The Michigan Daily - SPORTSMonday - November 25, 1996 - 38 N ' spikers grab weekend sweep Py Sharat Raju Daily Sports Writer The Michigan women's volleyball team knows that it has to win its last four matches of the seasomr. After the performances this past eekend, the Wolverines are half fy there. Michigan, (7-11 Big Ten, 12-17 overall) went to Indiana and defeated both Purdue (5-13, 12-18) and Indiana (3-15, 9-21). Everyone who traveled played and contributed at key times," Michigan coach Greg Giovanazzi said. ",Michigan's sweep was its first of the Big Ten season. urdue was Michigan's first vic- tim. Earlier in the season, the Boilermakers handed the Wolverines their most disappointing loss of the season. This time, th Wolverines weren't about to be disappointed, winning 14-16, 15-10, 17-15, 16-14, in a pun- ishing match featuring record-break- ing statistics. "Purdue tightened up and we relaxed (in game three)," Giovanazzi said. "That was the difference." After pulling out a close game three and going up 2-1 in the match, the Wolverines fell behind in game four, 13-6. But Michigan didn't buckle under pressure, going on an 11-1 run to win the game and the match. "Karen Chase was on fire in games two and four," Giovanazzi said. "Linnea (Mendoza) did an excellent job of getting the ball to the players who were hot." All kinds of team and individual records were set during the victory. Mendoza recorded 80 assists to break Michigan's single-match assist record. Chase scored 27 kills, Sarah Jackson had nine blocks, Shareen Luze recorded four aces and Linsey Ebert had eight digs and seven blocks - all of which were career highs. Michigan also set team season highs in kills (93), attempts (210), assists (88) and total blocks (17). "This win was won with team effort," Giovanazzi said. The Wolverines then traveled to Bloomington to close out the final road trip of the season. Although Michigan eventually won, 14-16, 15-9, 15-7, 15-4, it was the loss in game one that set the tone for the match. The Wolverines rallied from an I I- 3 deficit to tie the game at 13-13. After trading points in a short stand- off, Indiana recorded the final two points to win the first game. However, the momentum generat- ed by the Wolverines carried them to three straight victories and the match. "We just got better as the match went along," Giovanazzi said. "Games two, three and four were all us. There were great performances from a lot of players." Chase led the offensive barrage of 76 kills with 19, as the Wolverines recorded a hitting percentage of .371. Jackson recorded 18 kills and Luze had 17 to contribute to Michigan's victory. Luze also added three aces. "Our hitters did a solid job and our setters ran a well-distributed offense' Giovanazzi said. Mendoza, as has been the trend all season, kept the defense guessing by running a balanced offense, distrib- uting the ball to several attackers. She finished the match with 50 assists. With the weekend's victories, the Wolverines have distanced them- selves somewhat from the bottom half of the division. Having concluded the final road trip of the year, the Wolverines have only two matches remaining. Next weekend, Iowa and Illinois visit Cliff Keen Arena to finish up the season. RANSFERS Inued from PaV 1B going to be unhappy, because every- body has the skills~ and then people begin to forget about team chem- istry." Makhtar Ndiaye, who transferred to North Carolina im July 1995, had similar thoughts on the talent prob- lem. "At Michigan, (head coach Steve Sher) recruits a lot of talent, and erybody comes in here and thinks he's a superstar," Nfiaye told The Michigan Daily two summers ago. Crawford, who left Michigan for Rice in 1995, says it -was just this sort of talent overload that caused him to head south. "At Michigan, where they have other people who are just as good, if not better than you around, you don't o a chance to show that," Crawford says. "I think everybody feels like they could get a better chance going to a smaller school where maybe the talent level isn't that great, where you have a chance to do more things." Another factor that Crawford says prompted him to transfer to Rice, which is located in his hometown of Houston, was a difference in how ayers coming from other states are ated compared to those players from in-state. "All the alumni who support Michigan and who go to all their games, they've followed thie kids from Michigan throughout their high school careers," Crawford says. "When it's time to see them in a Michigan uniform, of course they're going to have a little more love for kids that came from Michigan. "I'm not saying they don't support the kids from out of state, but it's just :going to be different: Stuff liketihat I found would work to my advantage if I came back home." In moving from Michigan to the much smaller, less-publicized Rice basketball program, one of the dif- ferences Crawford has noticed is the 'one between Fisher and his curreint coach, Willis Wilson. "(Wilson) emphasizes playing hard and having tough play ... because the talent he gets is not as ,good as Michigan's, so he has to get 'more out of the players. He empha- -sizes playing hard for a reason," Crawford says. "(Fisher) gets more talent. He 'doesn't really have to harp on little plays like diving after loose balls and uff like that, whereas over here you to." St. Jean says that, having come from overseas, he wasn't as familiar with U.S. college basketball and the particulars of a large program as he would have liked to have been. Because of that, he says he some- times tended to lose sight of his goals. "If you get thrown in a big-time basketball program like that, there are a lot of things that you will miss and that you will not think about," St. Jean says. "You're so blinded by what you do that you lose the most important rea- son you're in school, which is to get an education." For Crawford, it was the glamour of the Michigan experience that he says blinded him to its downsides. "You see everybody wearing Michigan jerseys or Michigan gear," he says. "You look at that, and you hear everybody talking about Michigan, and you see them