Scoreboard. WOMEN'S NCAA Midwest Region BASKETBALL (H) PURDUE 77, Mideast Region (12) Colorado St. 63 (1) TENNESSEE 8, (3) LOUISIANA TECH Western Kentucky 68 (6) Clemson 52 (3) LLNOS 69, West Region (11) San', a' ,ra 65 (2) DUKE 69, (H HM TUEH(10) Eouisville 53 (7) HO H, T ST{ , : (3) Florida 89T (11) Virginia Tec (16) Harvard at (9) ARKANSAS, it MEN'S NIT BASKETBALL MINNEOT7 OH BE6 S!R- gTS Tracking 'M' teams After a dominant victory at the Big Ten Champion three weeks ago, the Michigan women's swimmin team will travel to Minneapolis for the NCAA Championships on Thursday. Tuesday March 17, 1998 .'. Bletennms coach By Mark Francescutti Baiiy siwnis S wre When members of the Michigan men's tennis team look at their coach, Brian ti"er, few understand that the number of years he has coached eguals almos I Ece their age. In their Michigan careers, they may see 50 or 60 wins as a tea~m. ILIsi week Eisner had seen only 499. With a weekend win over Idaho at the Boise State Invitational, Michigan men's tennis coach Brian Eisner reached a plateau that only 19 other coach- es have in the 100-plus year history of NCAA tennis 500 wins. The statistics tell no lie about the greatness Eisner achieved. Now 12th among active coaches, he has a record of 501-217-1 in 35 years of coaching. Eisner's squads have won 18 Big Ten titles - including 14 consecutive titles between 1 970-83. Eisner, however, didn't even know about the record, "I didn't even realize it," Eisner said. "I guess it means I have been around for a long time. I enjoy what Im doing, and it's just a lot of fun." Victory No. 500 came when the Wolverines easily dispatched Idaho, 5-2, in the first round at the Boise Racket and Swim Club. A Virginia Tech win over Indiana State then brought the 52nd-ranked Wolverines their toughest opponent of the season - the 19th-ranked Hokies. The Virginia Tech match turned out to be full of emotion for the Wolverines, especially Miki Pusztai. Pusztai spent three seasons at Virginia ech before transferring to Michigan last year. Moving up to No. I doubles with Arvid Swan, the duo came out firi hng. cruising to a first-match win over the nationally ranked dou- bles duo of Aaron and Adam Marchetti. "It was important for (Pusztai) to perform well hecause he spent several years there," Eisner said. "We played .sonderful doubles. (Tile victory) car- ried over on the other players." Pusztai's teammates were fired up, leading to wins in two out of three dou- bles matches, earning the crucial doubles pomit. "In a nutshell, the team wanted it for Miki really bad," sophomore Matt Wright said. "We all rallied around him." Winning the doubles point meant that the Wolverines only needed to win three of six singles matches for the victory. But the 13th-ranked player in the nation, Virginia Tech's Aaron Marchetti, had other ideas. What could have been a match-tying wiln for the Hokies turned sour when Michigan's David Paradzik shocked Marchetti with a dominating 6-2, 6-2 win. Michigan was then able to squeak out two more singles wins to give Eisner victory No. 501, 4-3. Host team Boise State had cruised past its first opponent but suddenly ran into trouble early in the second match against Michigan State. The I8th-ranked Broncos came out fliit against the unranked, unseeded Michigan State and the Spartans took the advantage by winning the doubles point. But Boise State and its singles players returned to life and dispatched the Spartans, setting the stage for the final match of the tournament against the Wolverines. After the early scare against MSU, the Broncos made sure they didn't stumble again, as they shut down Michigan and earned the doubles point. "They came out and played great doubles, and we didn't get off to as fast a stan as in the Virginia Tech match," Eisner said. "We tried to play with the same intensity and energy level, but we weren't qite as sharp." The Wolverines marched back with come-from-behind wins by Swan and Wright, but it was too little too late, and they fell to their third loss See EISNER, Page 12 WHAT WENT 0 Louis Bullock's poor shooting was the most glaring of Michigan's-problems in its 85-82 loss to UCLA on Sunday, but it wasn't