Baseball Hockey vs. Eastern Michigan vs. Maine Tomorrow, 3 p.m. Thursday, 2:35 p.m. Fisher Stadium Milwaukee The Michigan i a 30, 1993 Page 'M' looks to catch fire on bayou Cagers, having found fun'again Sunday, go hunting for title by Andy De Korte least two teams seeded higher than ing to the Final Four caught up with the erally considered to be the c Daily Sports Writer Temple during the tournament. Wolverines in Seattle. Fun seemed to hottest team right now, a vict ountry's ry will The field is set. Michigan, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Kansas each overcame the obstacles on the much- heralded road to the Final Four and will participate in the finale of the big dance. If those teams seem familiar, they should. All four held the top spot in the nation at some point during the season, and they were all safely within the Top 10 before the tournament began. Hav- ing three No. 1 seeds and 2nd seeded Kansas is the closest to form that the brackets have held since the tourna- ment expanded to 64 teams. Through no fault of the its own, Michigan's path-No.16 Coastal Caro- lina, No. 9UCLA,No.12 GeorgeWash- ington, and No. 7 Temple - would probably not excite an average basket- ball fan. To underscore the differences in routes between the schools, the other three final four entrants all played at However, slimmer-than-desired winning margins, including an over- time victory against UCLA, sparked a stream of criticism against the Wolver- ines. Yet, throughout the tournament, Michigan's Chris Webber and Jalen Rose downplayed the criticism. Nonetheless itappeared that the pres- sure, some of it self-imposed, of return- escape the team until it had vanquished the rest of the West. "We were a little tight (in Seattle)," Michigan coach Steve Fisher said. "I didn't like what I saw in the first game and it carried into our preparation for the second game. I thought it loosened up on Saturday night." Now, with marquis teams headed to the bayou, Fisher said thepressure could be reduced for the high profile schools. "Now we're wherepeople said we're supposed to be. We're in a Rolls Royce field in New Orleans with three No. 1 seeds and a No. 2 seed so now anyone can win. I don't think any one of us should be surprised with whoever is crowned champion on Monday - so maybe the pressure is less on every- body." Maybe not everybody. After prepar- ing the team for Kentucky, who is gen- only leave the coaching staff two days to prepare for the biggest game of the season. 'We're in a Rolls Royce field in New Orleans with three No. 1 seeds and a No. 2 seed so now anyone can win. - Steve Fisher Michigan basketball coach "All the coaches will be digging in heavy on Kentucky, then we will assign one coach to North Carolina and one to Kansas. You have to on such a short turnaround," Fisher said. "Onehundred percent of player thought process will be on Kentucky. They won't hear, see, or feel anything other than that." Juwan Howard fends off Temple's Aaron McKie and Eddie Jones in the Wolverines' 77-72 victory Sunday. Michigan takes on Kentucky Saturday. Women's tennis sees both ends ofrouts by Dave Kraft Daily Sports Writer Ohio State and Indiana. Two Big Ten schools, red and white (looking) uniforms, great sports traditions. Woody Hayes. Bobby, Knight. Legendary coaches whose tempers makeAl Capone look like Ghandi. To the average sports fan, it would appearthe similarities are endless. How- ever, for the Michigan women's tennis team, this weekend's road trip to Co- lumbus and Bloomington proved that there couldn't be anything further from the truth. Saturday, the Wolverines (2-2 Big Ten, 6-6overall) blitzed last place Ohio State by a 7-2 count. Sunday, it was Michigan who was thrown to theturf by reigning Big Ten Champion Indiana by a 9-0 margin. "Overall, I'mnotsurprised," Michi- gan coach Bitsy Ritt said. "We knew going into the weekend we would be competing against both extremes." While notapparentin the final score, Saturday's match against the Buckeyes (0-4, 4-5) was erratically contested. Due torapidly changing weather, thematches were moved indoors and out several times. Ritt said the only match affected by the changes in venue was at No. 1 singles where Kalei Beamon defeated Abigail Villena, 6-4,7-6. Unfortunately for Michigan, it was unable to gain so much as a single victory in Sunday's match against the Hoosiers (3-0,13-2) who own aNo. 11 spot in the latest Intercollegiate Tennis Coaches Association (ITCA) rankings. Despite the lopsided score, the Wol- verines did extend Indiana to three sets in four of the nine matches, which Ritt said was a sign of good things to come. "We competed well. Unfortunately, we came up short," Ritt said. "The four three-set matches indicate that there's been a lot of improvement." Men golfers struggle at Kentucky Invite SUSAN ISAAK Matt Bowsher (left) and Ryan Evely, of the men's crew team, practice on the Huron river in preparation for last Saturday's race at Purdue. The men's boats went without a victory in the regatta. Women rowers lead Into oen water by Brian Hillburn Daily Sports Writer Last weekend, there was good news and bad news for the Michigan crew team. Saturday, the team went down to West Lafayette to race against the Boilermakers in their firstregatta of the spring. The good news was that all of the women's boats won their races. The bad news was that all of the men's lost. The women won their races handily, as most of their boats won on open water. "Open water" describes when there is no overlapping of boats at the finish. Closer races are measured in seats. Since there are only eight rowers per boat, seats gauge the boat length that arace is won by. Therefore, ifaboat wins by one seat, then it won by a fraction of the boat's length. The closest the Purdue women ever came in a race was two seats. The women's varsity boat had the biggest win of the day despite a rocky beginning. "Purdue's coxswain steered into us right at the start," seniorAlix Filson said. "In that situation, you try to keep your stroke steady and try not to get flustered. It has alotto do with experience. They probably lost it mentally." The women rowers proved to be so dominantover Purdue that one race came down to the two Michigan boats. "Wehadagoodstart. It was basically between theJV and the lightweights. When we started sprinting at the end, Purdue was pretty far back," senior Jen Waling said. 'Purdue's coxswain steered into us right at the start. In that situation, you try to keep your stroke steady and try not to get flustered.' - Alix Filson Michigan women's rower Although the men were not as successful as the women, they were still competitive. Despite clashing oars with some of the Boilermakerboats, several of the men's boats only lost by a few seconds. Since speed is largely determined by coordinated rowing, clashing oars is a setback to any boat. The men's varsity lightweight race was one of the most exciting of the day, as the Michigan boat nearly pulled off an inspiring come from behind finish. The Wolverines gained a significant amount of water with 300 meters to go in the 2000 meter race, but fell short. by Elisa Sneed Daily Sports Writer While the sun was shining lastweek- end in Ann Arbor, it was nowhere to be found for the Michigan men's golf team playing at the University of Kentucky- Johnny Owens Invitational. The rain and wind in Lexington were not the only reasons why. "I'm really not very happy with what happened this weekend," Michigan coach Jim Carras said. "After the first round we were 17th, and we didn't do particularly well." Following a disappointing first day of play, the Wolverines moved up to 12th after the second round, but then slid back down to 19th after the final round with a team total of 947. The winner, Marshall University, bested Michigan by 51 strokes with a 54-hole total of 896. Carras expressed surprise at the Thundering Herd's stellar perfor- mance. "They're not bad by any means," he said. "I wouldn't have picked them to win it. They obviously had agood tour- nament." Senior Bob Henighan was the Wol- verine medalist with a 30th-place indi- vidual total of 231. Michigan's top re- turning scorer from last year's invita- tional, senior co-captain Anthony Dietz finished in 49th (234), and the other Blue co-captain, James Carson, in 78th (241). Senior David Hall finished in 84th (242), and sophomore Bill Lyle in 97th (245). Although their scores were not as low as the Wolverines would have wanted them, not everything was grim for Michigan. "I was extremely pleased with Bob Henighan's score," Carras said. "That was one of the bright parts of the tourna- ment."% The other bright spot is that Carras said he foresees better results in tourna- ments to come. "We'll change the lineup until we find the right five," he said. "We're not that bad, much better than the numbers show, I know we're better than that." Henighan agreed. 'We didn't do nearly as good as we should have," he said. "I don'tthink any team has more talent than we do, we just need to put it together. It's all a matter of confidence." Michigan will need to put things together in order to secure aplace in the regional tournament in May. "The main focus now is regionals," Henighan said. "We need some top five finishes, if not some wins to get there. I think that's in the back of everyone's mind." These are the final results from the University of Kentucky Johnny Owens Invitational played this weekend in Lexington. Team Standings Strokes 1. Marshall 896 2. Kentucky 898 Kent State 898 4. Ball State 900 19. Michigan 947 Individual Scores Strokes 30. Bob Henighan 231 39. Anthony Dietz 233 78. James Carson 241 84. David Hall 242 97. Bill Lyle 245 M _ m