter and his predecessor, Dave Gaines, produced a 12-17 season. But while his team struggled on the court, Sicko scored big elsewhere. The Wayne State graduate bagged one of the nation's top recruiting classes. Cen- ter Keith Jackson, forward Brian Humes, and guards Brian Doss, Tim Russell and Keith Gray - all from the state of Michigan - signed with the Titans. GRAY IS A junior college All- American and a former teammate of Michigan's Eric Turner at Flint Cen- tral. Sicko brands him "a big-play man." Crisler Arena fans might remember the dunking prowess exhibited by the 6-2 Gray in the 1981 Class A high school basketball cham- pionship game or in the 1982 Mid- American Conference championship when he started at forward for Nor- thern Illinois. Doss, 6-6, played with the Wolverines' Quincy Turner at Benton Harbor, where he demonstrated exceptional ball-handling skills. Jackson is a 6-10 shot blocker who played for Detroit assistant coach Stan Allen at Detroit Henry Ford. Humes is a 6-8 shooter and rebounder who teamed with McAdoo, Rainge and Titan assistant coach Charlie Coles at Saginaw. Russell is a bomber from Detroit Mackenzie. Besides these five, Sicko now has the services of former Michigan forward Willis "Stretch" Carter, who left the Wolverines after averaging 3.3 points and 2.0 rebounds per game as a fresh- man two years ago. Finally, Sicko has Greg Wendt, a transfer from Duke and a former Michigan all-stater, lined up for next year. SICKO'S RECRUITS combine with senior forward Doug Chappell, who scored 25 points and grabbed 13 points By PAUL HELGREN Nearly four years have passed since Bill Frieder took over the reins of the Michigan basketball team. Every year since then, the Frieder recruiting touch added something to the - team, until finally, quietly, a transformation oc- cured. No longer are the Wolveri es a jum- bled conglomeration of Frieder recruits and former head coach Johnny Orr disciples. The team is undisputably Frieder's now. In those three and one-half years. Frieder pieced together a team with a. string of recruiting coups that started with Clarkston's Tim McCormick (who was initially contacted- by Orr) and culminated last spring with the signing of the state of Michigan's "Mr. Basket- ball," Antoine Joubert. Now the Michigan coach, and everybody else expects results. "WE'VE FINALLY GOTTEN to the stage where we have a club that can be very successful," says Frieder,, who .owns a 41-44 record at Michigan. "And we're still a very young team. We could start a team with no seniors, if you don't count McCormick, who has another year of eligibility." Indeed, it would seem the Wolverines have the perfect balance for a surging program. Joining Joubert in this year's freshman crop are all-state guards Quincy Turner of Benton Harbor (25.2 ppg. in his senior year of high school) and Garde Thompson of East Grand Rapids (27.2 ppg.). The year before that, Frieder landed five blue-chip fron- tcourtmen. Two years ago highly touted guards Eric Turner and Leslie Rockymore chose the Maize and Blue. With all this talent, it would seem the only problem might be keeping everybody happy with their playing time, Frieder says it's not even a con- sideration. "LAST YEAR WE juggled, alter- nated and rotated our lineup-out of necessity, not to keep people happy ... I'm not worried about playing time. I'm not obligated to anyone. "Somebody would come up to me last year and say so-and-so or so-and-so was going to transfer. I said, 'Good.' It tur- ned out they all came back. If we don't get in that upper division (of 'the Big Ten) this year, I hope they all tran- sfer." Frieder is joking, but only to a point. He knows that his team must show results this year. There is only so long a coach can say, "Well, we're young. Wait 'til next year." For Michigan, that time has passed. The future is now. 82-83 Final Statistics PLAYER Turner............................ Rockymore..... ................ McCormick........................ Relford...................... . Henderson................. .. PERSON............... ....... Jokiscb...................... Wade.......................... Tarpley................. Peekoudas ..................... Antonides............................. Rudy.............................. GIBAS......................