>____ s a4G v s. E &.S
MEN'S
BASKETBALL
Michigan 67.
NOTRE DAME 66
UTAH 82,
Stanford 77 (OT)
MINNESOTA 90,
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UCLA 74,
Iowa State 73 (OT)
KENTUCKY 83
St. Joseph's 68
PRO
BASKETBALL
LA. Lakers 89,
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ORLANDO 100,
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HOUSTON 96,
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Portland 97,
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PHOENIX 113,
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SEATTLE 123,
Denver 97
PRO
HOCKEY
Florida 2,
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Phoenix 4,
CHICAGO 2
ST. LOUIS 4,
Hartford 1
San Jose 2,
VANCOUVER 1
:!
Friday
March 21, :1997
19,
' icers await
NCAA quarters
Blue braces for potential nail-biter
By Dan Stillman
Daily Sports Writer
The NCAA quarterfinals.
Last year it was The Goal. In 1995,
Michigan battled the crowd in Madison
and escaped with a one-goal victory
over Wisconsin. In '94 the Wolverines
came from two goals down to take a
:one-goal lead over Lake Superior, only
to lose in overtime. In '93 - another
overtime game and another one-goal
;victory over the Badgers. And in '92,
the Wolverines rallied from a 6-3 deficit
in the second period to defeat the
defending national champion, Northern
Michigan, 7-6.
Now, the '97 quarterfinals await the
,Wolverines. And they have the potential
-o match the drama of the ones that have
'preceded them.
Michigan, the No. I seed in the West
-Region, received a first-round bye and
will play the winner of tomorrow's 6:30
p.m. Minnesota-Michigan State game
-on Sunday at 5:30 p.m. Both games will
-be played at Van Andel Arena in Grand
Rapids.
PASS Sports will televise the
"Michigan game live. The Minnesota-
-Michigan State game will be shown on
,tape-delay at 10 p.m. tomorrow.
The Spartans (22-12-4) have beaten
the Wolverines (33-3-4) twice this sea-
son. Should Minnesota (27-12-1)
advance, the Golden Gophers will be
looking to avenge last
year's 4-3 loss to
Michigan in the quar-
terfinals and this sea-
son's 4-3, over-
time loss to the
Wolverines.
, Preceding the
fourth-seeded Gophers and fifth-seeded
Spartans will be No. 3 Miami (Ohio)
(26-10-1) and No. 6 Cornell (20-8-5),
which face off at 3 p.m. The No. 2 seed,
North Dakota (28-10-2), has the other
bye in the West and will play the winner
at 2 p.m. on Sunday.
The quarterfinal round has produced
more than its fair share of close games
and memorable moments in recent
years. Several of those fantastic finishes
and everlasting images have involved
Michigan.
"For both teams, you can look at it as
this is the final game, we have to win
this game, we have to play well,"
Michigan coach Red Berenson said.
"And a lot of things happen -bounces,
great plays, unlucky things, lucky
things."
The Wolverines' only quarterfinal
loss in the last five years came at the
hands of Lake Superior in '94.
"The championship game might have
been the game between Michigan and
Lake Superior, the year (this season's
seniors) were freshmen," Berenson said.
"Because Lake Superior went on from
there and they never really ran into as
good a team as they did against
Michigan."
This year could be a similar story
for the Wolverines and their opponent.
As a result of the questionably low
seeding of the Gophers and the suc-
cess of the Spartans against the
Wolverines during this season,
Michigan is in, arguably, the toughest
bracket in the tournament.
The tournament committee "picked
the right 12 teams," Berenson said. "But
how they seeded them ... there's been a
lot of questions."
Newl
7L
ii
lt n
Maceo Baston
showed he's
ready for the
mean streets of
New York City
last night, throw.
ing an elbow Into
Pat Garrity's face u
at Notre Dame.
Tuesday, the
Wolverines will
play Arkansas in
the NIT semIfi-
nals at Madison
Square Garden.
JOE WESTRATE/Daily
Under bik pressure,
OTRE DAME - The Big Guy So you
is going to the Big Apple. the Joyce'
Although Michigan center night. Bul
Robert Traylor is probably not going to I'd have to
take the rest of the Wolverines on his One co.
back and carry them to New York City Traylor to
next week, I don't think anyone would to topple
be surprised if he did. ricane. Ev
Traylor - a monster of a man -- carried th
came up with a monster of a game last
night, scoring a career-high 26 points,
grabbing 13 rebounds and helping
swat away Notre Dame's final shot.
