Page 4-The Michigan Daily- Sports Monday - February 17, 1992
CAGERS
Continued from page 1
stopped running, and they con-
strained us to a half-court game."
State not only increased its de-
fensive intensity in the second half
but made greater use of an inside of-
fense. The combination of Matt
Steigenga, Anthony Miller, Dwayne
Stephens and Peplowski dominated
the lane during the Spartan's 17-3
run at the end of the game. The four
garnered 47 of Michigan State's 70
points, led by Peplowski's 18.
In addition to the many points,
the foursome caused Michigan's in-
side players to commit fouls in the
attempt to stop them.
"Toward the end, we were doing
a better job of getting the ball in-
side," Heathcote said. "And we
were getting more fouls."
Michigan's force in the paint,
Chris Webber, left the game 9:36
into the second after picking up his
fourth personal foul.
Though the Wolverines trailed
by only three with 1:55 remaining,
they were unable to stop the run-
away State train. Montgomery hit
two layups and sank three shots
from the free-throw line to tally
seven of his eight points in the final
minute.
MICHIGAN STATE (70)
FQ FT Rob.
Mn. M-A M-A 0-T A F Pts..
Steigenga 28 4-10 0-0 3-7 2 1 9
Stephens 32 1-9 4-8 1-2 2 2 7
Peplowski 34 6-9 8-11 2-12 2 3 18
Respert 30 5-14 2-2 1-1 2 2 15
Montgom'ry 38 2-6 4-6 0-3 4 3 8
Snow 4 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 u00
Miller 20 4-7 5-7 3-5 1 1 13
Weshinsk'y 10 0-5 0-0 0-1 0 0 0
Zulauf 3 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Haley 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Totals 200 2260 21-34 11-34 13 12 70
FG%- .367. FT%- .618. Three-point goals:
5-11,* .455 (Respert 3-4, Steigenga 1-2,
Stephens1-4, Weshinskey 0-1). Team re-
bounds: 6. Blocks: 0. Turnovers: 9 (Miller 3,
Peplowski 2, Respert 2, Stephens,
Montgomery). Steals: 7 (Peplowski 2,
Montgomery 2, StephensRespert, Miller).
Technical fouls: Respert :12, 2nd.
MICHIGAN (59)
FG FT Rob.
Mn. M-A "-A O-T A Pts..
Webber 30 5-12 1-2 1-8 0 4 12
Jackson 21 1-1 0-0 0-8 2 4 2
Howard 33 5-14 2-2 2-5 2 5 12
Rose 37 7-13 3-5 4-9 4 1 19
King 28 3-8 2-2 1-2 3 4 8
Voskuil 1 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 2 0
Hunter 10 0-0 0-0 0-2 0 0 0
Pelinka 13 0-2 0-0 1-5 1 0 0
Talley 11 1-3 2-2 0-0 1 0 4
Riley 15 1-1 0-0 0-3 1 2 2
Taylor 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0" 0 0
Totals 200 23-55 10-13 10-44 14 22 59
FG%- .418. FT%- .769. Three-point goals:
3-13, .231 (Rose 2-4, Webber 1-4, King 0-3,
Talley 0-2). Team rebounds: 2. Blocks: 5
(Webber, Howard, Rose, King, Hunter).
Turnovers: 21 (Howard 6, Rose 6, Jackson 3,
King 3, Riley 2, Webber). Steals: 2 (Jackson,
Pelinka). Technical fouls: Howard :12, 2nd.
MichiganState..;... 30 40- - 70
Michigan............ 36 23 - 59
At Crisler Arena; A-13,609 (paid)
Rose sweetens lineup
for young Wolverines
by Matthew Dodge
Daily Basketball Writer
What's in a name? That which
we call a rose by any other name
would smell as sweet.
- William Shakespeare
Unless he plays point guard for
Michigan.
Jalen Rose, the long-shorts wear-
ing, trash-talk swearing, 6-foot-8
pilot of the Wolverine fast break is
one of a kind.
Each of Michigan's vaunted
rookies has a defined role on the
court. Juwan Howard posts up and
hits turn-around jumpers. Jimmy
King spots up for long-range bombs.
Ray Jackson attacks the offensive
boards with a passionate nose for the
ball. And Chris Webber knocks
down stunning slams on a regular
basis.
Rose does all of these things.
His appointed position is point
guard. - He officially superseded
Michael Talley's starting spot two
weeks ago. One now wonders why
Rose hasn't been allowed to run the
show all season.
Against Michigan State this
weekend, the Detroit native led the
Wolverines in scoring (19 points),
rebounds (nine, including four offen-
sive), and assists (four).
"I like to run the point," Rose
said. "I get to see the court a lot bet-
ter, and can see all the angles. We
have a chance to score when the
team is forced to run a half-court
game. I have the opportunity to get
the ball to the man who's been hot,
or to the big fellas down low."
