U be djicwun &tdlg
Icers score first-round knockout
By John Leroi
Daily Sports Editor
There wasn't much the Redskins could do to
stop Michigan. Fate just wasn't on their side.
And the Wolverines were on a roll.
Miami (Ohio) put up a good fight, but in the
end, the Redskins' effort fell far short of halting
Michigan's march to the CCHA semifinals.
The No. 4 Wolverines (29-7-2) held off Mi-
ami (10-22-4), 3-0, Saturday, following a con-
vincing 5-1 victory a day earlier fora first-round
sweep in the CCHA Tournament.
The Wolverines' sweep - their seventh
straight in first-round action - earns them a
semifinal berth against Michigan State at Joe
Louis Arena in Detroit Friday.
As it turned out, Michigan, the No. 2 seed in
the tournament, may have had the best draw of
any team in the league. Eighth-seeded Ohio
State took top-seed Lake Superior to overtime,
Friday, before bowing out. The Spartans needed
three games to get by seventh-seeded Ferris
State, and Bowling Green upset the No. 4 seed,
Western Michigan.
The sweep essentially guarantees the Wolver-
ines a berth in the NCAA Tournament.
"Our goal was to get to the Joe," Michigan
coach Red Berenson said. "Now we have a
bigger job at hand."
The Wolverines were never in grave danger of
losing control. However, they didn't exactly
impress anyone - including themselves in
Saturday's shutout.
Michigan was outshot for only the third time
all season, 28-26, including a gaping 11-5 mar-
gin in the first period, In fact, Miami controlled
the play and kept the puck in the Wolverines' end
for most of the first.
Michigan goalie Marty Turco kept Michigan
in the game when the Wolverine defense didn't.
"You hope that it doesn't have to happen this
way, but Marty Turco was the difference in this
game," Berenson said. "He hasn't had to, in
many games, but he can do it.
"It was fortunate that we scored goals right
after Marty had made a good save or two. They
had good chances."
It was the first time since Turco turned aside
34 shots against Maine Oct.26 that the Wolver-
ines really relied on its All-CCHA netminder to
win a game for them. The Wolverines had good
offensive and defensive games in that outing -
something that wasn't apparent Saturday.
The Michigan defense surrendered more than
a handful of giveaways and allowed a few odd-
man rushes as well.
"We didn't do exactly what we wanted to do
defensively and we didn't really have a good
game," Turco said. "That's not to say I didn't
feel good in my game, but in the end, we're not
really satisfied with the way we played.
"(The Redskins) were thinking they were
going to lose and they didn't want to embarrass
themselves and go back to their university with
their heads down."
See ICERS, Page 6B
Jason Botterill and Bill Muckalt celebrate as Michigan defeats Miami (Ohio) Saturday.
Michigan 65, Wisconsin 5
'Th4 year M'
may enyoy /w
ance more
o, Dick Bennett, how do you really feel?
"I'm not even going to pretend I'm
dealing with it particularly well."
No, the Wisconsin men's basketball coach
was not talking about being named Dick. In
fact, Bennett was depressed because his team's
performance against Michigan Saturday was,
well...
"Rattled, unskilled,
unsound," Bennett said.
And why? Did the Badgers
just have a collective bad
day'?
"You have to give
Michigan credit. Their
defense took us out of
everything. They played
MICHAEL great, great defense."
ROSENBERG That's right. Michigan
ses are forced an opponent out of its
Read game Saturday night. The
Wolverines grabbed the
Badgers by the neck (not
literally) and wouldn't let go, not until they had
Ohoked the game out of Wisconsin.
:What? You didn't think these Wolverines could
play like that?
Of course they can. They just usually don't.
But against Wisconsin, they did.
"We hung our hat with some good defense
today," Michigan coach Steve Fisher said. "I like
how we're playing. Hopefully we can make it
ntinue to happen."
That's why you have to love Steve Fisher: He
not only summed up my point, he brought me to
my next one.
The tournament.
It doesn't have to be one and out this year.
If you were taking a bathroom break and missed
Michigan's last NCAA Tournament appearance,
See ROSENBERG, Page 8B
Mich rolls
over Wisconsin
By Brent McIntosh
Daily Sports Editor
Three shots make this much of a
difference?
The Michigan Wolverines made 16
field goals Jan. 3 and lost at Wisconsin;
Saturday, they converted 19 shots from
the floor - and won, 65-51.
The three extra hits probably don't
explain the turnaround, though a glance
at the stat sheet might shed some light
on the situation.
Hitting 23 of 33 free throws - com-
pared to 7-of-12 for Wisconsin and 10-
of-17 during the January meeting -
didn't hurt the Wolverines (10-8 Big
Ten, 20-I 1 overall). Neither did cutting
their turnovers from 22 in January to
nine this weekend. And it certainly
didn't harm the Wolverines that -Wis-
consin (8-10, 16-14) hit exactly zero 3-
pointers Saturday, six less than they did
in Madison.
The Badgers bombed away, missing
all nine of their long-range attempts in
firing 55 shots to Michigan's 42; but it
was all for naught as the Wolverines
harried them into tough shots.
"It was a credit to their perimeter
defense," Badger coach Dick Bennett
said. "It was very disappointing."
