BASKETBALL

The Michigan Daily - SPORTSTuesday - Tuesday, January 16, 1996 - 5B

'M' finds home at State

{i

Cagers win fourth in five tries at B
By Paul Barger

Daily Sports Writer
EAST LANSING - Winning on
the road in the Big Ten is never easy.
Winning on the road with a team made
up of freshmen and sophomores is
even more difficult.
The young Wolverines quickly
learned how difficult conference road
victories are to come by after being
upset at Wisconsin in the Big Ten
opener. But after Saturday's impres-
sive victory at East Lansing, it appears
that the team has shaken its early sea-
son jitters.
Robert Traylor is a new, more con-
fident player and spent most of Satur-
day afternoon quieting the Spartan stu-
dent section. This was the first time the
big freshman traveled to Michigan
State, and he handled the pressure like
a veteran.
Fellow freshman Louis Bullock con-
tinued his outstanding play, hitting four
more 3-pointers. Both players were
generally unimpressed with their
rival's fans.
"It wasn't as bad as I thought it
would be," Bullock said. "We took the
crowd out of the game early."
In a series that has been marked in
recent years by down-to-the-wire
games, Saturday's blowout was a bit
of a surprise. The Spartans came into
the contest undefeated in the Big Ten
and playing very good basketball.
They also-had the imposing advan-
tage of the Breslin crowd. But neither
Michigan State's crowd nor their tal-
ent surfaced and Tom Izzo's squad
was embarrassed for 40 long minutes.
Ironically, it was not the Michigan
freshmen that were rattled, but a Spar-
tan senior. Center Jamie Feick was
miserable, going 2-of-10 from the field
for four points. He was a non-factor
from start to finish and was unable to
keep up with the three-headed monster
of Traylor. Maurice Taylor and Maceo
Baston.
There is a very simple formula for

It wasn't as bad
as I thought iR
would be. We took
the crowd out of
the game."
- Louis Bullock
Michigan basketball guard
on the Breslin Center crowd
winning a Big Ten title. A team can-
not afford to lose more than one or
two games at home and steal as many
as possible on the road.
Road victories in the conference
are not that common. However, the
Wolverines have had a surprising
amount of success in East Lansing.
In fact, Michigan has lost to Michi-
gan State on the road only once in the
past five seasons.
The generally relentless Spartan
fans love to heckle Michigan play-
ers, but it seems that the Wolverines
thrive on it. Saturday Traylor got
better and better as the fans got more
ruthless. After awhile, as the game
got out of hand, the crowd was no-
ticeably quiet and eventually the
small Michigan contingency was
louder than the home fans.
The intimidation was just never
there. The lack of home-crowd ex-
citement stemmed from the most lop-
sided victory the rivalry has seen in
seven years.
In 1989, the eventual national
champion Wolverines won in East
Lansing, 79-52.
Basically, there is lots oftalk about
the difficulty Michigan should have
at Michigan State and no substance
to it.
And as the Wolverines proved
again, their youth does not mean they


