The Michigan Daily - Thursday, March 18, 1999 - 19A
h-oop success helps
'heal' Auburn sports
''iNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -
Auburn's basketball success has helped
sitooth over some rough athletic times
ie university.
Auburn's troubles began last fall with
tAb mid-season firing of football coach
Tery Bowden. They didn't get any bet-
ter 'when the Tigers reneged on a com-
mitment to play Florida State on ESPN
t8 open the 1999 football season, thus
avoiding the wrath
of terry's father, SOUTH
'o1by.
-'The controversy PrevieW
comnbined to bring -----------
unwanted national attention.
utit the basketball team won its way
into Thursday's NCAA South Regional
s iifinal against fourth-seeded Ohio
"'tis basketball team has allowed
te Auburn family to heal. It has pushed
the controversy to the side' Cliff Ellis
sad'of his top-seeded Tigers.
SORE FOOT: St. John's leading scor-
Ron Artest, was limping noticeably
ractice Wednesday but said he'll be
fine:
'Arest said he got sick to his stomach
lbes,4ay night and whacked his foot on
his rOommate's bed while making a
desperate dash toward the bathroom in
t~ie'dark.
fe said the tape job he got before
pc tice was too tight and that caused
the Alip.
HOLIDAY TIME: Ohio State coach Jim
Flint goes
green
FLINT, Mich. (AP) - Flint was
wearing a particular shade of green this
St Patrick's Day: Spartan green.
.The city is watching with excitement
as four native sons suit up Friday for
Michigan State in the Spartans' Sweet
14 matchup against Oklahoma in the
N*AA tournament.
Mateen Cleaves, Antonio Smith,
*arlie Bell and Morris Peterson all
vent to high school in Flint before
jdiing Big Ten champion Michigan
State. Each has "Flint" tattooed on his
arm.
Around this industrial city north of
Detroit, the four are known as - well,
just ask Margaret Schuetz.
"The Flintstones!" she beamed
Wednesday, her eyes brightening.
Ms. Schuetz, a mental health worker
Wo lives in Saginaw but commutes to
Flint, said she typically doesn't watch
basketball. But this year's different.
"Even people in Saginaw are excited
about the Spartans, she said.
Deborah Jefferson, who went to the
same high school as Peterson, called
her sister in Milwaukee last weekend to
ask if she was watching the Flintstones.
"She said, 'The cartoon?' She
thought I was crazy," Ms. Jefferson
id. "She hadn't heard that nickname.
o now I'm spreading the word."
Ms. Jefferson said her young son -
13 but already 6 feet tall - is glued to
the television for the tournament and
wants to go to Peterson's former high
school.
But downtown Flint was displaying
few signs of Spartan pride yesterday,
perhaps because of the proximity of the
University's Flint campus.
PREVIEW
Continued from Page 14A
PARING SHOTS: Even though our
brackets were a bit hard to read (fit-
ting that Duke blotted out the rest
of the field, huh?) we also received
, omplaints that they were wrong,
cause ESPN's looked different.
Even though we've made mistakes
before (see Pg. 18A if you don't
believe me), we knocked down this
open look ... Did you pick Weber
State? Can you prove it? Didn't
think so - but if you think you can,
e-mail hoops. daily@umich.edu,
we 've got something for you. ...
Did you laugh at my Surprise
CAA Tournament team when
"ipoff came out back in
November? The other basketball
writers did. Who's laughing now?
(HINT: me, because I almost never
get those right.) Did you laugh at
my pick last week for Texas as the
Cinderella team? Who's laugh -
O'Brien, of the Brooklyn O'Briens, St.
Francis Prep and Boston College, had
post-practice plans for St. Patrick's Day.
"I'll have corned beef and cabbage
and a green beer," he said. "How tradi-
tional is that?".
THIs WAY TO NCAA: Their records
and seedings make it no surprise that
Auburn and Ohio State are in the round
of 16, but that's recent history. Before
the season started, it would have been a
highly unlikely matchup.
