4B - The Michigan Daily - Tipoff '96 - Thursday, November 14, 1996 0 9 COLUMN BIG TEN PREVIEWS The Michigan Daily -Tipoff '96- 'Cats try to claw out o It's been long enough; Fisher's tfne to win is now Unfortunately for Steve Fisher, time does- n't stand still. His prize recruits can't hang around Ann Arbor for 10 years. In fact, they have a difficult enough time just stay- ing for four. And this year's version of the Wolverines is no different. There's no guarantee that junior Maurice Taylor vill return for his senior year. Thoughts of enter- ng the NBA Draft entered his mind last spring. And what if someone like Maceo Baston or Louis Bullock has a super- star year? The trend in col- lege basketball these days is that once a player has even an OK season, it's reason enough to consider jumping ship for the NBA. College basketball is a completely different game AN than it was when Fisher GOLDENBACH took over the Michigan basketball program in The Bronx 1989. It is now all about Bomber short-term projects. Mediocre teams can't expect to get top recruits to come aboard and sac- rifice a year or two playing until the team can build up a solid foundation and become a force. Sometimes a year or two is all that some of the top players spend in college. With that in mind, there is a distinct possibility hat Michigan may be a completely different eam next year. Which is part of the reason why the pressure is >n Fisher to win this year. reason to raise a banner in Crisler Arena. And to be fair to Fisher, a Big Ten title is a good place to start. It hasn't taken the other members of the Big Ten coaching elite this long to win their first conference championship. Indiana's Bobby Knight needed just two sea- sons to turn the Hoosiers from a sub-.500 club to conference champs in 1973. He has since gone on to win 10 more titles in his 25 years in Bloomington. Gene Keady, the master of winning with sub- par talent, brought Purdue a Big Ten title in his fourth season on the bench. Five more have fol- lowed in his 16-year career. Randy Ayers took over the Ohio State program in 1989, following an eighth-place finish and a 6-12 conference record. Three years later, St. John Arena had not one, but two conference title banners hanging in its rafters. It's not as if Fisher had a struggling program to rebuild, like Knight and Ayers did, when he began running the show seven years ago. He had a national champion and one of the country's most powerful and resource-laden athletic departments at his disposal. It's not that Fisher is in jeopardy of losing his job, nor is he anywhere close to being on the hot seat. It would take a collapse comparable to that of the crumbling of the UNLV basketball pro- gram to bring that about. However, Fisher does realize that the team's success hinges greatly on him. "I anointed myself captain last spring,' he said. "Until somebody else wrestles the leadership- captaincy reins away from me, I'm the captain." But unquestionably, there is pressure on the rest of the Wolverines to win this year. They are head and shoulders above the rest of the Big Ten, in terms of talent, even with the loss of Albert White. And this year, they can't use the lack-of-expe- rience excuse. The core of this team is sopho- mores and juniors who have experienced the rigor of a Big Ten campaign. The last two seasons have resulted in 24 regu- lar-season losses for the Wolverines, much of them due to the players' learning the ropes of the college game. Now it's time for what remains of both the not-so-Fab Five class of 1994 and the trio of McDonald's All-Americans of 1995 to show what made them such desirable talents. "We have the experience and maturity," Baston said. "We know what we have to do to win. If we play hard, and we play our best, the Big Ten should be ours." If this group plays just close to its potential, the Final Four is not an unreasonable goal. "I put the pressure on myself to perform," Fisher said, "and I don't feel any more pressure this season than others." However, Fisher agrees that time is beginning to run out on this current group of players. He says that this year his team must "play with some form of desperation, but still have some. control." Fisher needs to coach the same way. -Alan Goldenbach can be reached over email at agold@umich.edu. Sophs must lead Buckeyes By WXl McCahill Maybe the best thing that can be said about this season's Northwestern Wildcats is that they only have to wear purple shorts, not the full-length pants their colleagues on the football field play in. And that's really about the only comparison one can make between the two squads. Somehow, though, Northwestern coach Ricky Byrdsong remains opti- mistic. Not only does his team have a chance to break out of the Big Ten cel- lar, but he even