Rose's point guard responsibili-
ties were given to him by default.
Talley has shown many inconsisten-
cies, and King is an ideal off-guard.
When Rose, who began the season
as Steve Fisher's starting off-guard,
got his chance to run the offense, he
did not disappoint.
The lanky lefthander is currently
fifth in the Big Ten individual scor-
ing race (17.8 ppg), and tenth among
the conference assist leaders (3.6
apg). Rose is the only Big Ten point
guard in the top ten of both cate-
gories.
"I feel the team has enough con-
fidence in me," Rose said. "The
coaching staff and the players have
confidence in me. If you feel every-
one has cons, "ace in you, it makes
you feel good."
Fisher giv o.. Earvin
Johnson-prototype e freedom
he needs. Rose playo 37 minutes
against the Spartans. Fisher seems to
understand that any succe the
Wolverines enjoy will be greatly de-
termined by Rose.
When Michigan won at Notre
Dame last week, Rose hit free throw
after free throw to ice the victory.
Irish coach John MacLeod was im-
pressed.
"Rose looked like an eight-year
NBA veteran out there," MacLeod
said.
The Wolverines have a lot of
rough edges. As the floor general,
much of the burden falls on Rose's
slight shoulders to iron out those
rough spots.
"Right now, (Michigan's) talent
is better than the basketball,"
Michigan State coach Jud Heathcote
said. "When the talent catches up
with that, they're gonna be awe-
some."
With Jay Rose running the show,
that day may come sooner than
Heathcote thinks.
0
Michigan's Chris Webber goes up for a rebound as Michigan State's Mike
Peplowski and Anthony Miller look on Saturday night.
Michigan forward Chris Webber puts up a shot over Michigan State's
Dwayne Stephens. Webber scored 12 points in the defeat..
SPARTANS
Continued from page 1
The Spartans put their mouth-
guards back in, stepped on the court,
and closed the game out with a 12-3
run. Montgomery, Peplowski, and
Steigenga scored all 12 points. They
shut down the young guns, and elim-
inated Michigan's Big Ten title aspi-
rations.
"I wouldn't call it revenge,"
Spartan forward Dwayne Stephens
said. "But it would have been a
heartbreak to lose again."
"We definitely didn't want to get
swept this year," rookie sharpshooter
Shawn Respert said. "That was a
win (in January) we should have
had. This counteracts and balances
the scale."
Webber operated all last week
under a severe misconception: that
State was too ready, too excited, and
too riled up for the second intrastate
title fight. The game seemed to mean
more to the Spartans than to
Webber. He insisted that this game
was not more important than the Big
Ten title race.
But Michigan State got the best
of both worlds: it had the last laugh
on the cross-state upstarts; and it
now sits alone in third place in the
Big Ten, with a 7-4 conference
mark. Michigan's hopes have been
dashed. The Wolverines are 6-5,
good for fifth place, behind Indiana,
Ohio State, MSU, and Minnesota.
"I'm not caught up in the ri-
valry," Webber said last Thursday.
"But I could appreciate beating
them. It just matters what happened
the first time. We don't use that fake
hype that they use. It doesn't matter
what you say before the game, it just
matters what you do once you're on
the court."
So right. The Spartans would
agree with you, Chris.
KING
Continued from page 1
for King to produce that smile.
There were so many expectations for
the rookies. So many that it was
literally impossible to live up to
them all.
And when Michigan dropped its
first Big Ten game, to Minnesota,
then followed it with another loss at
home against Purdue, the weight of
those expectations became almost
unbearable.
"It was a big adjustment for him
during those times," says King's
father, Jimmy Sr. "He had some
trouble trying to figure out just what
his role was on the team, what things
he needed to do and not do. But he's
learned."
King has also learned how to deal
with all the attention from the media
that has enveloped the five rookies.
"Sometimes, maybe something
gets blown way out of proportion or
your words get twisted, so you just
have to choose what you say," King
says. "You have to say it so that
there's no way somebody can twist it
around."
In high school, King never had to
deal with problems like that. But
now, a long ways from his home in
Plano, Texas, he does have to deal
with those things. Constantly.
"It's something you just have to
learn, you know. There have been a
lot of adjustments like that. You're
always gonna miss home, but I've
got my family up here - my fellow
classmates, my teammates - and
I've got family about 2 hours away."
And the five first-year players
really are like a family, much to the
delight of King's mother, Nyoka.
"We are a very close-knit family
and I talk to Jimmy three or four
times a week," she says. "But I
never have to worry about Jimmy,.
because the other guys are there for
him."
That may very well be what
makes this group so unique.
