Page 4 - The Michigan Daily - Sports Monday - March 19, 1990 Blue escapes Redbirds, 76-70, by Taylor Lincoln Daily Basketball Writer LONG BEACH- With a minute-and-a-half left in Friday's Michigan-Illinois State first round NCAA tournament game, Redbird forward Rickey Jackson stole a Demetrius Calip pass and took it the length of the floor for a dunk. The basket completed a ten point comeback for the Redbirds, who finished the season with a record of 18-13, tying the game at 70-70 with 1:32 remaining. Considering that Terry Mills had four fouls (along with only 7 points) and Sean Higgins had shot a 24-foot airball on the preceding possession, it looked like Michigan was unraveling. After a time~out, the ball went quickly to Higgins (who also had only seven points at the time), who hit a three-pointer which gave Michigan the lead for good. "I wanted to strangle him when he took the one three-point shot and missed it, and wanted to kiss him when he took the other one and made it," Michigan coach Steve Fisher said. "The first one was not a good shot with respect to the situation, the distance, and the way he shot it. The second one was a great shot." Jackson, who led the Redbirds with 22 points, failed in an attempt to match Higgins' shot when he fired an off-balance attempt from well beyond the three-point circle. Illinois State then fouled Rumeal Robinson, who sealed the game b; making both free-throws. Michigan " forward Loy Vaught added another free throw to give Michigan its final 76-70 margin. Robinson led Michigan with 24 points on 9-17 shooting. "I was scared," Fisher said. "We got a little tentative, did not play particularly good inside defense on (Jarrod) Coleman and allowed them to come back. "But we played hard and we're just pleased to escape with a win." BASKETBALL NOTEBOOK 'M', Loyola break tournament records by Taylor Lincoln Daily Basketball Writer LONG BEACH- Marymount's 149 points destroyed the previous NCAA tournament record of 127,1 scored by St. Joseph's against Utah1 in 1961. That game took four overtimes.I Michigan's 115 points was a tournament record for points scored by a losing team in a regulationi game.1 The 264 points scored by Loyola and Michigan also eclipsed the record for total points in a tournament1 game. The combined 25 three pointers by< the two teams also set a record. Marymount's 21 three pointers broke the previous record of 14 by1 Providence over Alabama in 1987.c Their 40 three point attempts breaks1 their own record of 39, set againsti North Carolina in 1988. CLIMBING THE LADDER: With his 17 rebounds againstl Marymount, Loy Vaught movedI past Phil Hubbard into third place on; Michigan's all-time list. Vaught ends his career with 993 rebounds. His 19 points left him five short of Hubbard's 1455 - 10th on the all- time Wolverine list. SCHEDULING SNAFUS: Just over an hour prior to Michigan's game against Illinois State, the Wolverine players sat with bored faces on their bench. Chris Seter listened to his walk-man, Sean Higgins read the tournament prog- ram, and the rest of the players simply waited. According to Michigan Assistant SID Mike Murray, the team had shown up with the intention of shooting around but tournament rules say that teams can only practice for a specific half-hour period prior to games. The Wolver- ines designated time had yet to begin. BOOST FROM AN ALUMNI: Former Michigan guard Gary Grant was in attendance at Friday's game, he is waiting for a broken ankle to heal before he can return to playing for the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers. The injury required that "five pins and a plate" be put in his ankle. He is hopeful to return to action for the playoffs if the Clippers make it. Michigan coach Steve Fisher apparently would welcome his help, broken ankle or not. "You got your shoes in case we need help?" Fisher asked Grant as his team took the floor prior to the game. MORE BAND AID: Last year, Michigan's athletic department en- dured considerable criticism for hiring a band for the opening rounds in Atlanta. This year, the athletic department stepped up its act a notch, sort of. Michigan alum Stan Biart put together a sixteen member "L.A. area alumni band." In related "team support" news, Michigan brought together a four member cheering contingent of Todd Campau, Jack Brothers, Kristin Willson, and Laura Gibson. When asked who paid for the trip coach Annette Schmidt said "I don't question it, we're just happy to be here." She was undaunted by the fact that the other seven teams in the regional brought their full cheering squads. FLYING INTO L.A.: provides an undeniable reminder about the side-effects of industrialization. A gaseous cloud, the color of brownish. mustard, hangs in suspension over the city as if it is pant of the ecology. Locals say that the cloud sometimes drifts as an entity, out over the ocean. Those are the nice days. AP Photo Wolverine center Terry Mills hits the floor with Illinois State's Elvin Florez in a second-half scramble for a loose ball. Mills scored seven points in Michigan's 76-70 in the first-round of the NCAA tournament. If it had been a regular season game and not a tournament game- in which any win is inherently positive- Fisher may not have been so pleased. The game saver was Vaught. The senior stemmed several potential Redbird rallies with fierce rebounds, on his way to a career high 21. He also had 18 points. "Loy Vaught is definitely one of the biggest and strongest players we ever played against," Bender said. "It wasn'ta big surprise that he did as well on the boards as he did." Illinois State shot only 32 percent yet was still in a position to win in the final minutes. Through- out the game, the Redbirds surprised Michigan by hurrying the ball up the floor. "We talked all week long about the fact that we had to stay in character to what we do, we wanted to push the ball up the floor and we caught them a number of times not back in transition and got some easy buckets. " Fisher agreed with Bender that Michigan was affected by the up- tempo game, though he denied that the Wolverines were caught off guard. "They had open practice (Thursday) and they were doing a lot of fast-break conversion stuff," Fisher said. "(Assistant coach) Jay Smith told our kids 'You better be able to sprint and run, because they're going to try and beat you down the floor'." Despite the near