on TV all the time. "When you have a chance to go and be a part of that, you tend to overlook a lot of other things." In recent years, the NCAA has instituted rules drastically reducing the amount of contact coaches can have with recruits. As a result, incoming players may not know as much as they should about the programs they're entering, and coaches may not know as much about their sew charges. Penn State assistant coach Mike Boyd, who was head coach at Cleveland State and an assistant at Michigan before taking his current job, believes the new rules are responsible for some of the prob- lems. "It's very hard to read that some- times because the NCAA has taken us (as coaches) completely out of the loop," Boyd says. "It's very hard to get to know a kid with the opportuni- ty of only calling him once a week and only getting to watch him play four times." "When I was at Michigan, I had the opportunity to get to know those kids. You can always pick up some things by having the opportunity to know the kids you're recruiting," he adds. Fisher agrees with Boyd's assess- ment. "You don't get a chance to know (the recruits) quite as well, because of the shrinkage in the time you can recruit off campus, and, more impor- tantly, the limited number of contacts and evaluations you can have with the kids," Fisher says. "Even though you try to do your research as best you- can, you don't, nor do (the recruits), get to know you quite as BARRY SOLLENBERGER Sollenberger in Paradise Blue volleyball sufers from lack of tradition its not easy to build a program, much less a dynasty. Just ask Greg Giovanazzi, the Michigan volleyball coach."When I got here four years ago, I expected we'd be further along by this point," Giovanazzi said. "I believe that was the perspec- tive of a pretty naive first-time head coach coming from extremely successful pro- grams." When Giovanazzi arrived in Ann Arbor, he had great expectations for Michigan. And why not? Success had followed him everywhere in the volleyball world. As a player, he was part of a national-championship team at UCLA in 1976. Then he was a three- time All-America selection as part of the 1977 USA Junior National team and both the 1983 Pan American and World University Games teams. After his playing days were through, he enjoyed a two-year stint as the top assis- tant coach for the women's United States National team. In fact, he stepped onto the Michigan court directly from that team's trip to the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain. So why wouldn't his first head-coaching job mirror the successes of his volley- ball career? Well, for whatever reason, it hasn't. This season, with two games remaining on the schedule, the Wolverines are 12- 17, meaning they will finish with a losing record for the third time in Giovanazzi's five years at Michigan. The current record is unacceptable to the Wolverines, considering they are part of one of the nation's most successful athletic departments. "That's something nobody is satisfied with, not the coaching staff or the players Giovanazzi said. While the answers to the Wolverines' problems are elusive, there are three obvi- ous areas in which they need help - recruiting, scheduling and confidence. Simply stated, Michigan does not have the talent to play with the Michigan States and Penn States of the Big Ten. And this begins and ends with recruiting. "We decided to go after the nation's best prep players," Giovanazzi said. "And every year we've gotten down to a couple of them between us and Stanford, us and UCLA, us and Penn State, and lost those." Michigan could also use some help from the schedule makers. The Wolverines are constantly ravaged by the nation's top nonconference competition. Prior to the start of the Big Ten season this year, Michigan dropped matches to five ranked teams, including then-No. I Hawaii and then-No. 6 UCLA. "That's really hurt our record over the years," Giovanazzi said. "You know, we could come in and play the MAC schools over and over again. But we've sched- uled the Stanfords, UCLAs and Hawaiis." The murderous nonconference schedules haven't exactly done wonders for Michigan's confidence. The Wolverines began the Big Ten season this year by dropping a pair of matches at Iowa and Illinois, after leading each match, 2-1. "That's a confidence thing when you're up, 2-1," Giovanazzi said. "We need to come in and be confident when the Big Ten starts. I don't think we were confident heading into the Big Ten (this season)." So where do Michigan and Giovanazzi go from here? Can the Wolverines turn things around? Is a coaching change in order? Giovanazzi is a popular guy. He is popular with his players. He is popular with the media. He answers most questions with an appreciated frankness, and he will tell you, point blank, if he does not want to answer a particular question. He is not' evasive. And in the day of the evasive coach, his honesty is welcomed. But he hasn't been alle to win at Michigan, either. The Wolverines haven't been to the NCAA tournament under Giovanazzi, and they won't receive a bid this year. See PARADISE, Page 8B I Many players, like former Wolverine Olivier St. Jean, have found life on the basket- ball court a lot less confusing after transferring out of the Michigan program. well as you used to." But Fisher says this has nothing to do with the Wolverines' rash of transfers. "if you look around the country, you can go into any program you want ... it's everywhere," he says. "Nobody wants to have it happen, but unfortunately that also comes with the territory when minutes and playing time are critical." Michigan certainly is not in a unique situation when it comes to players leaving the program. If there are too many players in any program, playing time will be an issue, particularly if the players are of the caliber that a school like Michigan attracts. The opinion among coaches is that players leaving programs is neither unusual nor unique to Michigan. Former Wolverines, however, are of different minds about why players seem to be constantly leaking out of the program. Whatever the reason, it is a trend that continues. i% ! ,