------------ ::core s Y&X5Ii~Ct i e a ailq MEN'S COLLEGE BASKETBALL Florida State 76, WEST VIRGINIA 71 Nevada Las Vegas, ARKANSAS, inc. PRO BASKETBALL Utah 113, BOSTON 100 CHARLOTTE 90, Cleveland 72 Toronto 99, DETROIT 97 New York 111, PHILADELPHIA 100 ATLANTA 107, indiana 95 Golden State, MIAMI, inc. MINNESOTA 95, Vancouver 72 PRO HOCKEY DETROIT 4, Boston 1 N.Y. ISLANDERS 7, Florida 4 Montreal 5, N.Y. RANGERS 4 Philadelphia 6, TORONTO 3 New Jersey 2, WASHINGTON 2 Phoenix, DALLAS, inc. San Jose, CALGARY, inc. Tampa Bay, EDMONTON, inc. .. Thursday March 20, 1997 13Ah duad squad shifts focus to NCAA finals y Tracy Sandier aiy Sports Writer Call them the Fab Four, or the Final Four. Chris Viola (118 pounds), Bill Lacure (150), Jeff Catrabone (167) and Airron Richardson (heavyweight) are the only Michigan wrestlers left competing. They will ' begin competition today at the NCAA Chaipionships in Waterloo, Iowa. At the Big Ten championships two weeks ago, Viola placed seventh, while All-America tri-captains Lacure, attabone and Richardson each finished second in eir respective weight classes. Health has been one of the primary concerns of the last' couple of weeks. Coming out of Big Tens, Lacure had' a slightly injured hip, while Viola was bothered by his shoulder, which will probably require surgery after the' season. Neither injury, however, should keep Viola Up NeXt ortacure from wrestling this Oiat: NCAA weekend. Wrestling Aside from health, the Championships focal point of the last couple Who: Four Michigan weeks has been getting the . wrestlers Team in a positive frame of When: Today through mind. According to Michigan Saturday coach Dale Bahr, Lacure, Where: Waterloo, who received academic All- lowa District IV honors this week, has been occupied with tests and papers. Catrabone is nervous, while Viola is worried about his shoulder. It's the coaches' job to keep the wrestlers on an even keel. "We've been trying to stay in a real positive mood with the kids," Bahr said. "You're not in a situation now here you want to be saying 'You didn't do this right. 'ou' didn't do that right.' Whatever they do is almost right; because you want them to go in feeling good about themselves, feeling positive. "The other day, Viola thought that practice started an hour later than it did. (Catrabone) turned to me and said, 'Don't worry coach. When you smile, I smile."' H may be getting introspective, but Catrabone is trying not to get stressed out. "I'm picturing some of my earlier matches in my head," Catrabone said. "I'm trying to relieve tension, inking about exactly what I need to do. Mentally, I eljelaxed. Right now, I'm ready to kick some butt." Since the Big Ten features such wrestling power- houses as Iowa and Minnesota, each wrestler knows that he has already faced some of the country's tough- est competitors. "The caliber of competition that we faced at the con- ference championships was pretty much top-notch," Lacure said. "It featured some of the best wrestlers in the nation. If we can do well and place at Big Tens, we know we have a chance to do well at nationals." See NCAAS, Page 15A A fighting chance Michigan hits road for NIT quarters Blue to face Garrity, By Will McCahil Daily Sports Editor For the first time in a while, the Notre Dame men's basketball team has something to do after St. Patrick's Day besides watching college hoops on TV. That something is hosting Michigan (21-1 1), which visits South Bend's Joyce Center tonight at 7:30 for an NIT quarterfinal contest. The Wolverines' last game was a vic- tory Tuesday night over Oklahoma State, in which sophomore guard Louis Bullock tied a career high with 28 points in a 75-65 win. For its part, Notre Dame (16-13) beat Texas Christian, 72- 62, the same night. Feeling Irish coach John MacLeod said the chance to play this late in March has his team fired up. What: NIT qu "It's unusual for us When: Tonig- to be playing this late Where: Joyc in the season" At stake: A t in theCity for the N~ MacLeod said. "For to be played the last couple years, Square Garde we've been sitting and watching other people play on TV, and now we have an oppor- tunity to do this." MacLeod said Bullock, the Wolverines' pot ofgold at the end of the rainbow, could present a serious prob- lem for Notre Dame defenders. "I don't know if there's a better 3- point shooter in the country," MacLeod said. "Bullock is the one that catches your eye, for the simple reason that he's not only a shooter, but he's become a driver to the basket as well, which makes the coverage double-tough." On