Ohio State is the bigger surprise. The
Buckeyes were 8-22 last year and fin-
ished last in the Big Ten at 1-15.
The Buckeyes added Scoonie Penn,
who followed O'Brien from Boston
College and was named the Big Ten
Player of the Year.
But the remarkable about-face took
more than one player.
Three freshmen have contributed, as
well as junior college transfer George
Reese.
"I just wanted to be better than we
were a year ago," O'Brien said.
"Scoonie's mentality is that when
March rolls around, you play in the
NCAA tournament.
"I was the one who thought he was
crazy, but he obviously knew more
about it than me."
SWEET PRESSURE: Maryland has
been in the round of 16 in four of the
last six years, including the last two.
But the Terps haven't advanced past the
Sweet 16 since 1975.
Florida's Shannon is
A ' Most Courageous'
PHOENIX (AP) - Florida point he has talked about his team and the
guard Eddie Shannon, who played his game of basketball. To me that is a les-
senior season with just one eye, has son for all of us."
received the Frontier Most Courageous Calhoun said Davis was an innovatoT
Player Award from the U.S. Basketball with his pressing defense, tactics he first
Writers Association. showed in his days as coach at Boston
Shannon has had limited vision in his College in the late 1970s and early
right eye since the seventh grade, when 1980s.
he was hit by a rock. In recent years, the "A lot of the stuff you see by Rick
condition worsened. Pitino, by Jim Calhoun, by a whole
Finally, last October, he was fitted bunch of coaches from our part of the
with a prosthetic country, really evolved from when Tome
eye after having W came to Boston College," Calhoun said.
the damaged parts EST "His influence in college basketball con-
' r removed surgical- Preview tinues to live on in literally hundreds and
ly. hundreds of teams across America."
"I think I've inspired a lot of people GAGA OVER GONZAGA: Gonzaga
- by being in the situation I'm in and con- coach Dan Monson says he's never seen
tinuing to play and contribute," Shannon anything like the statewide support his
said. "It just goes to show what you can team has received in Washington over
achieve no matter what, if you just put the past week.
your head to it." Monson has a lot of experience in the
Coach Billy Donovan said it's not just state. The 37-year-old coach, was an
t: that Shannon has played, but the way assistant at the Spokane school for nine
he's played, that makes the story years before taking over as coach inf
astounding. 1997.
"Here's a kid who lost his vision in the "We've almost had a sense of state
seventh grade yet overcame it and was pride, for the first time since I've been at
recruited by some top-notch programs," Gonzaga," he said. "It's almost equal to
Donovan said. what Washington State did a couple of
COMPLIMENTING DAVIS: Connecticut years at the Rose Bowl. It doesn't matter
coach Jim Calhoun admires Iowa coach if you're a (Washington) Husky or a
Tom Davis and the way he has handled (Washington State) Cougar, if you root
his final season with the Hawkeyes. for Eastern Washington. Everybody is,
AP PHOTO "I think very few of us would have the for Gonzaga.
ni this year has helped heal the entire decorum and the dignity with which he "It's like you're in the middle of a hur-
Shah ee rodlfr several years, conducted himself; 'Calhoun said. ricane and everything is swirling around
a y Bowden was fired "What Tom has done so wonderfully is you and you're just watching it."
Spaulding leads Sooners i tourneyi.
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Cliff Ellis said Auburn's success In basketba
athletic department at the University. Auburr
and problems climaxed this fall when footbal
NORMAN, Okla. (AP) -After per-
forming superbly in his first two games
of the NCAA tournament, Oklahoma
guard Alex Spaulding seemed surprised
by what had happened.
"I never dreamed I'd play this good,"
he said.
He's not alone. Spaulding's first two
seasons with Oklahoma had been
remarkably average
- many would say MIDWEST
below average. He Preview
scored 2.5 points
per game while
averaging only 6.2 minutes last season.
