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8A

Thursday
February 27, 1997


B3ig
Skid hits four as Wolverines
blow late lead to Minnesota

Cnsler's
nets were

.
A

By John Leroi
Daily Sports Editor
You couldn't fault the effort this time,
but the execution still wasn't there.
Just like that - two straight turnovers
by Louis Bullock with less than a minute
to play - and the game was over. An
upset-in-the-making turned into a disas-
ter for the Wolverines and a party for No.
2 Minnesota, which wrapped up its first
Big Ten championship since 1982 with a
55-54 win over Michigan yesterday.
Now the Wolverines, mired in a four-
u M innesota 55
r Michigan 54
game losing streak, probably have to win
their final three games to receive an invi-
tation to the NCAA tournament.
"We probably have to run the table,"
Michigan coach Steve Fisher said.
"We've got to see just how we can drum
up the energy and the toughness to go in
to Champaign ... Whether we're going
to be good enough to win down there, I
don't know."
That's just one of many questions
Fisher is trying to answer after his
Wolverines let a four-point lead slip
away in the game's final two minutes.
The story of the game was as simple
as it was frustrating: Michigan shot 39
percent from the free-throw line and
couldn't find anything that worked in its
half-court offense.
If it weren't for 17 offensive rebounds
- including seven from sophomore
center Robert Traylor - the Wolverines
would have looked much worse.
Michigan shot a paltry 33 percent in the
second half, good enough for only nine
baskets.
What makes the loss even tougher to
take for No. 21 Michigan (7-8 Big Ten,
17-10 overall) is that it had a great
chance to knock off the second-ranked
Golden Gophers (14-1, 25-2).
The Wolverines appeared in control
after Traylor sunk the second of two free
throws to give Michigan a 54-50 lead

with 1:49 remaining. But Minnesota
guard Eric Harris blew past Bullock for
a layup with 1:45 left. Traylor fouled
him, but Harris missed the free throw.
On the next trip down the floor,
Bullock threw the ball away with the
shot clock winding down, and
Minnesota guard Bobby Jackson took
advantage, nailing a 15-foot jumper
from the baseline with 39 seconds left to
tie the game at 54.
Michigan looked like it would have
the last shot in regulation, but Bullock
coughed up the ball again when he ran
into Minnesota forward Courtney James
at the top of the key.
Jackson came up with it at mid-court
with an open path to the basket. Only a
Brandun Hughes foul with 2.9 seconds
left stopped Jackson, who promptly hit
the first of two free throws to give
Minnesota the win.
After the game Fisher closed the lock-
erroom to the media for the first time
this season. Only the team captains,
Traylor and Travis Conlan, addressed the
media.
"You're not human if this one doesn't
hurt," a dejected Conlan said after the
game. "We worked so hard. To come up
a little short is frustrating. It's hard to
take."
Want frustration? The Wolverines
made just two baskets in the final 10
minutes of the game, allowing
Minnesota to erase a 47-39 Michigan
lead and go up 50-49 on a Quincy Lewis
jumper with just less than four minutes
remaining.
Yesterday's win marks only the sec-
ond time the Gophers have ever beaten
Michigan in Crisler Arena. The only
other time Minnesota beat the
Wolverines in Crisler was in 1982 when
the Gophers won their last Big Ten title.
"In life, you've got to have goals and
dreams," said Minnesota coach Clem
Haskins, who wore one of the Crisler
Arena nets around his neck to compli-
ment his Big Ten champions T-shirt and
hat. "And tonight was one of those
dreams that came true."
Haskins went out of his way to plug
See BUMBLE, Page 10A

Guard Louis Bullock found little room to maneuver in Michigan's loss yesterday's to No. 2 Minnesota. Bullocki
12 points on 4-of-11 shooting and coughed up the ball on each of the Wolverines' last two possessions.