ireslin Center
play with fear.
When the Fab Five were freshman,
they went up East Lansing to play the
Spartans and came away with a thrill-
ing 89-79 overtime victory. The'confi-
dence the five freshmen played with
that day helped to refuel the rivalry.
The next season Michigan snatched a
73-69 victory and Jalen Rose angered'-
the Breslin crowd by stomping on the
'S' at center court.
Saturday's win just reinforced some-
thing that is becoming more and more
obvious. As good as the Spartans have
been at home in recent years, the one
team that they cannot seem to rattle is
their most hated opponent.
MICHIGAN (76)
FG FT REB
MIN M-A M-A -T A F PTS
Taylor 30 712 2-2 3-9 3 4 16
hite 21 1-9 0-0 3-5 1 4 2
aston 28 3.8 5-6 4-9 1 2 11
Conlan 31 2-4 4-4 0.5 5 0 9
3 ullock 24 4-8 0-0 1-4 2 3 12
eKuiper 1 0.0 0-0 0-0 0 -0 0
ife 22 0-2 2-2 1-1 0,1 2
itchell 18 4-7 2-2 1-3 0 2 13
orton 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Oliver 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0~
Szyndlar 1 00 0-0 0-00 0 0
Traylor 22 5.8 11 0-6 1 3
Totals- 200 26-58 16-17 13-42 1319 76
FG%: .448. FT%: .941. Three-point goals: 8-19,
421 (Mitchell -3-4, Bullock 4-6, Conlan 1-3, Fife,.
White 0-4). Blocks: 7 (Baston 3, Traylor 2,
iife, Mitchell). Turnovers: 17 (Baston 5, Traylor
4, White 3, Conlan 3, Mitchell, Oliver). Steals: 7
hTraylor 3. Conlan 2, Taylor, Fife). Technical
Fouls: none.
MICHIGAN STATE (54)
FG FT REB
MIN M-A M-A 0-T A F PTS
' rnith 20 2-5 1-2 0.0 1 2 5
(rooks 30 9-15 8-10 2-3 0 4 27
Feick 28 2-10 0-2 4-5 1 4 4
Kelley 31 1-5 0-0 0-3 3 1 2'
Weathers 29 3-10 2-2 1-2 1 3 10
M~ull 7 .0-0 0-0 0-1 10 0
lein 4 1-1 0-0 22 00 2-
espert 9 0-3 0-0 0-2 1 0 0
icodemus 2 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
eathea 19 2-5 0-0 0-1 1 1 4
aravaglia 20 0-7 0-0 3-8 3 3 0
'olonowski 1 0-0 '0-0 0-0 0 0 0~
Totals 200 20-62 11-16 14-30 1218 54
FG%:.323. FT%:.688. Three-point goals: 3-19,
!158 (Brooks 1-1. Weathers 2-6, Nicodemus 0-
1. Beathea 0-1, Garavaglia 0-1. Kelley 0-2,
espert 0-3, Feick 0-4) Blocks: 1 (Brooks).
Turnovers: 14 (Kelley 4. Smith 2, Feick 2.
Beathea 2. Brooks, Weathers, Mull, Klein).
steals: 5 (Brooks 3, Kelley, Garavaglia).I
Technical Fouls: none.
Michigan........31 45 -h-76
Michigan State...22 32 1154
At: Breslin Center; A: 15,138

Mlchgan State's Jon Garavaglia has his shot swatted by the Wolverines' Robert Traylor Saturday in East Lansing.

Wolverines enjoy success at charity stripe

By Barry Sollenberger
Daily Sports Editor
EAST LANSING - The Michigan
*01 verines are the
worst free throw

shooting team in
the Big Ten.
But you cer-
tainly wouldn't
know it from their
past two perfor-
mances.
The Wolver-
s, shooting just
percent from

Notebook'

foul line in those two games. "The
coaches have been focusing on that.
We're just trying to get better."
Spartan coach Tom Izzo wasn't
pleased that Michigan has suddenly
found its touch from the foul line.
"They are not a very good free throw
shooting team," Izzo said. "But they
made a lot of them at critical times."
THE DEEP BLUE: It's not surprising
that Michigan's bench outscored Michi-
gan State's reserves, 26-6, Saturday.
For the season, the Wolverines have
scored 379 points off the bench com-
pared to 261 points for opponents.
The key to Michigan's bench domi-
nance Saturday was Willie Mitchell.
The sophomore registered 13 points on
4-for-7 shooting from the field.
"I thought Willie did a nice job,"
Wolverine coach Steve Fisher said.
"He's at a stage for us where he knows
he doesn't have to go out there and do
something flashy just to get more play-
ing time."

Mitchell killed the Spartans with five
straight points midway through the sec-
ond half.
With the Wolverines up 15, he hit
two free throws to give his team a 48-31
lead with 13:23 left in the game. Less
than 30 seconds later, he buried a 3-
pointer and Michigan's lead was 51-31
with less than 13 minutes to play.
Izzo called time.
The Spartans were done.
DE-FENSE: Before Saturday, Michi-
gan ranked third in the conference in
opponents' field goal percentage, hold-
ing teams to 39.9 percent from the field.
In the Wolverines' 76-54 win, the Spar-
tans shot an anemic 32.3 percent (20 for
62).
"All and all, I'd have to credit
Michigan's defense," Izzo said. "That
is going to be a very good team."
Many would argue that the Wolver-
ines already are a good team - at least
defensively.
This season, only five teams have