>.... BROWN ........................ -McFARLAND .............. ....... Team............................. G-S 27-27 17-17 28-26 28-21 28-17 27-16 27-5 25-7 26-2 27-3 9-0 11-b 6-1 1-0 6-0 FG-FGA 193-401 102-216 122-220 85-181. 68-163 56-138 54-02 46-98 35-86 27-65 3-6 2-3 0-1 0.5 0-1 Pct .481 .472 .555 .470 .417 .406 .529 .465 .407 .415 .500 .667 .000 .000 .000 FT-FTA 104-159 23-35 109-134 53-67 26-38 23-38 16-22 19-44 22-38 28-35 2-2 0-1 2-4 2-2 0-4 Pct .654 .657 .813 .791.. .684 .605 .727 .432 .579 .800 .000 .500. 1.060 .000 REB-AVG 87-3.2 49.2.9 18046.4 98-3.5 161-5.8 111-4.1 60-2.2 98-3.9 93-3.2 44-1.6 3-0.3 0-0.0 0-0.0 7-0.7 0-0.0 82 A Pts 160 519 42 228 25 353 12' 223 17 .163 35 136 18 125 5 111 6 92 80 87 0 8 1 4 02 0 2 0 0 AVG 19.2 13.4 12.6 8.0 5.8 5.0 4.6 4.4 3.5 3.3 0.9 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.0 only- three spots in the lineup ar claimed: McCormick at center, an Turner and Rockymore at the guar positions. This worries Frieder. "The lineup is not set, which isn good," he says. "Good teams wi usually have a strong nucleus returnin to form a starting five... There are a lo of things for us to still be determined." Mainly, who of the remaining pool o talent will play, and who will sit: Jere i a breakdown by position of the possibl combinations. MICHIGAN .......................... 28 Opponents -- --.........................28 793-1687 .470 733-1595 .460 429-619 .693 1063-38.0 401 2053 493-721 .684 901-32.2 342 1993 73.3 71.2 "We had to salvage everything. The program was really a wreck. "IT BEGAN with outright talent. There wasn't a lot of it. The academic situation was in a shambles. Scheduling was a mess. "Yeah, you name it, and the program was just as low ebb," he continued. "We had to dump everything and start from scratch." Sicko certainly is familiar with crumbled programs. He stood at Frieder's side while Michigan fell from a 19-11 record in 1980-81 to a 7-20 mark two years ago. He also knows something about salvage operations. Q RIBS: ,,Co° © CHICKEN FRIED © SHRIMP p SEAFOODS DINNERS * SANDWICHES . SIDE ORDERS SERVING ANN ARBOR OVER 18 YEARS CARRY -OUTS OR DELIVERY SERVICE . PARTY TRAY SERVICE *ANN ARBOR ""ACRS r 11 T ba65-2266 rrHOURS --- MON. WED. THURS. SUN. 11 AMTO 1 AM MI- SAT. 11 AM TO 3 AM " CLOSED TUESDAY Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and Canada. "Under normal circumstances you are not going to go into another state and come out with a real, quality, player. You're going to come out with a player that the state schools in those states chose not to recruit. What does that tell you?" It tells you why a team that did not experience a losing season in the '70s and strung together years of 25, 25 and 22 wins from 1976 to '79 fell to a '9-18 record in '80-81. In '81-82, McCarter's last year at U-D, the Titans managed a 10-17 season. THEN SICKO TOOK over and im- plemented his solution to the talent shortage. His first recruiting class con- sisted solely on in-state players: Kevin McAdoo of Pontiac, Louis Rainge of Saginaw and Bob McGinnis of Detroit. None of these three. singlehandedly against Michigan a year ago, to bring a formidable, home-grown lineup into Crisler Arena on December 17. "Now we're at the point where when this current group of seniors graduates and we sign next year's group, we will not have a player on our roster who is not from the state of Michigan," Sicko said. "We're right on target. In fact, we may be even a little ahead of our original game plan." Besides Detroit, Michigan's non- conference schedule this year includes matches with NCAA semi-finalist Georgia and tournament participants North Carolina A & T and Rutgers. Northern Michigan, Dayton and the Sun Bowl Classic (Texas El-Paso, Arizona and Texas Tech) round out the Wolverines' preseason schedule. Not that lastseason's 15-13 club was an out-an-out disappointment. Perhaps too much was expected of a team that usually started two freshmen. But while a bid from the National In- vitation Tournament might have