The Michigan Daily - SPORTSMonday - Monday, February_14, 1994 - 5

BASKETBALL NOTEBOOK

Johnson earns rave
reviews for 31 points

By BOB ABRAMSON
DAILY SPORTS WRITER
MADISON - Coaches around
the Big Ten can't stop raving about
freshman Amy Johnson. Give her
time, they say, and she is going to be
a fine player.
Johnson has shown flashes of bril-
liance, scoring 24 points against
Purdue and 22 against Indiana.
Friday, Johnson showed the col-
lege basketball world signs of her
potential. Johnson excelled in both
halves, canning 10 points in the first
half, and pouring in 21 in the second,
for a single-season, team-high of 31
points.
"She's one of the top five players
in the league," Wisconsin guard
Sharon Johnson said. "She's a player
with heart. Regardless of how much
her team is down, I think she is going
to give 150 percent, if not more. I
admire her for that."
Her teammates have been waiting
for Johnson to explode all season.
"This is the Amy Johnson that
beats everybody in practice," Michi-
gan captain Shimmy Gray said. "She
has shown that she can play in spurts,
but it is the first game that she has
done it for 40 minutes on both ends of
the court."
LOsING snis: The season is be-
ginning to take its toll on the seven
Michigan players, not only physically,
but mentally. Nobody said losing 12
games in a row would be easy for such
a young squad.
Slamming the ball down on the

court and crying -after games have
become commonplace lately with this
squad.
"It's pretty frustrating, and I think
it come out a lot in our actions," Gray
said.
"We try to keep it contained within
ourselves, but it's hard. Especially
since we are so young. The young
ones, they are not as composed as
seven seniors would be. We are still
trying to stay positive"
"It's a situation whe e nobody likes
to lose," Roberts said.
MORE TURNOVERS, PLEASE: Wis-
consin averages 25 turnovers a game.
Of the five games that the Badgers
have turned the ball over more than
thirty times, they have won four and
lost one.
That loss came at the hands of
Minnesota back on Jan. 9. Wisconsin
committed a whopping 36 turnovers
in the 89-84 loss to the Gophers.
When asked about the 29 turn-
overs her team committed in the vic-
tory over Michigan, Wisconsin player
Barb Franke replied jokingly, "We've
got to keep our reputation up. We're
leading the Big Ten in that category."
BOMBS AWAY: The Wolverines shot

7 of 17 from three-point land Friday,
an impressive 41 percent from the
field. Johnson launched 10 three-
pointers, connecting on four of them.
The Michigan squad, which broke
the old mark of 68 three-pointers in a
season against Minnesota on Jan. 30,
continues to add to the record. The

Wolverines have now made 85 three,
pointers on the season.
CHEESE HATERS: Friday's loss to
Wisconsin was Michigan's seventh
loss in a row to the Badgers. The
Wolverines haven't beaten the Bad-
gers since a 90-69 victory in January
of 1991.

Games played are through Feb. 13
TEAM CONFERENCE

OVERALL

Penn State
Purdue

10
10

1 .909
1 .909

Iowa

8 3 .727
5 5 .500

Minnesota
Michigan State
Indiana
Wisconsin
Ohio State
Northwestern
Illinois
Michigan

5
5

5
5

.500
.500

19
19
15
12
10
14
12
11
12
7
3

1 .950
3 .864"
4 .789
7 .632
9 .526
5 .737
8 .600
9 .550
7 .632,

5 6 .455
4 6 .400
4 6 .400
2 9 .182
0 11 .000

13
17

.350
.150

Amy Johnson scored 31 points Friday, but the Wolverines still lost to
Wisconsin, 75-64.

Over-hyped Kerrigan-Harding
.saga remains in Olympic limelight

THE BALTIMORE SUN
LILLEHAMMER, Norway - It
is out of control. There are four books
published, with one on the way. There
are payoffs from "Inside Edition" and
"Hard Copy," dueling interviews with
Connie Chung and Diane Sawyer,
live appearances on Court TV and a
movie deal with Disney.
And you thought the Bobbitts were
at the cutting edge of tabloid-mania?
Skategate is big.
It's Michael Jackson, Joey
Buttafuoco and the Menendez broth-
ers wrapped into one.
It has everything, including sex,
lies and videotape. Oh, and there are
also FBI transcripts. Even Las Vegas
is taking bets on this baby. There
fever has been a sports story like the
Kerrigan-Harding affair. What started
as a simple case of felony assault at a
national skating championship in
Detroit on Jan. 6 has escalated into a
national obsession.
The knee-bashing of Nancy
Kerrigan - and the allegation that
her rival Tonya Harding somehow
was involved in the attack - has
aptured a country's imagination.
And don't think for a minute that
CBS, the television network of the
Winter Games, hasn't taken notice.
"If this story doesn't have sex,
then it has got violence," said Rick
Gentile, senior vice president of pro-
duction for CBS Sports. "If it doesn't
have violence, it has jealousy. It has a
lot of made-for-TV-movie kind of
elements. All Los Angeles did was
#ave an earthquake. There was noth-
ing sexy about that."
Kerrigan-Harding is a story with
legs.
It outlasted the earthquake,
Whitewater and the State of the Union
address.
For goodness sakes, Jackson even