thinks it has a chance to be competitive. "We're going all-out (this season)," Byrdsong said. "We will leave nothing to be desired." There are two players who must per- form for Byrdsong if the Wildcats are improve upon their 2-16 Big Ten record of last season. One is a proven star. The other is full of unrealized potential. Enter Geno Carlisle, the only Wildcat who seems to have any claws and an All-Big Ten player last season with a 20 points-per-game average. For 6-foot-10 senior center Evan Eschmeyer to finally live up to his potential, he must stay away from the foot problems that have plagued his Northwestern career to date. If Eschmeyer stays healthy, he will take some of the heat off of Carlisle. The man in charge of getting the ball to Carlisle and Eschmeyer will be 6-foot-3 senior guard Jevon Johnson. Johnson led the team in assists last season and can make his presence felt on defense. Prowling the paint around Eschmeyer willtbe 6-foot-10 sopho- more Joe Harmsen and 6-4 Joe Branch. Byrdsong says he rededicated him- In his seven-plus years as head coach, Fisher tas shown that he can recruit like few other :oaches in the nation. Three times, he has been Lble to bring the nation's No. 1 recruiting class to Ann Arbor. The talent levels of his teams were so high, that a case could be made that Michigan put forth teams better than the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers. But with the exception of 1989's national :hampionship team, the foundation of which was .he work of Bill Frieder, Fisher hasn't a champi- onship of any kind to show for himself. No NCAA titles. No conference titles. Thankfully, no NIT titles. It's been long enough. Michigan needs some By Will McCahill If Ohio State were any good, it would be the Nebraska of college hoops. Not just in terms of wins, however - we're speaking of legal troubles. After having three of his players dis- missed from the team prior to the 1994- 95 season, Randy Ayers saw two more fall by the wayside this summer after a run-in with the law. The dismissals took a good-sized bite out of the sophomore class that is expect- ed to be the backbone of this season's Ohio State squad. And the team cannot afford to get any weaker: Ohio State fin- ished 10th in the Big Ten last season with a 3-15 record (10-17 overall). Ayers hopes his team's improved strength will help offset any sophomore slump that may be in the offing. "We're a lot stronger this year," Ayers said. "I think we can move some people around this year where we couldn't do that last year., The repository of this new-found strength figures to be on the frontline. The star of the sophomore class is 6-foot- 9 forward Jermaine Tate, who averaged 11 points per game while playing in all 27 of Ohio State's games. Junior college transfer Ed Jenkins was expected to throw his 6-9, 270-pound frame into the fray at center, but he will be ineligible until the end of the first semester. Freshman Sean Tucker will, at 6-7, have to make some noise down low if the Buckeyes are to compete with the con- ference's bigger teams. Sophomore Shaun Stonerook will move out of the paint into his natural swingman spot, where he will be expect- ed to improve on the 8.4 points-per-game average he earned in his debut season. Fellow sophomore Jason Singleton is also expected to alternate between the front- and backcourts. On most teams, the key player is the point guard, and Ohio State is no excep- tion. Sophomore Damon Stringer was erratic last season, with a turnover-to- assist ratio of nearly one to one. He did, however, throw in more than II points per game. Like every other returnee from last season's squad, he will have to become more consistent to keep the Buckeyes at arm's length from the cellar door. "Last year, (Stringer's) quickness and lack of experience got him into trouble a lot of times," Ayers said. "But I think he's settled down." Others expected to see time in the backcourt include 6-foot-3 sophomore NeShaun Coleman and 6-4 frosh Trent Jackson. Last season's Ohio State squad was the only team in the Big Ten to have no play- ers on any postseason conference honor roll. If that doesn't change, Ayers may wish he and the team hadn't come back from a summer jaunt in South Africa. And that's if he's lucky - he may well be looking for a new job. Tear This '~4 s After seven years as Michigan coach, Steve Fisher been able to bring in some of the top players in the nation. However, he's still waiting for his first Big Ten title. This year's team should be able to give it to him. I i. ) L, N .is. - El I SCOREKEEPERS O% I Feel the satisfaction of making a valued contribution to the Jewish State. SAOI(4 vaor awd Live and work side-by-side with the young men & women of the IDFS. 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