The performance was tremendous
enough, splendid enough, to bring a
huge grin to the normally-expression-
less lips of sophomore Louis Bullock
"I love the big guy," was the first
thing that occurred to Bullock when MCCAH
asked about Traylor's performance. Whatcha
Sure, huge games are something 'bout Wi
that's expected of star athletes at -
Michigan. But look at what Traylor's in his sho
going through these days. Living life allegation
under the hot glare of the public spot- them back
light, the temperature has been turned Hold or
up exponentially over the past week as There's an
allegations of a variety of NCAA vio- It was a
lations have surfaced. Michigan
And the way the media is portraying high in th
things, it seems as if Traylor's already the year, t
been convicted of everything from ed to fall
accepting a fleet of sport-utility vehi- of the NC
cles to taking food from Michigan that werer
coach Steve Fisher's dog. themselve
cork,
New
York!
Michigan
advances to
0
NIT semis,
beats Irish
01
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Bik Guy o)
can imagine how the fans at 1
Center were treating him last
lock called it "hassling," and 1
say that's pretty diplomatic. 1
uld be forgiven for expecting I
wilt under all the pressure,
over like a giant tree in a hur-1
en after the way Traylor has
e Wolverines over the last
half of the season,
one would think
he'd be just too
drained to go any
} further.
Well, one could
be forgiven, I
guess, but I
wouldn't ask the
ILL Big Guy to do the
talkin' forgiving. Nor
llis? would I expect
him to. If I were
es, I'd want to take all the
s and insinuations and shove
in our faces.
n a see here - I can't see.
NCAA report in my eye.
rough regular season for the
basketball team. After flying
e polls at the beginning of
he Wolverines then proceed-
so far that they dropped out
AA tournament. And as if
n't enough, they soon found
s under suspicion as the
n to Bik le
press began to trumpet the findings of
a University report. Worse, they found
themselves in a situation the legal sys-
tem of the United States is designed to
protect against.
The Wolverines were guilty until
proven innocent.
Robert Traylor made a statement last
night. He told us all that he was going
to ignore the whirlwind of allegations
and just play basketball.
But as usual, Traylor didn't "just" do
anything. The Big Guy did it BIG.
He went all out, keeping Michigan
from withering under the Irish pressure
and the raucous - not to say rude -
crowd. And when it was all over, he'd
won himself a trip to New York.
The Wolverines now have two
games left in their season. They face
Arkansas on Tuesday night and then
will either play for the NIT title or for
third place.
Although we're likely to hear that
these games are perhaps junior for-
ward Maurice Taylor's last in a
Michigan uniform, there's someone
else we really ought to be watching
more closely, because we could lose
something else, something big.
Robert Traylor.
Look out, New York. The Big Guy is
on his way.
- Will McCahill can be reached over
e-mail at wmcc numich. edu.
By Alan Goldenbach
Daily Sports Editor
NOTRE DAME -Wolverines aren't
supposed to have luck like this.
Especially in South Bend.
Brandun Hughes' running jumper
from the foul line with 7.6 seconds left*
last night gave Michigan a 67-66 victq-
ry over Notre Dame, sending the
Wolverines to New York City for the
NIT semifinals. Michigan (22-1l) will
play Arkansas on Tuesday night at
Madison Square Garden.
SMichigan 67
N. Dame 66
Hughes' feat was quite improbable,
considering that he was having an awful
game to that point, connecting on only
one of eight shots. And Notre Dame (16-
14) had fought back from a dismal first
half, in which it scored only two points
in the first 10 minutes, and seemedto
have momentum. Pat Garrity dunked
two of his 23 points with 2:20 left to
give Notre Dame its first lead of thD
game, 63-61.
After Robert Traylor responded with
a driving, one-handed layup to tie it,
Garrity hit a 10-foot jumper over Traylor
and drew a foul. Garrity hit the fre
throw, giving the Irish a three-point lead
with 1:37 to play.
But those would be Notre Dame's
final points. Maurice Taylor hit a turd-
around jumper the next trip downcourt,
cutting the lead to one.
Then, after an exchange of turnovers
on both ends, Michigan fouled Notre
Dame's Admore White with 20 seconds
left. White, a 65-percent free-throw
shooter, missed the front end of a one-
and-one, giving Hughes the floor for his
dramatic ending.
Following a timeout, Michigan drove
down court, and as Hughes reached the
top of the arc, he almost ran into team-
mate Louis Bullock. But Hughes calle*
Bullock off the ball and cut back to the
free-throw line, where he shook a
defender and buried a short jumper.
"We were trying to loop Lou up anid
run a bump for (Taylor),' Michigan
coach Steve Fisher said. "But Lou was
covered."
But Bullock didn't doubt that Hughes
could play hero.
"Brandun has been fearless through-
out his career," Fisher said. "He malIe'
plays to win games. He doesn't pla
afraid."
Notre Dame had one final chance to
win, but Traylor blocked a baseline
jumper from White as the buzzer sound-
ed. Hughes' heroics overshadowed a
magnificent performance by Traylor,
who had 13 rebounds and a career-high
28 points on 12-of-18 shooting.
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