the other bench, Michigan coach Steve Fisher not only has the Irish's home-court advantage to worry about - they are 14-3 at Joyce this season - but said he was very concerned with stopping junior forward Pat Garrity, the ,ht Nl Irish for trip to N.Y Big East's Player of the Year. "Garrity hurts you in all kinds of ways," Fisher said. "He can bring the ball up the floor against the press ... he's taken more 3-point shots than any- body on the team, and he's a guy that also leads them in rebounding. "You get a guy with that kind of flex- ibility, and that's why he's player of the year." Garrity leads Notre Dame in points per game (21), rebounds per game (7.3) and minutes per game (35). He has shot. just over 48 percent from the floor this season, including a healthy 40 percent from beyond 3-point range. As a team, lucky? Notre Dame is hitting only one of every three 3- pointers it puts ati up, making it all arterfinal the more impor- t, 7:30 tant for Michigan, CetotNew York to clamp down on IT semifinalsGarrity. at Mdisna -"He presents at Madison all kinds of prob- lems for us," Fisher said. "He's got great versatility. He's good, and he's big and he knows how to play." Besides Garrity, the Irish's scoring thins out significantly. Senior point guard Admore White runs the show, dishing out a team-high 6.5 assists per contest, while adding 10 points and five boards per game. "You start with (Garrity) but you don't end with him," Fisher said. "White has done a good job of running the ballclub. This is not a one-man team." Notre Dame also has some size to throw at the Wolverines. In addition to the 6-foot-9 Garrity, the Irish frontcourt features 6-foot-11 senior center Mart Gotsch (7.6 points and 5.1 rebounds per See IRISH, Page 15A MARK FRIDMANDily Michigan guard Louis Bullock helped send Oklahoma State packing Tuesday, scoring 28 points. "I don't know if there's a better 3-point shooter in the country," Notre Dame coach John MacLeod said. Women's tankers head to NCAAs A By Fred Link Daily Sports Writer All season long, the Michigan women's swimming team has focused on one thing -- the NCAA championships. Today, the sixth-ranked Wolverines 411 begin their three-day effort to dethrone 1996 NCAA champion Stanford. Michigan is led by freshman Shannon Shakespeare and senior co-captain Anne Kampfe. Two weeks ago, Shakespeare won three events and earned co-swimmer of the meet honors as Michigan won its 1 lth straight Big Ten Championship. Kampfe hopes to improve on a fifth- ce- finish in the 400-yard individual medley and an eighth-place finish in the 200 b'ackstroke. If the Wolverines are to improve on last season's third-place finish, they'll need strong performances from all of their swihiners. IWe don't have the kind of depth as a team that we had two years ago (when Michigan took second) across all of the events," Michigan coach Jim Richardson *id "So the people that we have will have to swim faster than they've ever swum before in their lives." Top-ranked Stanford is heavily favored to win a sixth consecutive NCAA cham- pionship. The Cardinal, which defeated Michigan earlier this year, returns nearly tw-thirds of its point production from last year's championship team and has added double Olympic gold medalist *therine Fox. n'They have a lot of depth, and they have aj lot of great athletes:'Richardson said,. 2Character-wise, I think this is one o1-ti best Stanford teams I've seen baewes the board." ~'1ie Wolverines will also face stiff championships. Throughout the year, Michigan coach Jim Richardson has emphasized the need to train hard and sacrifice swimming per- formance in dual meets to do well at NCAAs. "I'm more concerned with our training and preparation than I am about backing off to look good on a weekend that does- n't mean anything," Richardson said. "We can't train hard if we start backing off because we have a meet on Saturday. The price you pay is that you won't look as good (at dual meets) when you race, in order to hopefully go faster at the end." The end is finally here, and the Wolverines are about to find out just how fast they can go. oV . VOTE for MSA President, Vice President, and Representatives... TODAY! Hours of live, scheduled classroom instruction 45 21 Hours of 16, 12 diagnostic testing Maximum Class Size 15 25 Classes grouped y initial tesgt TO VOTE. On-Line Voting is EASYW Click our vote icon at any ITD Computing site or Access: www.umich.edu/~vote Yes No Scores Additional Help Unlimited Audio/Videotapes during lab hours one-on-one meetings with vour teacher E I