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Page 4-The Michigan Daily- Sports Monday- April 5, 1993
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BASKETBALL NOTEBOOK
No-call reminds
Fisher of 1989
by Ken Davidoff
Andy De Korte
and Ken Sugiura
Daily Basketball Writers
NEW ORLEANS - When Jalen
Rose went up for the last shot of
regulation, he drew a bump (or
bumped into) the Kentucky
defender. Rose's shot, of course, was
off the mark, and no call was made.
In the sequence, Michigan coach
Steve Fisher said he saw a little bit
of the past.
"I thought (he was fouled), but
I'm looking at it through Michigan
eyes," he said. "I was hoping for
1989 revisited right then."
Fisher was referring to the 1989
NCAA championships, when
Michigan point guard R umeal
Robinson drove the lane and drew a
blocking foul. Robinson sunk two
free throws to win the title.
"I don't think officials like to de-
Webber and Ray Jackson vacant.
When he was asked why the players
showed up late, Webber said
Assistant Athletic Director Bruce
Madej was to blame.
When someone asked if Fisher
behaved any differently in practice
than he did during press conferences,
Rose responded, "He curses a lot
more in practice than he does up
here."
Another scribe questioned if
Webber's father, Mayce Webber,
still planned on shaving his head if
Michigan captured the national
championship, Webber said he
would make sure the pledge was
kept and added, "Coach promised
the same thing last week."
"Yes, I promised that Chris' dad
would shave his head," Fisher coun-
tered.
All five starters offered what they
would say to former UCLA and
"I would ask him for his auto-
graph," Webber said.
"I'd just say, 'I hope I under-
achieve like this for the rest of my
life,," King said.
A DRIVING FORCE: If the
Wolverines needed any extra moti-
vation for Saturday's game, they
found it in those who didn't give
Michigan much chance to beat
Kentucky.
"A lot of people doubted us, we
were six-, seven-point underdogs
and we pulled it off," Jackson said.
"It's just a lot of excitement that we
can do it and prove to everybody
else that we can do it."
"We haven't been the underdog
that often and it was our focus to get
started early and play well," Howard
said. "We did that to come back
again in overtime to win it."
CLASS COACHES: During the
week, the relationship between
North Carolina coach Dean Smith
and Kansas coach Roy Williams re-
ceived much attention. Williams
previously coached under Smith for
the Tar Heels.
Throughout the week the two-
some downplayed the relationship,
and rightfully so. They maintained
the game was between players,.not
coaches. After the game, no one
asked either coach how the game felt
in relation to the other coach.
However, the friendship between the
two will not suffer from competition.
"There will be questions about
how it feels to lose to North
Carolina," Williams said. "It still
feels crappy. I'll still be pulling like
the dickens for North Carolina on
Monday night. If you're a Kentucky
or a Michigan person, then I'm
sorry. But if you don't understand
that then you don't understand Roy
Williams."
ACC STILL TOPS: Among
other things, North Carolina's vic-
tory over Kansas sealed, at least for
a year, the conference lead in tour-
nament wins. The ACC has 201
while the Big Ten has 199. This year
will also be the fourth consecutive
championship game with an ACC
representative. Duke has been in the
previous three, losing in 1990 and
winning in 1991 and 1992.
The Tar Heels' victory also
moved them into second in alltime
tournament wins with 61, two be-
hind UCLA.
NBA-BOUND?: Webber was
named to the AP first-team All-
America team over the weekend,
along with Indiana's Calbert
Cheaney, Duke's Bobby Hurley,
Mashburn and Memphis State's
Anfernee Hardaway. Hurley and
Cheaney are seniors, and Hardaway
and Mashburn have announced their
intentions to enter this year's NBA
draft.
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Michigan's Jalen Rose tries to dribble away from Dale Brown of Kentucky. Michigan faces North Carolina in tonight's
I
M thwarts Kentucky
King, Jackson lead defensive charge on
Michigan's Chris Webber and Kentucky's Jamal Mashburn embrace after
Saturday's 81-78 Wolverine victory.
cide games, and I agree with that,"
Fisher said.