the only one. Some others: * Robert Traylor and Maceo Baston spent much of the second half in foul trouble, allowing the Bruins to pound-the ball inside on Michigan for easy shots. * Travis Conlan, after a terrific weekend in Chicago during the Big Ten Tournament, had a subpar game against UCLA. He did have four assists, but also turned the ball over four times and missed his only two shots from the field. UCLA had a great day from the floor, shooting 55 percent. The Wolverines made less than 41 percent of their field goal attempts. * Brandon Smith didn't play, and Josh Asselin played less than a minute after both had strong weekends in Chicago. MARGARET MYERS/Daily Louis Bullock struggled in Michigan's season-ending loss to UCLA on Sunday, shooting 7-for-27 from the field, including 2-for. 14 from behind the 3-point line. Bullock stepped up to take the blame - after nobody else would in the game T he Michigan basketball season came to an abrupt end on Sunday in an 85-82 loss to UCLA, and the loss would probably be a great deal easier to stomach had it not come on the heels of seven consecutive wins in which the Wolverines looked like world-beaters. So what happened? How did . Michigan go from one of the hottest teams in the country to one that was unceremoni- JIM ously eliminated in a matter ROSE of days'? Rose It would be easy to just Beef say that Louis Bullock didn't shoot well, so Michigan lost, and that's the end of it. End of story, end of sea- son. And there's a great deal of truth to that, too - but there's also more to Michigan's loss than Bullock's off-afternoon. And to place the blame solely on his shoulders is unfair - unfair to him, and unfair to the rest of the team as well. Everyone talks about Bullock's 2-for-14 perfor- mance from 3-point range, but here's the truth: A team with three NBA Draft picks on its frontline shouldn't be doomed to defeat just because its best shooter can't find his stroke. In fact, just one short week ago, Michigan won the Big Ten Tournament despite a subpar performance from Bullock in the championship game against Purdue. On that after- noon, Bullock had only 10 points and hit just a single 3-pointer, but it didn't matter - Michigan didn't fold up and go home simply because its best shooter couldn't score. Instead, the Wolverines dug in and played defense and won the game anyway. In Atlanta, however, two of Michigan's greatest fears came true: Bullock had an off-game and Michigan's big men got into foul trouble. More to the point, Robert Traylor got in foul trouble (Maceo Baston did, too, but that happens every game). And while Traylor managed to last the entire game without fouling out, he was forced to take it easy on defense. That, combined with Bullock's shooting woes, did the Wolverines in. And give the Bruins credit - they guessed that if they could get Traylor in foul trouble, they'd get easy shots against Michigan, and they were right. UCLA shot 55 percent for the game, largely because Michigan's interior defense had to be extra cautious for much of the second half. It's also worth noting that Bullock, for all his + heroics and all his amazing shooting performances this season, isn't the only guard Michigan has, nor the only 3-point shooter. In fact, Robbie Reid was magnificent from long range, connecting on 6 of8 attempts behind the are - but it didn't matter. Most of Reid's shooting came in the first half, and though it kept Michigan in the game early, it was- n't enough to put the Wolverines over the hump. It might have been enough, though, if the See ROSE, Page 12 FILE PHOTO Dave Paradzik, who played number one singles, led the Wolverines to two wins in three tries at the Boise State Invitational this past weekend. ,pe. .rte ws aac ? a3' \ s.UCUS~ 011 I' L AchIeve Your Maximum LSAT Score by Focusing upon the Test's Key Points. " Learn to Anticipate the Exam's Thinking * Improve Your Reasoning & Logic Skills * Develop Comprehensive Exam Strategies * Make the LSAT's Leveraged Scoring Work for You Classes for the June LSAT start: Thur., May 7th & Mon., May 11th COMPREHENSIVE LSAT PREPARATION INDIVIDUALIZED & AFFORDABLE E"E"L99s-1 500 Test Preparation 1100 South University I