victory, Bender refused to admit that he was pleased. "We're disappointed that we didn't win. We didn't come in with any feeling that we wanted to just make a good showing for ourselves." LMU Continued from Page 1 to be in tremendous condition." For most of the first half, the Wolverines stayed with Marymount, largely because of Terry Mills' 19 first half points. However, in the second half, he only scored four. Mills attributed Marymount's frantic pace as the reason he was not able to be more effective .in the second half. "We got caught up in the running game," he said. "It's hard to get it set up in the post when they're running up and down the court. "Before you could get to one end they were shooting a three on the other end," he added. Perhaps the most important reason that Marymount was so effective was the play of Kimble's supporting cast. Fryer's 41 points led all scorers and Stumer added 21, including 5-8 three point shooting. "Once they started to distract my shot," Kimble said, "I found other guys like Fryer and Stumer." Lowery, who averages just over one three pointer per game, uncharacteristically made 3 three point shots. "I said before the game that I didn't want everybody shooting from 30 feet," Westhead said. "If you want to put it up I said Bo, go ahead, Jeff go ahead, Per go ahead.' Then I looked and said 'Terrell,' everybody laughed and I said 'what the hell, go ahead." Kimble lent the impression that he thought Marymount had the game in hand from the start. "Even in the first half, I happened to be looking at the other players and they didn't look confident. They didn't seem to know what was going on." Read Lincoln's Minutes in the Michigan Daily LINCOLN Continued from page 1 Sometimes it's hard to tell if the Gathers' questions are concerning the death of human being, and associated feelings, or the livelihood of a basketball team whose survival depends on winning the next round. Kimble is asked to seriously consider how Marymount, a smaller team, can hope to rebound well against Michigan in Gathers' absence. His answer is painful in its practicality. "Rebounding with Hank out is definitely going to be a task," he says. "I'll have to focus more on that part of my game." The mediator of the press conference mentions to Westhead that his team had the longest layoff of the 64 teams in the tournament field. He asks him if it feels good to have finally played.a game, so that the players could start putting the tragedy behind them. Westhead finally lends som' perspective on the division between tragedy and basketball. "I think the two things are really unrelated. How we as individual deal with this is going to take more than a game and more than several months. "As a team, we needed (the game) to get by our first-round jitters just like every other team in the tournament, so that our real team can show up." Somebody asks Kimble if playing the defending champions, Michigan, will be a motivator. Westhead laughs sadly and puts his hand on Kimble's back. All week the press has focused on what an emotional high Marymount would be on because of Gathers' death. "If we want to win the national championship we have to get by the national champions," Kimble says. "So, yes, in that way it's a motivator." I'm waiting for someone to ask if the two motivating factors will augment each other or cancel each other out. Thankfully nobody does. Marymount's pace too much for Wolverines UofM Sardines TIRED OF FEELING LIKE A SARDINE? Don't be "canned" in the dorm again! This fall try living in Prime Student Housing: Many newly remodeled 1 & 2 BDRM units are available. Your rent includes heat, hot water and furnishings. T h is fa ll"ca n th e d o rm and come to "4 it by Taylor Lincoln Daily Basketball Writer LONG BEACH - Many people thought that the prospect of playing another running team would be the right tonic for Michigan to raise its game to the level that has been expected of the team all season. But Marymount's pressure de- fense and run-and-shoot offense left the Wolverines in a bewildered funk as they watched their hopes of repeating as champions slip away. "We knew we couldn't run with them the way they play for 40 minutes," coach Steve Fisher said.4, "We talked before the game about selectively running, running when we had the numbers off the press. When we didn't have them, 'slow it up and throw it inside to, number one, Terry Mills.' We didn't do 't well enough." Marymount's style is difficult to counter with any sort of set offense. When a team is fortunate enough to beat their press they usually have a good, open shot. "They make you push it up the floor and they show you wide open shots off the floor. They tempt you," Fisher said. "What we wanti d You almost can't avoid playing fast with the waywe play. It's a quicl. outlet offense and 'find the first opc .i shooter you can."' Since the NCAA began i;s current seeding format in 1979, the lowest seeded team to win the national title has been Villanova, a ninth seed in the 1985 tournament. Marymount was seeded 11th, yet Fisher believes that the Lions have the talent to win it all. "They made NBA three point shots, they mace them with people guarding them. '; they can keep shooting like that, I don't know who's going to be. t them." Marymount forward Bo Kimble said, "We just want to go out there- and play because we're doing it fog Hank (Gathers). We don't think any- thing is going to get in our way." Westhead opened the press conference by saying, "To show you that we are vulnerable, Bo does foul out." Kimble, who has played much of both tournament games with four fouls, fouled out against Michigan ANN ARBOR CONTACT LENS CLINIC Largest Inventory of Bausch & Lomb Lenses in the Area Specializing in difficult & unusual fittings *Over 500 Fashion & Designer Frames *Authorized Giorgio Armani Distributor Alive, she cried. Work at The Daily Apply for an Assistant Account Executive position in the Classified Department. 420 Maynard Student Publications Building x'04-0057 to do is pass up those shots for with 16 seconds remaining. It was better shots." an intentional foul to stop the clock. Marymount coach Paul Westhead concurred: "We need the game to go "only because he told me to fast and our defense makes it go fast. Kimble said, smiling. 545 Church St. On Campus 769-1222 RECORDS 1140 S. 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