GOOD HUMOR: Fisher and his
starters were in rare form at a press
conference yesterday. Serving as a
gargantuan contrast to the sullen
demeanors they displayed a week
ago in Seattle, the. Wolverines
showed the media their comic side.
The session began with Fisher
sitting alone at the dais and the seats
reserved for Juwan Howard,
Jimmy King, Jalen Rose, Chris
NBA star Bill Walton, who has
been quoted as saying that the
Wolverines are "the most overrated
bunch of underachievers in basket-
ball history."
Howard, Jackson and Rose all
questioned Walton's wisdom but re-
spected his freedom to express his
thoughts.
"I would ask him where his
statements came from," Rose said. "I
don't believe they are true. But he's
a man and has an opinion."
by Ken Sugiura
Daily Basketball Writer
NEW ORLEANS - Thirty-one
points per game. It was the statistic
that everyone seemed to know.
Thirty-one points per game, of
course, was Kentucky's average
margin of victory in mauling its first
four opponents on its road to the Fi-
nal Four. The Wildcats laid waste to
Rider, 96-52, hammered Utah, 86-
65, pummeled Wake Forest, 103-69,
and in the Southeast regional final,
thwarted Florida State.by a 106-81
count.
How could anyone conceivably
stop this thunder-and-lightning at-
tack? Would anyone be able to de-
fend the Southeast region's Most
Outstanding Player, Travis Ford?
The 5-foot-9 mighty mite had
dropped 13 three-pointers for a .591
percentage. He raked the Deamon
Deacons by going 10-for-11 from
the floor, including 5-for-6 from
outside the three-point arc.
And how could Michigan stop
Kentucky's inside-outside scoring
maven Jamal Mashburn? The NBA-
bound 6-foot-8 rock had blitzed the
tournament field with nine treys of
his own, and a healthy 17.8 points
per game.
To reach New Orleans, Kentucky
coach Rick Pitino's mad bombers
had hoisted up 90 three-point at-
tempts, connecting on 42. By com-
parison, the Wolverines had tried
only 46 threes, hitting 17. What
could Michigan do to avoid the tor-
ment?
The oddsmakers seemed unable
to'find a suitable answer for any of
these questions, establishing the
Wildcats as a seven-point favorite.
"We were saying all along they
haven't faced a defense like ours,"
Michigan forward Ray Jackson said.
"Not too many teams have gotten an
awful lot of threes against us, and
we just came out and played our
normal defense and fought.
From the outset, the Michigan
defense put the brakes on the Wild-
cat run-and-gun offense. Constant
attention from the taller Michigan
guards, on the perimeter, particularly
Travis Ford, limited Kentucky's ef-
fectiveness. Defended by Jimmy
King and Jackson for much of the
game, Ford took only two three-.
point attempts in the first half, both
errant.
'They have an insider
outside game, where
they try to drive and
then kickout. We tried
to eliminate that and
make every three-poin
shot they took
contested Ji
---immy
Michigan guar
"It was obvious in the first hal
they were bodying me everywhere
went," Ford said.
Wildcat guard Jeff Bras
added: "Give them all the c
They took away the three-point sh
in the first half. I don't even tJhiu
Travis scored. They did a great jc
on him, and no one else could get
shot off either."
Ford finished the game 3-for-
from the field and 2-for-6 fro
three-point range for 12 points. -As
team, Kentucky fired 21 treys aun
WILDCATS
Continued from page 1
Tony Delk scored the last Ken-
tucky points on two free throws.
Michigan controlled the leaderless
team the rest of the way. Following
lay-ins by Jackson and Webber,
Rose sealed the game by making
two free throws with 21 seconds
remaining.
Earlier in the game it seemed
Kentucky's quickness would pose a
problem for the Wolverines. The
Wildcats had some of the fastest
hands Michigan has faced all year.
Kentucky's 11 steals tied the record
for NCAA semifinal games set last
year by Cincinnati, also against
'Webber and Howard
are definitely the
strongest guys I've
been up against this
year. They're a force
on the boards,
powerful underneath
and were a little too
much for us to handle
tonight.'
- Jared Prickett
Kentucky forward
However, Kentucky negated at
least part of its fast track advantage
when they rushed its shots, leading
to poor shots and more turnovers.
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