looked appetizing last year, no less than an invite to the* NCAA tournament will please Frieder this year. "For me to feel we've had a succesful season, we'd have to get an NCAA tour- nament berth," the 1964 Michigan graduate says. "If we don't make the NCAAs, then it's a disappointment." THE KEY TO accomplishing this goal, according to Frieder, is to establish a starting lineup and basically stay with it the entire season. As of now, CENTER McCormick came on strong at th end of last year, averaging 18 points i his last seven games of the season. Th 6-11, 240-pound giant no longer wear knee braces, which should increase hi mobility. He is definitely a candidat for All-Big Ten honors. McCormick will be backed by Roy Tarpley, a 6-10 sophomore. Tarpley ha made such great strides since the end o last year, according to Frieder, that th Michigan coach may devise a double post offense to get the Detroit Cooley graduate in the lineup more often. Jon Antonides will see token playing -tim as the third-string center.- re d Turner, ,d 5.9 assists has a loci Senior l ll significan g will probe t ner's ba rolling. A Rockyn is provide F e dilemma. teammate seven yea to play the Joubert an efficie since the4 lacks exj skills ne ballplaye Rockyr either, as year will proved hi skills since a very gc play both chance, e zone def( abilities c4 Freshm Turner a - game say the future. e The mo n for the. e Richard F s Butch Wa s all starte e year, but r self. App removed I y be used s S add Joube f at the smal e Who wil It's anyb( Y Frieder h( n by mid-De e early jum selves per: Michigan grimaces : last year An unfor reaches ou ball betwe Northern t Doily Photo by JE -ou-bert the cart before the horse. "Right now the biggest thing in my mind is winning an NCAA championship and going to law school. Professional basketball is on the back of my mind, but right now the first level is here. I think if I make it here, I've made it." There was a time last year when pessimists predicted that Joubert would be making it for another school. While nearly every major college coach in the country was bending over backwards to get Joubert to sign on that-dotted line, his choice was already limited to two schools - Michigan and UCLA. And when Bruin coach Larry Farmer wined and dined Joubert during his recruiting trip to Los Angeles, it ap- peared the state of Michigan might lose its favorite basket- ball son to the land of sun and surf. But for academic and non-academic reasons, says the high school All American, Michigan was the school for him. "My choice was between Michigan and UCLA," Joubert reiterates. "I just like the players here more than I did at UCLA. "You know, when I came (to Michigan) for my visit, all the guys came by and talked to me and stuff. When I went to UCLA I talked to all the guys, but you could see they were (Continued from Page 10) shading away because I was like from Detroit . . . Plus I figured my academic skills would be--more valuable here than at UCLA. In case I get hurt I can still get a degree here and get a goodjob." Joubert's first days at the University have been quiet, as he prefers to keep a low profile. Even though he enjoys a kind of celebrity status on campus, he considers himself no different from any other first-year student. "Right now I feel like another face in the crowd," he says. "Back home I felt like a celebrity 'cause bitty guys would come up to me and say, 'Hey Antoine!' Sometimes (on cam- pus) I walk and people identify me.. . but a lot of the times I just walk straight to class with my books." Just, like any other freshman, right? Hardly. Joubert is a man with a very special future. He is a man who many people expect to do great things. And he is a man capable of meeting that challenge and perservering. He relishes the chance. "It's just a challenge," he says when asked if the pressure ever overwhelms him. "I mean, you might say pressure, biyt I look on it as a challenge. It's nothing more to me than just to see if I can do it. "I like pressure. Some people are pressure-packed. And they bust their bubble. I haven't had mine bust yet. One day it might happen, I don't know."