shot better than 41 percent against
Michigan and only Duke Dec. 9 made
more than half of its shots (55.9 per-
cent).
STRONG BOARD wVORK: It hasn't been
particularly easy to keep the Wolver-
ines off the boards this year.
Michigan won the rebounding battle
over the Spartans, 42-30, Saturday.
Maurice Taylor and Maceo Baston
paced the Wolverines with nine each.
Only three teams have out-rebounded
Michigan this season-Louisiana State,
Washington and Davidson. The Wol-
verines won all three of those games.
BLOwOUT!: Michigan's 22-point vic-
tory over the Spartans was the largest
point differential in the rivalry since
1989 when the Bill Frieder-led Wol-
verines pounded Jud Heathcote's
Michigan State squad, 79-52, in East
Lansing.
With Saturday's victory, Fisher is
now 7-6 against the Spartans, including
4-3 in East Lansing.

the line on the season, went 21 of 28
last Tuesday against Illinois and 16 of
17 in beating Michigan State Saturday.
That's 37 of 45 for 82 percent.
Anybody would be happy with that
success rate.
So what's up?
"We've been practicing (foul shots)
a lot," said the Wolverines' Maceo
Baston, who was 12 for 14 from the

UMass star in good
shape despite collapse

AMHERST, Mass. (AP) - With
coaches and family voicing relief,
Massachusetts center Marcus Camby
said Monday he felt fully recovered
from collapsing at a game the day
before and hopes to play soon.
Camby, the star of the
Minutemen's No. I basketball team,
characterized himself as "100 per-
cent" about 24 hours after passing
out before a game at St. Bonaventure.
"I'm fine, I feel great," Camby
said upon leaving Olean (N.Y.) Gen-
eral Hospital to fly to Massachusetts.
"I'm anxious to get back on the
court."
Team physician James Ralph said
doctors were uncertain what caused
Camby to collapse based on prelimi-
nary tests that included an echo cardio-
gram, blood work, CAT scan, brain
MRI and spinal tap.
Camby was admitted to the Univer-
sity of Massachusetts Medical Center
in Worcester Monday for more exten-
sive heart testing, Ralph said.
Camby flew to the hospital and was
carried off the helicopter on a stretcher
- a standard practice with air ambu-
lances.
"Any circumstance like this is un-

and felt light-headed before collapsing.
His mother, Janice Camby of Hart-
ford, Conn., said her son may have gone
too long without eating.
His teammates were alsoheaded back
to campus to prepare for Wednesday
night's game against Rhode Island. It
wasn't clear if Camby would play.
Massachusetts (14-0) beat St.
Bonaventure, 65-52, Sunday without
Camby, who collapsed in a hallway
outside the locker room shortly before
the game.
The 6-foot-I 1 junior had just fin-
ished pregame warm-ups.
However, Camby's heart never
stopped beating and he never stopped
breathing.
He was accompanied to the hospital
by Calipari. The 21-year-old center
underwent more tests before being re-
leased. Calipari intended to stay by
Camby's side during his return, said
school spokesman Scott McConnell.
Camby is averaging 20.9 points and
7.5 rebounds a game.
He has been touted as a potential
NBA lottery pick when he decides to
turn professional.
"With Marcus right now, I think our
team knows their well-being is more

MARK FRIEDMAN/Daily-
Michigan's Louis Bullock goes up for a shot against the Spartans. The freshman
hit four from long range in the Wolverines' 76-54 win.

DEFENSE
Continued from Page 18
"I thought we'd hold ou'r own more
inside than we did," Izzo said.
Nope.
Michigan's suffocating defense
opened things up on the other end.
The Wolverines had their way in
the paint on the offensive end and hit
8 of 19 shots from long range.
"I thought our game plan ...
worked fairly well," Fisher said. "We
defended well which allowed us to
create offense."
It will take that kind of consistency
on both ends of the floor for Michi-

before Saturday, seventh in the
league) to win the national champion-
ship. But they are tough enough on
the defensive end to win the mediocre-
Big Ten. Michigan has 13 games
remaining on the schedule and there
isn't a single one that isn't winnable.
Of course, there isn't a single one that
isn't losable, too.
If the Wolverines could lose to a
5-7 UNLV team, they certainly could
be beaten by the Ohio States of the
Big Ten. But as Northwestern, Illinois
and Michigan State have found out,-
facing Michigan can be a suffocating
experience - especially when
Fisher's bunch comes to plav on both

- 7>~-,.
mAw# -

I