SPORTSMonday TrMa When was the last time the Purdue men's basketball team won the Big Ten title? (Answer, page 2) i g Inside SPORTSMonday Lacrosse Close But No Sugiura Men's Basketball Women's Basketball Wrestling Men's Track Hockey Men's Gymnastics Women's Gymnastics Men's Tennis "Nt NPw 2 3 4 4 5 5 6 8 8 8 *Boilermakers steal big one from Blue, 95-94 Wolverines lacking on *defensive end of late When the United States government formulates its budget for any fiscal year, the largest chunk of money goes to defense. Billions and billions of dollars are spent to serve and protect. Any time defense spending is trimmed, critics from all over say, "You can't cut more. You're threatening national security." While the Michigan men's basketball team does not receive money from the men and women in Washington D.C., it has had its own share of defense cuts lately, endangering its NCAA tournament security. The Wolverines, who had been playing their best defense in the Fab Five/Four era this season, have slacked off recently in guarding the opposition. Last Thursday, Wisconsin connected on 54 percent of its shots in downing Michigan. Yesterday, Purdue made 32 of 60 field goals - a success rate of 53 percent - . its 95-94 win over the Wolverines. Giving up 95 points is one indication of Michigan's poor effort on defense, but the percentage CHAD A. will trouble Steve Fisher just as much as the SAFRAN heartbreaking loss. Safrancisco Every Boilermaker made half of his shots with the Treat exception of Glenn Robinson, who sank 11 of 24. The most thankful Purdue player had to be Cuonzo Martin. The junior guard/forward must have thought he was at a pregame shoot around with the number of uncontested looks he had at the basket. Martin hit five of nine treys - four of six in the second half - and all from the same distance. The postgame play-by-play read "Martin jumper right (and left) 21 feet" over and over again. He launched rocket after rocket from the corners without a hand in his face. In one sequence he missed a three only to harness the rebound and connect on his next attempt. On both shots, not a single Michigan player *was near Martin. A fair shooter will connect without anyone in his face. Martin is in the top five in conference three-point success. Surely any player is entitled to his day in the zone, but the Wolverines concentrated so.much on stopping Robinson that they forgot about the See SAFRAN, Page 4 Robinson's 37 points leads Purdue past 'M' By BRETT FORREST DAILY BASKETBALL WRITER The Purdue men's basketball team balanced the Big Ten scales yester- day against Michigan at Crisler Arena. Boilermaker junior Glenn Robinson scored the game's final five points to beat the Wolverines, 95-94, and put his team a half-game ahead of Michi- gan in the race for the Big Ten title. In the teams' Feb. 1 meeting, Michigan (12-4 Big Ten, 20-6 over- all) came from behind to beat Purdue (13-4,25-4),63-62, in West Lafayette. "I think we stole one back," Purdue guard Matt Waddell said. "They got one from us they shouldn't have. We got one from them we shouldn't have. That's what the Big Ten's all about." With 2:31 remaining in yesterday's game, Michigan owned an eight-point lead, 92-84. After a Waddell jumper and a Robinson three-point play, Michigan was up one point with 49 seconds left. Wolverine swingmah Jalen Rose then missed from three-point territory, but Ray Jackson grabbed the rebound. Michigan held the ball, trying to force Purdue to foul. The Boilermakers chose not to foul, and with 10 seconds to go, Rose threw an errant pass to Jimmy King that sailed out of bounds. "I made a bad decision," Rose said. "I could have kept dribbling the ball without a problem. Mistakes like that happen." Purdue came out of its huddle ready to inbound the ball, but was forced to call two timeouts, and Michi- gan called one of its own. "The play we had drawn up," Purdue's Cuonzo Martin recalled, "they had every angle covered." After the three stoppages, Martin inbounded the ball to Robinson, who powered his way through Rose from the top of the key to the basket, scor- ing two. The bucket gave Purdue its first lead for good, and its first since the start of the second half. "We were going to get the ball in the right person's hands," Boilermaker coach Gene Keady said. "We just said we got to get the ball to Glenn." Robinson finished with a game- high 37 points and toppled Michigan for the first time in his career. "I said Iwanted the ball," Robinson said. "All the games we lost (this season) we had the opportunity to win. I was taking the shot all along - I wasn't passing." After Robinson canned his final shot with six seconds left and Michi- gan called a timeout, the Wolverines inbounded and got the ball to Rose. The junior passed to sophomore Dugan Fife, who missed a trey. Rose See PURDUE, Page 4 Wolverine guard Jalen Rose goes up for a basket over Purdue's Justin Jennings in yesterday's 95-94 loss to the Boilermakers at Crisler Arena. Bormet takes first, Michigan fourth at Big Tens in Iowa City By BARRY SOLLENBERGER DAILY SPORTS WRITER IOWA CITY -History was made yesterday at the 80th annual Big Ten wrestling championships. The Michigan wrestling team, however, only watched its formation. Iowa won its 21st consecutive Big Ten championship with a team score of 118 for the two-day tournament. The 21 straight