Men's Gymnastics vs. Penn State l ISaturday, 7 p.m. Cliff Keen Arena Si 'TS Women's Gymnastics vs. Western Michigan Tomorrow, 7 p.m. Cliff Keen Arena Tough season gets worse for Wolverines All-too-common lapses costly in Wolverine's eleventh straght loss By BRENT McINTOSH DAILY BASKETBALL WRITER Everybody wants to make the great play, to be the crowd-pleaser and to earn five seconds on SportsCenter. Dazzling plays have become the norm in basket- ball today. But in the end, it is fundamentals that make a successful college hoops squad. It is passing, defense and rebounding. "In order to win, we need to do the little things, to play solid, fundamental basketball," became a clich6 among coaches long ago, and yet rarely a press UT conference goes by that the head coach URT at Generic State doesn't repeat those fabled words. a RESS wThey are favorites of Michigan women's basketball coach Trish Rob- erts; her players also are prone to re- peating them. The problem for the Wolverines is, they're prone not only to repeating Roberts' words - they have a tendency to repeat the mistakes she warns against. They forget to box out, lose track of scoring threats and commit mindless turnovers by forcing precarious passes. "That's plagued us all year, and it's something I'm really concerned about because at the beginning of the year, we felt that the more (Michigan's five freshmen) play, the better they'd get. But the more they play, they continue to make the same mistakes, and you just can't do that," Roberts said. "I can understand if they didn't have the experience, they weren't getting the playing time but they're getting the playing time. Ijust think it's mental - mental and lack of effort." Not that they do it all the time. The Wolverines often find themselves on the winning side of long stretches of solid play that could have come straight from Gene Hackman's Hickory team in Hoosiers. n Then, a minor error. A Wolverine forgets to box out, and the opponent gets a rebound and layup. Someone else gets flustered, and turns the ball over on the ensuing possession. Worried about the opponents' easy buckets, another Michigan player gets beat to the hole and nobody helps out. Another layup. Soon Michigan's on the wrong side of a big run, and then they're adding * other loss to their double-digit streak. Witness the breakdown in last night's 78-62 loss to Michigan State: with the clock reading 5:43 in the first half and Michigan leading 23-21, the 'Wolverines forgot the fundamentals that had kept them in the game and found themselves down 39-29 eight minutes later. Following that 12-point swing, the Spartans' lead was never threatened. Fundamental lapses keyed the Michigan collapse. The Wolverines played 20 seconds of tenacious defense on one possession See LAPSES, Page 8 Spartans' 78-62 win keeps Blue winless in confernce season By SCOTT BURTON DAILY BASKETBALL WRITER Michigan's Shimmy Gray couldn't miss in the first half. Teammate Amy Johnson lit it up in the second half. Unfortunately for the Wolverines, Michigan State's Kisha Kelly had them both beat and led her Spartans to a 78- 62 victory last night at Crisler Arena. Kelly, slashing and burning her way to what seemed like an endless supply of uncontested layups, scored 29 points on 12-16 shooting. She overwhelmed Michigan with her unmatchable speed, scoring by posting-up, breaking on tran- sition and driving to the hole. "We were running our offense and executing well," Kelly said. "We were getting shots that we wanted to take, not shots they were making us take." The two intrstate rivals couldn't have left the floor with more diverging attitudes. Michigan State (5-4Big Ten, 10-8) heads into the second-half of Big Ten play with its first road victory of the conference season and its. third straight overall. "I think this was a good win for us," Spartan coach Karen Langeland said. "We had some good play from our starters." As for Michigan (0-10, 3-16 over- all), itsawitslosing streakhit 11 and its frustration level perhaps hit a new peak. "I am very disappointed," Michi- gan coach Trish Roberts. "We didn't execute well. We didn't run our of- fense. We didn't defend the way we were supposed to defend." Michigan did stay close for most of the first-half, thanks mostly in part to Gray. She shot an unconscious 7-for-8 in the first 20 minutes for 16 points. Gray's textbook pump-fake and layup gave the Wolverines their first lead, 4-2. After finding her spot on the right side of the basket, she hit her next five shots, helping Michigan to a 19-17 lead. Amy Johnson's three-point play off a feed from Jennifer Kiefer gave Michi- gan its last lead of the game, 21-19, with 6:00 left in the half. In characteristic Michigan fash- ion, the Wolverines hit a mysterious mental lapse, and the Spartans took full advantage. Follwoingforward Silver Shellman removal from the floor late in the first half after getting the wind knocked out of her, the Spartans went on an 11-2 run to finish the half ahead, 32-25. "We did a poorjob of taking care of the basketball at the beginning of the game," Langeland said. "We slowed down a little bit after the first five, six minutes of the game and did a better job of being more patient with the offense." Johnson pulled Michigan within41- 34 in the second half, nailing a three- pointer followed by a driving jumper, but the Wolverines deteriorated soon after