SARA STILLMAN/Daily
managed just

destbied
come down
Standing in the press lounge at :
Crisler Arena last night after l't
night's basketball game, I saw :
something I never thought I would m.
Although I picked Minnesota to M
the Big Ten this year, I really, truly never
thought I'd see Golden Gophers coach
Clem Haskins sitting in front of the big
block 'M' in the lounge's backdrop, wear-
ing a matching "Big Ten ChampionsT-
shirt and ballcap, and wearing the Crisler
Arena net around his neck.
Huh? That's right. The net the
Michigan basket-
ball team shqpt at
every day in pracb
tice, draped arounT
the Minnesota
coach's neck. Just
minutes before, his
players had won the
WILL B ig Ten title out-
McCAHILL right by defeating
Whatcha talkin' the Wolverines.55-
'bout Willis? 54. The Gophers
then proceeded to
dance around i0
half-court circle before taking scissors to
the net and draping it around Haskisi
neck.
A couple of minutes later, I saw anoth-
er thing I never really expected to get a
gander at. I saw Michigan coach Stye
Fisher sitting in front of the same miro-
phone Haskins had just been speaking
into, his glazed eyes looking at the table,
talking about desperation.
"We desperately need to get oursev
a victory," he was saying. And he wasn
talking about winning a game to secure
second place in the Big Ten, or to ensure
a high seed in the NCAA tournament.
He was talking about getting a victory
to get his team back to .500 in the league.
Back to .500. Think about that.
With three games left in the season, the
Wolverines are 7-8 in the league, and
they've had to come up with a precipitous
late-season slide to get them there
Fisher said something else last n1ight
that, five months ago, would've sowided
as if it were coming from a bad episode
of "The Twilight Zone."
He had watched his team come up just
short, turning the ball over within he last
minute and putting Bobby Jackson, the
likely Big Ten Player of the Year, on the
free-throw line to win the game. Which
he did.
"We could play no harder than w di
tonight," he said. "We did everything
could to win the game, and we didn't"
Back in the fall, the team in question
was picked to win the Big Ten, to be cut-
ting down some nets and dancing around
on some basketball court while th play-
ers donned caps and t-shirts, grinning ear-
to-ear.
But instead of it being Steve Fisher and
his highly-touted stars prancing aoynd
on the Crisler hardwood last night, it
the Gophers.
It was a logical argument to pick
Minnesota to take the Big Ten crown. A
team full of upperclassmen, which won
seven of its final nine games last season.
But at the time, it seemed almost fool-
ish not to pick Michigan to be the Big
Ten's automatic entry into the NCAA
tournament. Highly-touted juniors and
sophomores with a year or two of college
play under their drawstrings. Looked like
a great bet.
And yet, I stood on the Crislerrloor
last night, rubbin my eyes, watching
Minnesota cut down the net, then staring
at Clem Haskins as he wore it.

It wasn't supposed to be like thisfor
the Wolverines, who are now fighting for
their NCAA tournament lives. If they
didn't go to Michigan, these players
wouldn't even be talking about making
the Big Dance. They'd be concetratin7
on their chances in the NIT, the possibi
ty of being able to call themselves the
65th-best team in the country.
If the Wolverines run the table - get-
ting victories at Illinois and Ohio State
sandwiched around a home win over
Northwestern - they're probably in.

Fans respond, but
Blue still goes down

Nothing was pret-
ty in last night's
game between
Michigan and
Minnesota,
including this bat-
tle for a loose
ball between
Minnesota's
Quincy Lewis and
Michigan's
Robert Traylor..
Traylor's l1
rebounds were a
huge asset, but
his 2-of-5 free
throw shooting
proved to be a
costly liability as
the Wolverines
shot just 38.9
percent from the
free throw line.
SARA STILLMAN/Daily

By Alan Goldenbach
Daily Sports Editor
Monday afternoon, Michigan coach
Steve Fisher all but begged Michigan
fans to come out with their best perfor-
mance of the season for last night's home
affair with Minnesota.
He used last week's game in Iowa City
as a basis for comparison. The home
crowd came out in full support of the
Hawkeyes, previous losers of three
straight, and spurred them to an 80-75
victory over the Wolverines.
Fisher had hoped that his fans were
just as capable as Iowa coach Tom
Davis'.
He asked the Michigan faithful to be
"energized, supportive and helpful," for
last night's game.
That translated to screaming, taunting
and cheering from the opening tip to the
final buzzer. It also meant trying to rattle
the opponent.
In addition, since this was the final
game on the student ticket package, it
seemed like the perfect opportunity for
the Crisler fans to end the season with a
bang.
And Michigan's faithful didn't disap-
point Fisher, despite the game's unfavor-
able outcome.
Even though they were far from giving
Duke's Cameron Crazies or Indiana's
die-hards a run for their money, they
were still impressive.
The fans "did a real good job tonight,"
Michigan co-captain Travis Conlan said.
"Right from the get-go, we knew we
were going to have a good crowd. We

came out, and they were loud and
cheered all game."
Conlan was right on the money. The
fans' performance was strong through-
out, which is rather surprising consider-
ing they hadn't put forth such an effort all
season.
The students maintained their exuber-
ance - including standing tip behind the
basket and waving their arms when
Minnesota was at the free-throw line,
taunting the Golden Gophers after a
turnover, or getting on the backs of the
referees, whose officiating was interpret-
ed as being inconsistent at times.
"The fans were really intense through-
out the game," LSA sophomore Mike
Abramson said. "They seemed to help
the players, and at times, Michigan
seemed to feed off it"
Conlan concurred. But only half of
Fisher's goal was achieved. Michigan
still couldn't quite ride the momentum to
victory.
"We have to take our hats off to them,
because they helped us stay in the game,"
Conlan said. "But we let them down,
because we didn't win the game."
The Crisler staff pulled out all the
stops to keep the crowd involved, even
during timeouts.
The public address announcer did his
best Michael Buffer (of "Let's-Get-
Ready-To-Rumble" fame) imperson-
ation during the starting lineup introduc-
tions.
The band was as energetic as it had
been all season, playing tunes conducive
to crowd involvement. It also spread
itself out over the southwest corner of the
arena during the pre-game warmups in
an attempt to get the more laid-back fans
into the action.

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