Disappointing - just like the Wol-
verines planned it. They forced Wis-
consin into 15 turnovers, blocked six
shots, and had five steals, some of those
while holding the Badgers to nine first-
half rebounds. Why the defensive ef-
fort in a game that had no Big Ten title
implications?
"We were playing with our backs
against the wall," Bullock said.
Indeed the Wolverines were. With
Minnesota's Saturday win over Illinois,
Michigan needed the win to remain in
fifth place in the Big Ten. Had they lost.
the NCAA tournament mightwell have
been out of reach.
"We won a very, very, very critical
game," Fisher said.
That critical game earned them a cov-
eted tournament berth. The Wolverine:
will face Texas Friday in Milwaukee.
It certainly didn't look like the Wol-
verines were headed onto the floor for
the Big Dance when they first took or
Wisconsin in January. They managec
only three dismal second-halffield goals
in that matchup.
"I told them before the game, 'Learr
from the first Wisconsin game: We
dominated in the first half and then
came out and were soft in the second,"
Fisher said.
The Wolverines weren't exactly har(
in the second half Saturday, but the
outscored Wisconsin, 29-28, enought(
keep the Badgers - and the tourna-
ment pickers - at bay. Unlike the Wis-
consin team that outscored the Wolver-
ines, 32-17, in January's second half
this week's Badgers were unable to cut
the Michigan lead to single figures.
"That was the Wisconsin team we've
seen about half of the year," Bennet
said.
Inhabitants of Crisler Arena were
also treated to the Albert White we'v.
seen about half of the year. The fresh-
man forward shot only 1-of-5 from the
floor, but hit seven of nine free throws
blocked two Wisconsin attempts.
grabbed four rebounds and dunked over
two Badgers off a 2-on-3 fast-break lob
from Travis Conlan.
"If you look at the stats from Indiani
to now, put all those stats together.
Albert's our best player," Fisher said.
See BADGERS, Page 9E
Michigan center Maceo Baston dunks home two of his 13 points against Wisconsin Saturday.
Tears and tnumph mark df
ordeal of1996 US Olympic tria
mom
NDIANAPOLIS - They are
trials of tears and triumph.
Athletes come to compete at the
MSS. Olympic swimming trials, but
they will do much more before they
leave. They will shake, sweat,
scream, pace, laugh and raise their
fists in glory.
:And, oh yes, they will cry.
There are droplets of pure joy
sometimes. UCLA's Annette
Salmeen, an Ann Arbor native who
trains with Michigan in the summer,
uldn't help it. She cried and waved
the fans after she surprised
everyone and qualified for the
Olympic team Thursday.
Most of the time, however, there is
pain. The moistness is hidden behind
a pair of goggles, put away for some
private moment in the corner of the
Michigan's Anne Kampfe probably
wanted to cry after she finished fourth
in the 400-meter individual medley
Wednesday
S - n night. But she
couldn't, at least
in public. There
were too many
friends, team-
mates and fans
watching.
Kampfe's
COTSONIKA teammate, Talor
CT GrekBendel, was
The Greek disappointed as
Speaks well. So was
former Wolver-
ine Eric Wunderlich. They both had
chances to make the team, but
anything after second place just isn't
good enough at the trials.
have one shot," said Michigan men's
swimming coach Jon Urbanchek.
"That's a small window. You have
one day out of four years to perform
your best. If you don't place first or
second, you watch the Olympics on
TV."
Very few will get to-experience
Atlanta firsthand.
Trials of tears and triumph.
The Olympic trials are a meet of
paradoxes. The trials twist guts and
souls. They reshape priorities,
perverting the true meaning of the
sport in order to sort out a few from
the rest of the best.
The best swimmers don't always
make it. Personal best times aren't
always satisfying. Where an athlete
finishes is more important than how
he or she swam.
Hulk
Michigan capi
By Nicholas J. Cotsonika
Daily Sports Editor
teven Halko seems more like a
teacher than a dominant
defenseman. He has all of his
teeth. He can complete a sentence. He
wears glasses most of the time.
Nobody mumbles dumb jock jokes
when Halko walks into a classroom.
Unlike most of his teammates, he
doesn't wear his nice Nike sweats or
Michigan athletic gear to stand out
on campus.
"Some people, even after
I've known them for awhile,
don't know I'm on the ;
hockey team," Halko says.F
SHockey 101
tain leads Wolverines by teaching
his brand of hockey
you in your history lecture. He wants
to teach math some day. He's just
another student who is quietly
working his way through school. You
mght even ask to
borrow his notes,
Rforgetting that
he's an athlete,
someone you'd
probably expect
to skip class.
But Steven
Halko doesn't
skip. Not
classes. Not
hockey
games.
morning - and he never sits out of
competition.
Halko didn't skate in the first game
of his college career. Since then, he
hasn't missed a single contest. He
played in his 157th straight game -
his final one at home - Saturday :
night.
"He's been rock-solid for us,"
Michigan coach Red Berenson says.
"Game in and game out, he's working
hard to help our team."
That's important to the Wolverines:
because, though Halko is a student of
the ice, he is a teacher on it.
When Michigan freshman Bubba
Berenzweig made his recruiting visit
to- Ann Arhnrr ]act veer Rrensnn tnlu.