settled his case out of court.
But not Kerrigan and Harding.
Millions of dollars are at stake in
the race for the Olympic gold, worth
up to $10 million over the next four
years for an American winner.
Already, though, some nine days
before the first woman even takes the
ice in the Olympic technical program,
hundreds of thousands'of dollars have
exchanged hands.
Harding reportedly received be-
tween $300,000 and $675,000 for her
recent two-night appearance on "In-
side Edition." If she got the higher
figure, she beat the Buttafuoco record.
Previously making the rounds of the
tabloid shows were Harding's former
husband, Jeff Gillooly, who pleaded
guilty to one charge of conspiracy in the
case; her ex-bodyguard, Shawn Eckardt;
alleged hit man Shane Stant; and al-
leged getaway driver Derrick Smith.
Chung and Sawyer have been trad-
ing interview scoops. Chung landed
Harding and her mother, a six-times-
married waitress. Sawyer swooped in
to get Kerrigan.
Friday, Court TV and CNN broad-
cast live the hearing of Harding's
request for a restraining order against
a U.S. Olympic Committee adminis-
trative board meeting.
Then there are the movie rights.
Within two days of the attack,
Kerrigan's representatives had re-
ceived 35 movie offers. After the count
reached 50, they eventually sold her
life story to Disney for a reported $1
million. The fee includes Kerrigan's
appearances in skating shows. CBS
settled for a smaller Kerrigan pack-
age for two prime-time specials.
"I guess we're way beyond Joe
DiMaggio," Gentile said. Clearly, this
is a new age of sports journalism. It's
almost frightening to consider what
modern journalism would do with

another DiMaggio-Marilyn Monroe
romance.
One thing is certain: There would
be a lot of action in the paperback
book division. Already, three Kerrigan
biographies have hit the market, and
one Harding book is out.
"This is like Wrestlemania on ice,"
said Wayne Coffey, co-author of the
book, "Dreams of Gold: The Nancy
Kerrigan Story."
Coffey and his fellow New York
Daily News writer Filip Bondy wrote
the 30,000-word book in four days.
St. Martin's Press rushed 200,000
copies into print. Coffey's brother,
Frank, and Joseph Layden countered
with a book of their own -"Thin Ice:
The Complete Uncensored Story of
Tonya Harding."
"Just when you think the story is
petering out, something else happens,
and it's back on the front page,"
Wayne Coffey said.
Consider: the attack and the vid-
eotaped aftermath of Kerrigan scream-
ing, "Why me?"
The arrests of the alleged partici-
pants. The confessions. The arrest of
the ex-husband. The astonishing per-
formance by tie ex-husband's attor-
ney, who all but convicted Harding in
a news conference.
And the equally astonishing tale
of how the story leaked out: a sex-
telephone operator, in contact with
the father of the bodyguard, notified
the Detroit police.
And don't forget the FBI tran-
scripts, which detailed that the al-
leged plotters briefly considered hir-
ing a sniper to shoot Kerrigan.
"You've got a true crime story,"
Frank Coffey said. "You've got the
gang that couldn't shoot straight and
an attack on Snow White. This is
about the ugliest thing to happen in
sports. Forever."

WOMEN
Continued from page 1
The Badgers were already in the
bonus with 12 minutes left in the half,
and both Gray and Brzezinski had
two fouls by the ten minute mark. By
the time the half had concluded, Wis-
consin was 9-fo-13 from the stripe,
while Michigan was a mere 1-for-2.
Wisconsin's 36-21 halftime lead
could have been *much larger had it
not wasted numerous fast-break op- r
portunities. The Badgers converted
only eight of 20 fast breaks, many of
which were blown by Barb Franke,
who threw in nine for the half.
"We could of put the game away a
lot earlier," Franke said. "We just
missed some really easy bunny shots.
Michigan wasn't really contacting us
in the first half."
Michigan's guard trio of Kiefer,
Ross and Johnson combined for eigh-
teen of the team's 21 points in the first
half, in which Michigan shot a mere
25 percent.
Wisconsin had four players in
double figures. Franke led the Bad-
gers with 17 points and nine boards,
while Dolly Rademaker tossed in 13. ;
Katie Voight and Sharon Johnson
added 12 and 10 points, respectively,
to the Badger victory.