This season, he averaged 3.2 points
although he started 19 times.
But coach Kelvin Sampson insists he
and the team aren't surprised by
Spaulding's play in the tournament. He
scored 10 first-half points against
Arizona in the first round, then had 12
points, six rebounds and eight assists
against North Carolina-Charlotte."
"He's not surprising us because
we've seen him do it," Sampson said. "I
saw the kid score 39 and 43 points in a
high school game. I saw him take his
team to the state championship at the
Dean Dome in North Carolina and win
as the point guard on that team.
"He had three recruiting visits - to
Wake Forest, Clemson and Oklahoma.
It's not like he was a shot in the dark.
This kid's a player."
He's also, Sampson said, a victim of
circumstances and the public's rush to
judgment.
Sampson had planned to redshirt
Spaudling last season to allow him a
year to adjust, but a back injury
knocked Tim Heskett out of the lineup
and left Sampson little choice but to
play Spaulding.
In October, Spaulding left school for
personal reasons. That cost him a spot
in this season's media guide - there's
no bio, no picture - but he returned
two weeks later and asked to be put
back on the team.
Sampson again planned to redshirt
him, but then Kelley Newton, who was
going to be a starter, injured a knee, so
Sampson was forced to play Spaulding.
"Those developments have slowed
his progress," Sampson said.
"Unfortunately, people look at numbers
and statistics in evaluating players.'
What many people didn't know;
Sampson said, is that Spaulding had
knee surgery in the spring of his senior
year of high school and didn't recover
well. So that slowed his progress when
he got to Oklahoma.
The Sooners will need another solid
game from Spaulding if they are to beat
Michigan State in the Midwest regional'
semifinals Friday.
"If you think about all the things he's
been through ... it's not shocked me that
he's come along so slowly,' Sampson
said.
.
a
AP PHOTO
Residents of Flint are joyfully cheering their favorite sons, who are helping
Michigan State roll through the NCAA Tournament. The top-seeded Spartans face
No. 13 seed Oklahoma tomorrow in the round of 16.
SW Missouri State
has history agamst it
SPRINGFIELD, MO. (AP) - The
first time he was asked how he planned
to get little Southwest Missouri State
past mighty Duke, Steve Alford had a
ready reply.
He would sneak out onto the New
Jersey Turnpike and put up detour
signs. No. 1 Duke would get lost on the
way to the Meadowlands, and Alford's
Bears would have bamboozled another
top-ranked opponent into defeat on a
march toward an NCAA title.
"But then I found out they're 8-0
there," Alford said, chuckling. "So they
probably know
how to get there." EAST
They certainly
know how to play review
there, in an arena -----------------
that is home to this weekend's NCAA
East regional..
But then Duke knows how to play
anywhere. The Blue Devils won their
first- and second-round games last
week by 41 points apiece.
"They're very good once they get
ahead," Alford said, noting how the
Blue Devils often have jumped to quick
leads and never relinquished them.
Then, after a long pause, he added:
"They're very good once they get
State, seeded 12th, beat Team Duke,
seeded No. 1?
"A No. 12 seed has never won,"
Alford said.
But that's not to say that the coach,
who played on a national championship
team at Indiana in 1987, doesn't believe
it can't be done this time.
And so do his players who, like him,
say they'll play hard, have fun and hope
that's enough. In the meantime, they
don't appear particularly worried as
they prepare for the biggest game of
their careers.
"It's our biggest game just because
it's our next game," guard William
Fontleroy said. "The next obstacle
standing in front of us just happens to
be Duke."
Still, he grinned at the thought of
playing in the Meadowlands, "in front
of the New York media where we've got
a chance to make a name for our-
selves."
This is a team, he said, that went 20-
10 during the regular season but could
have been 24-6. It lost four conference
games to its two toughest opponents,
Creighton and Evansville, by margins
of three points and two points, one in
overtime.