that. The defense lost a significant edge, and the Spartans blitzed Michi- gan with chippy hoop after chippy hoop during a 23-9 run, giving them a 71-48 lead. Kelly continued to be the Spartan's main catalyst, hitting 7-of-9 in the half for 17points. Pointguard Chris Powers also victimized the spotty Wolverine defense, nailing three three-pointers and slipping an eye-catching behind- the-back pass in transition to Kelly. Powers finished with a career-high 11 assists. "In the second half they scored layups, they ran the fast break and Kisha Kelly pretty much took over," Roberts said. "I just think it's a situa- tion where second half physically we get a little tired. We don't post up as strong inside. We don't move quite as quickly." MICHIGAN STATE (78) FO FT REB MIN M-A MAA 0-T A FPTS Place 31 5.7 0-2 0-0 5 1 13 Powers 38 7.13 0-0 0-111 0 17 Kelley, D. 27 1-3 34 1-3 1 1 5 Euler 32 3-7 0-0 0-2 5 1 6 Kelley, K. 32 12-15 5-6 3-10 0 4 29 Sanders 15 2-4 1-2 2-9 1 0 5 McMaster 9 0-0 1-2 1-2 0 1 1 Gray 7 1-3 0-0 2-4 0 0 2 Nelson 3 0-1 0-2 0-0 0 1 0 Burns 3 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 Smith 2 0-0 040 0-0 0 1 0= Collier 1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 Totals 200 31-53 10.18 10-33 23 9 78 FG%: 585. FT%.556. Three-point goals:6-8, .750 (Place 3-3, D. Kelley 3-4. Euler 0-1). Blocks: 0. Tunovers: 21 (Kelley 5, Powers 5, Euler 4, McMaster 3. Place 2. K. Kelley, Sanders). Steals: 11 (Kelley 5, Euler 3, Place 2, Sanders). Technical Fouls: none. MICHIGAN (62) Fe FT REB MIN M- M-A 4T A FPMS Kiefer 37 1-4 0-0 0.3 4 0 2 Johnson 35 9-18 1-3 3-4 10 4 22- Gray 36 12-17 0-0 2.5 0 2 24 Shelman 24 2-9 00 1-2 2 3 4- Brzezinski 27 310 0-0 6-11 3 4 6 Ross 24 1-3 0-0 1.4 1 1 12 DiGlacinto 17 1-3 0-0) 1-3 1 2 2 Totals 200 2944 1-3 14.32 2116 62 FG%: .453. FT%: .333. Three-poInt goals: 3-12, .250 (Johnson 3-. Kiefer 0.1, Ross 0-1, Sheilman 0.4). Blocks: 2 (Brzezinski 2). Turnovers: 23 (Kiefer 7. Johson 5, Brzezinski 3, Sheilman 3, Gray 2, Ross 2. DiGiacinto). Steals: 9 (Brzezinsiki 3, Ross 2, Gray. Johnson, Kiefer, Shellman). Technical Fouls: none. Michigan State......32 46 - 78 Michigan...............25 37- 62 At: Crisler Arena; A:786 MARY KOUKHAB/Daily Shimmy Gray hit 12-of-17 shots for 24 points against Michigan State last night in the Wolverines' 11th consecutive defeat. HOCKEY NOTEBOOK A little rest and relaxation for 'M' NCAHCEYLAES Ba JAESON ROSENFELD DAILY HOCKEY WRITER After a month of grueling hockey against tough conference foes Michi- gan State, Lake Superior State and Bowling Green, the Michigan hockey team has a well deserved week off. The Wolverines, who return to :tction Feb. 18-19 with games against Miami and the Spartans, are enjoying :heir second off-weekend of the sea- son. The first came just a week into :he season, Oct. 22-23. "It's nice to get away from the rink a little bit, take care of ourselves and relax a little bit," captain Brian Wiseman said. Additionally, the break gives the Mayers a chance to hit the books. "We all have a lot of homework ight now with midterms coming up," orward Ron Sacka said. "This will pve us a chance to get a little bit ihead." NCAA rules prohibit hockey :eams from conducting official prac- ices during this off week, but the Wolverines are still holding "captain's practices," - shorter, informal work- outs run without coach Red Berenson. BACK AND BADDER THAN EVER: Forward Ryan Sittler returned to action last Friday against Kent State, after missing all of January due to a knee injury. Wasting no time getting back in the scoring column, the sophomore notched assists on each of the Wol- verines first two goals. "Being out for so long and with the team doing so well, I really wanted to contribute," Sittler said. "So I was really excited." Sittler also missed five games ear- lier this year due to a shoulder injury suffered in Michigan's first CCHA contest of the season Oct. 29 against Bowling Green. NOT BAD FOR A COUPLE OF FRESH- MEN: With seven-regular season games remaining, first-year players Brendan Morrison and Jason Botterill are threatening a pair of CCHA records. Morrison, who has 18 goals on the season, needs only eight more tallies to tie former Wolverine Chris Seychel for the conference freshman goal- scoring record. Botterill's 16 goals put him ten off the mark. Morrison's 39 total points put him 13 points away from Michigan State alum and Chicago Blackhawk for- ward Joe Murphy's freshman point scoring record. Botterill, who has 32 points, would have to go on a scoring binge to match Murphy's record. AIR TIME FOR FUTURE WOLVER- INE: Michigan fans will have a chance to see hockey recruit Matt Herr when he appears on ESPN's "Scholastic Sports America" Monday at 3:30 p.m. The ESPN crew was to shoot Herr playing in a game for the show, but inclement weather caused them to arrive in the second period. Herr scored a hat trick in the first period but failed to score the rest of the contest. Total Points 1. David Oliver, Mich. 2. Brian Wiseman, Mich. 3. Dean Fedorchuk, UAF Total Goals 1. Dean Fedorchuk, UAF 2. Mike Knuble, Mich. 3. Jay McNeill, Colorado Total Assists 1. Brian Wiseman, Mich. 2. David Oliver, Mich. 3. Tavis MacMillan, UAF Power Play Goals 1. Mike Knuble, Mich. 2. Dean Fedorchuk, UAF 3. David-OlIver, Mich. Goals Against Average 1. Aaron Israel, Harvard 2. Steve Shields, Mich. 3. 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