"We really didn't get the feeling
of being true freshmen, with all that
attention," he says. "But you know,
there's so many of us, we just pull
each other up. We're all just one -
just one big group. And the other
guys on the team helped us out, too,
telling us what to expect."
And with that, the big smile
resurfaces.
"You know, we don't believe in
being freshman on the court," he
says. This has been a theme that the
five newcomers have harped on all
year.
"This isn't the first year we've
played the game," King continues
"We've been playing all our lives,"
01
Jimmy feels lucky to have had
the basketball influence.
"I sort of got the whole spectrum
from them," he says. "Ryant was the
offense side. He's a real good
shooter. Sometimes it seems like he
never misses. And then Roderick, he
plays 'D.' He plays the kind of 'D'
that makes people mad. And my
father, he was like the coach,
watching me and telling me what I
was doing wrong."
Jimmy, helping him pare down the
list.
"It was hard," he says. "I
narrowed it down by basketball and
schooling. Who had the best
basketball program, who had the
best academic program."
His mother, Nyoka, says that the
family wanted to make sure Jimmy
realized that basketball was
secondary.
"We've always told Jimmy that
the campus the same weekend, and
they hit it off.
"Juwan is outgoing, just a real
nice person," King said. "He makes
you feel just like you knew him from
before."
Howard and King were joined by
another Texan, Ray Jackson, and
then last spring by Detroit superstars
Chris Webber and Jalen Rose.
Michigan's coaching staff had struck
gold. Five Xs.
Jimmy King shares a moment with his parents, Jimmy Sr. and Nyoka, after Michigan's victory over Notre Dame.
'It's more or less like a meat market. You
know, before the cattle can go through the
gates, you've got to check them out.'
-Brian Townsend
Michigan linebacker
From there, the coaching reigns
were passed on to the coaches at
Plano East High School, where the
school is set up so that ninth and
10th graders attend a separate high
school before moving up to the
senior high
That played a big part in hiding
the talent of Jimmy King, especially
from the college recruiters who
didn't start calling until King had
moved up to the varsity team.
King led Plano East through
soma adversity to an 18-14 record
hi, Dior year. The team's longtime
co, esigned at the beginning of
the scason and Adair took over the
coaching duties after full-time
practices had already begun.
The following year, King and his
teammates pledged to make the
playoffs. They did, going 26-7,
winning a playoff game for the first
time in the school's 10-year history,
before finally bowing out to the
eventual state champs.
"Jimmy was a great leader,"
Adair said. "A lot of kids in that
situation would start thinking they
were the star, that they were bigger
than the program. But not Jimmy.
"I had to get on him to shoot the
academics comes first," she said.
"We tell him that with his talent, the
basketball will always take care of
itself."
With those guidelines, the list
was down to five schools. Michigan,
Kentucky, Kansas, Georgetown, and
Notre Dame - Jimmy was born in
South Bend and the family moved to
Plano when he was five.
Adair lived in Michigan for 34
years, coaching high school
basketball in Battle Creek for nine.
He told a friend, Jim Lawson, about
a kid named Jimmy King. Lawson
knew former Michigan assistant
Mike Boyd, and the Wolverines
came calling.
"The relationship with Michigan
was great," King says. "They
weren't pushy or anything, always
calling the house, and always
sending letters. They maybe did it
once or twice a week, while
sometimes schools would do it every
day. That's another reason I came
here."
And when Boyd left to take the
head coaching job at Cleveland
State, that didn't change.
"When he left he called me and
said, 'Michigan is the still the best
Now it is just a matter of cashing
in with the talent. That, it seems, will
not be such a big task after all,
because of the attitude that all five
share.
"Basically, the freshman, we all
like the same things, and we all do
the same things, so I think that's why
we're all so close," King says.
"We're all competitors. We like to
win. We don't ever quit. And we
won't ever quit."
It's a trait that people who have
been around King have seen for a
long time.
"When he would play pickup
games, hie wanted to play hard,"
Adair said. "Jimmy would say,
'We're not playing for fun. If we're
not gonna play to win, then forget
it.' And if the other guys wanted to
screw around, he'd just go and
practice his shooting and work on
his game."
The work has paid off. The
positive attitude has carried him this
far, and will no doubt propel him
much further, his mother says.
"I always tell Jimmy, 'You're the
cream of the crop. And the cream
always rises to the top. So if you just
take care of business, everything else
SHERAN
Continued from page 3
"I wouldn't mind going in the
earlier rounds, but I just want to get
into a camp," he said. "If it doesn't
work out, I've got plans B and C al-
ready set up."
. But with all the anticipation and
said. "They said things like, It's not
for fun anymore - it's a business
now.'
"That's true, but as an athlete,
you've got to think of it as being
fun, just like any other career. So
when he said that, I was thinking,
'this will be fun and games.'
Anderson agreed. "My motiva-