titles established a new conference record for any sport, surpassing the 20 straight titles the Indiana men's swimming team won between 1961 and 1980. "It (the record) is fantastic. He (Iowa coach Dan Gable) is achieving what has never been achieved be- fore," Wolverine coach Dale Bahr said. Michigan finished fourth in the tournament with a team score of 65.5. Second-ranked Minnesota was sec- ond (104.25) and third-ranked Penn State finished third (85.75). Bahr, however, was pleased with his team's performance, considering the adversity the Wolverines dealt with during the regular season. "We struggled throughout this sea- son, of course, and its kind of nice to finish fourth in the Big Ten," Bahr said. "Because of the amount of inju- ries we had, we knew there was no way we could have challenged these guys (Iowa, Minnesota and Penn State)." Michigan qualified five wrestlers ,for the national championships held March 17-19 in Chapel Hill, N.C - seniors Sean Bormet, Steve King, Brian Harper, Chad Biggert and sophomore Jesse Rawls, Jr. The Wolverines were led by the All-American Bormet, who success- fully defended his title in the 158- pound championship by defeating Dan Wirnsberger of Michigan State by tiebreaker in the final. It was the third time this season that Bormet had defeated Wirnsberger in overtime. "It's nice to win the Big Tens. It's the toughest wrestling conference in the country, but it still doesn't (com- pare) with an NCAA title," Bormet said. Bormet reached the finals by de- feating Ernest Benion of Illinois, Penn State's Tony Griffin and Zac Taylor of Minnesota by scores of 7-3, 11-5 and 8-1, respectively. With the victory over Wirnsberger in the final, Bormet ran his season record to 27-1. Michigan also got a strong perfor- mance out of Rawls. Wrestling for the first time since injuring his left knee in an 8-4 loss to Michigan State's Erich Harvey Jan. See WRESTING, Page 5 AP PHOTO Michigan's Brian Harper wrestles against Iowa's Lincoln Mcllravy at the Big Ten Championships last weekend. *Icers suffers surprising loss to Fems at home Back with a vengeance .W JOHNSON him by critiquing his papers. OTS WRITESharp's commitment helps "A lot of the problem earl NO marks of a great the year was with the nrtv By PAUL BARGER DAILY HOCKEY WRITER The unthinkable has happened. After a season filled with team triumphs and individual accolades, the Michigan hockey team (24-5-1 GCCHA, 29-6-1 overall) has hit a low Wat the worst possible time. With the CCHA playoffs beginning in less than a week, the team has lost four of its last five contests. The final game of the regular sea- son Saturday brought about one of the most surprising defeats Michigan has, endured, in a long time - 6-2 at the hands of Ferris State (12-17-1, 13-22- 1). The loss came one night after the *Wolverines had ended a three-game losing streak by winning at Bowling Green, 2-1. Michigan never led in the season finale against the Bulldogs and did not play its best hockey until after coach Red Berenson pulled the 2 hockey game, it was much closer. I'm not kidding myself." The tone for the evening was set when Michigan's Mike Stone inad- vertently pushed the puck past goaltender Steve Shields for Ferris's first goal of the evening. From then on it was all downhill. Michigan was able to tie the game at 1-1 before the end of the first pe- riod, but Ferris regained the lead early in the second and did not relinquish it. The Wolverines, accustomed to outplaying their opponents in the third period, were thoroughly beaten in the final 20 minutes. "It let us know that we can play with Michigan," Daniels said. "It is another stepping stone for our team." The only thing that the loss affects is Michigan's mindset heading into the crucial part of the season. The CCHA regular-season title has been wrapped up for a long time so pride By BRE DAILY SPO lier in w ".v- championship fighter are commitment and the ability to come back from adversity. If a fighter is knocked down, he gets right back up and goes after his opponent even harder than he did before. Michigan men's swimmer Royce Sharp is a fighter. He has battled adversity many times during his 21 years and has come back stronger in every instance. As he gets ready for the NCAA Championships March 24-26 in Minneapolis, Royce will have overcome his most recent obstacle - an early-season bout with academic problems. Two months ago the sophomore was placed on temporary academic probation (he him in and out of the pool Ulu yu UL O WLLu U11 party atmosphere, and that is gone. The temptation isn't there anymore." Michigan coach Jon Urbanchek believes the situation might be the best thing that could have happened to Royce. Urbanchek told him not to worry about his swimming this year and to get his academic life back on track. He thinks this will be extremely beneficial in the long run. "The biggest joy for me was to see him turn around his academics," Urbanchek said. "He finally has a niche in this school where he can continue to pursue some sort of goal after swimming. "He's realized he has to have a degree, too, because there is no money in swimming - even if he' wins (an Olympic) gold medal. You're not going to get on a cereal W. rl lwg WIN 01- FA -IvA M' M ih{, '":;, y',;i:.;isi::: .:"::%::??$;^<;tii, ,;R :ti;S y v, r: .... "" G, ". 44Lirv. W.b }.v::'v:::::: v}.vA ,"