MICHIGAN (64)
FQ FT REB
MIN M-A M-A O4 A FPIS
Johnson 38 11-25 5-6 4.6 2 4 31
Brzezinski 17 2-4 0-0-2 0 5 4
Gray 30 2-8 3-6 5-13 2 5 7
Kiefer 32 3-11 1-2 1-2 3 3 8
Shellman 24 1-8 2-2 1-7 1 4 5
DiGiacinto 29 0-4 2-4 2-6 1 3 2
Ross 30 2-9 2-3 2-2 1.4. 7
Totals 200 219 1523 1742 1028 -64
FQ%:.304. FT%: .652. Three-pont goals: 7-17,
.412 (Johnson 4-10, Ross 1-1, Shellman 1-2,
Kiefer 1-4). Blocks: 0. Turnovers: 24 (Kiefer 8.
DiGiacinto 5, Shellman 4, Gray 3. Johnson 2,
Brzezinski, Ross). Steals: 13 (Gray 7, DiGiacinto
2, Brzezinski, Johnson, Ross, Shellman).
Technical Fouls: none.
WISCONSIN (75)
FQ FT REB
MIN M-A U-A O-T A F PTS
Williams 25 0,2 7-8 2-8 1 3 7
Franke 33 7-12 3-7 2-9 0 3 17
Winkler 25 2-9 2-3 49 2 3 6
Rademaker 24 4-10 3.5 2-6 4 2 13
Voigt 33 3-5 4-4 1-6 4 2 12
Johnson 26 4-10 2-3 .0-1 1 1 10
Cattanach 14 1-2 0-1 0-4 0 1 3
Burkholder 20 2-3 3-3 0-2 1 3 7
Dillon 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1 0
Totals 200 23-53 2434 1348 1319 75
FG%: .434. FT%: .706. Three-point goals: 5.11,
.455 (Voigt 2-2, Rademaker 2-5, Cattanach 1.2,
Johnson 01, Winker 0-1). Blocks: 5 (Franke 3,
Williams, Winkler). Turnovers: 29 (Burkholder 7,
Voigt 7, Franke 4, Williams 4, Rademaker3,
Winkler 2. Cattanach, Johnson). Steals:8
(Burkholder 2, Johnson 2,nCattanach, Franke,
Voigt, Williams). Technical Fouls: none.
Michigan........ 21 43 - 64
Wisconsin.. 36 39 - 75
At: UW Fieldhouse
A: 1,545

MARY KOUKHAB/Daily
The Michigan women's basketball team stretched its losing streak to
twelve and remained winless in the Big Ten with a loss this weekend.


Women's tennis finds youthful leaders
Popek, Jankovic show the way in split with Indiana, Ohio State

By RYAN CUSKADEN
FOR THE DAILY
When thinking of heroes, one tends to
picture the timeless image of a stoic senior
captain, mature and ready for any chal-
lenge, no matter what the cost, and any
opponent, big or small. This was not the
case for the Michigan women's tennis team
this weekend.
Sophomore Angie Popek and freshmen
Bojana Jankovic and Sarah Cyganiak led
the charge for the Wolverines in their week-
e~nd snlit against Inia1ina and(Ohio State.

supposed high school senior did not play as
if she just moved to a new level.
Popek (4-0), who hasn't competed for
an entire semester because of a serious
illness, was the only Wolverine to go unde-
feated in all four of her weekend matches.
Against Indiana, she teamed with Jankovic
to defeat one of the best doubles team in the
Big Ten.
"(Popek) had a great day (Saturday)."
Michigan coach Bitsy Ritt said. "She played
outstanding singles, and played really well
in doubl~es.It waia ue.huge wuin."

showed Indiana that we are contenders."
After a hard-fought battle with Indiana,
Michigan went into its meet with Ohio State
with heightened confidence. This helped
guide the Wolverines to their eventual tri-
umph.
Popek led the way with a 6-4, 6-4 defeat
of the Buckeyes' Linda Magid. She then
paired with Jankovic for a gruelling 6-1, 6-
7(3-7), 7-5 victory over Buckeyes Michelle
Busch and Kerry Singer.
Co-captain Liz Cyganiak and her sister,
Sa2rah uwere nuick to follouj bath schnn1inc

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