Cze £irbiguu &zilg P R Sports desk: 647-3336 sportsdesk@umich.edu SECTION B I . . ,..: :,~x .*:.! 1 I oilers alt Blue inBTT By Raphael Goodstein Daily Sports Writer INDIANAPOLIS - It pleaded for the attention for months. But when the fans cheered, the televi- sion cameras rolled, and the NCAA Tournament committee paid atten- tion, the No. 22 Michigan women's basketball team cracked. After receiving PURDUE 74 eir first C at i o n a l MICHIGAN 59 ranking in school history, the second-seeded Wolverines went to the Big Ten Tournament talking about a revenge game with fifth-ranked and top- seeded Penn State in the finals. But Michigan seemingly forgot about its semifinal game with No. 18 Purdue, last year's national champion, falling 74-59 on Saturday. The loss exposed the Wolverines s an inexperienced team that lacks tournament stamina while snapping their nine-game winning streak. "We were a little excited to be there," junior point guard Anne Thorius said. Thorius was one of two Michigan starters to finish with double-digits scoring. Senior forward Stacey Thomas was the other, but Thomas *nished the game just 3-12 from the field and 3-7 from the free- throw line for her 10 points. Thomas' offensive failures caused Michigan coach Sue Gue- vara to play backup forward Heather Oesterle for 14 second-half minutes - the sophomore averages only 12 minutes per game. Thomas played a mere eight minutes in the second half. Thomas's second-half absence 1lowed Purdue's Katie Douglas, the co-Big Ten Player of the Year, to See DISAPPOINT, Page 5B KIM ITSU YOGACHI/Daily Celebrating in Bowling Green wouldn't have been much fun for the Michigan hockey team, so the Wolverines saved the party for Yost ice Arena. In the bag With mixed results,'M wrestlers 5th By Jon Schwartz Daily Sports Writer WEST LAFAYETTE - When Ferris Bueller was taking his day off, he coined the phrase, 'Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Apparently, the same is true for the Michigan wrestling team. At the Big Ten Champi- onships held this past weekend, the Wolverines saw their emo- CHAMPIONSH IPS tions reaching new heights of instability. But, for the most part, their score remained steady throughout the event, which Iowa won with 139.5 points, beating Minnesota by only seven. Michigan drove home with a fifth place, 73-point finish heading into the NCAA Championships to be held in two weeks in Saint Louis. But it was the way that the Wolverines earned fifth that made the tournament so interesting. After the sec- ond session on Saturday night, half of the Michigan competitors were devastated by their performances. The others were ecstatic with their surprising suc- cesses. By the end of the evening, Michigan was entering the second day of competition without a single wrestler in the finals. Senior 133-pounder Joe Warren was one person crushed with his inability to advance. Facing Michigan State's Pat McNamara - the same McNamara who had beaten Warren in the finals last year at Crisler Arena - Warren lost a 10-8 semifinal decision in a match that could have gone anyway at any point. The loss was tough for Warren - who eventually finished third in a class won by Iowa's Eric Juergens - particularly because of the now familiar opponent. "I hate that kid," Warren said of McNamara, who has beaten him in their last six meetings. "To lose to him was even worse for me." Damion Logan, Mike Kulczycki and Andy Hrovat, at 141, 149 and 184 pounds respectively, suffered the same fate as Warren. See FIFTH PLACE, Page 7B No. 1 gymnasts set season high By Dan Dingerson Daily Sports Writer In the midst of spring break and spring training, the No. I Michigan men's gymnastics team took to the road for spring competition. On tap for the Wolverines were a pair of sixth- ranked foes, and the best-nicknamed team they would face all year. On Saturday night, the Wolverines' week in southern California culminated in a tri-meet with No. 6 Oklahoma and No. 18 California-Santa Barbara. The Oklahoma Soon- Despite loss, icers secure league title and NCAA berth By Geoff Gagnon Daily Sports Writer The announcement came with just under two minutes to play in Friday's game at Bowling Green. The hardware came a day later. Friday, as Michigan huddled near its bench during a Bowling Green timeout at 18:49 of the third period, news that Michi- gan had clinched its sixth CCHA crown in nine years gave the Wolverines faithful in attendance cause to celebrate. And for good measure, Michigan solidified its title claim by staving off the upset minded Falcons 3-1 in a game that proved to matter very little in the calculation of the CCHA race. Saturday's rematch with the Falcons there- fore, mattered even less - and unfortunate- ly Michigan knew it. "It's tough to get excited for a game that doesn't mean so much," Michigan forward Mike Comrie said. "We should have had a better game, but those things happen" In dropping its first game to Bowling Green in Ann Arbor since 1992, forward Mike Cammalleri said the 6-3 loss saw the Wolverines fall victim to a temporary lack of focus - a problem that, according to Cam- malleri, won't happen again. "It's just a real letdown after we clinched first place the night before," Cammalleri said. "We're a team that plays better when we have something to prove and that's going to be the case next week." That will be when CCHA Tournament action begins with Michigan hosting West- ern Michigan on Friday. Meanwhile, Bowl- ing Green used its win Saturday to avoid a return to Ann Arbor next week by fighting its way to eighth place in the conference and a meeting with Lake Superior State by hand- ing Michigan one of its worst conference losses of the year. In a game defined from the outset as phys- ical, Michigan and Bowling Green com- bined in the first period to tally 17 penalties - good for nine power plays on 34 minutes spent in the box. Fittingly, Bowling Green struck first on a power play at 14:34 of the first period as Ryan Fultz capped off a wild frenzy in front of the Michigan net by knocking the puck past Michigan's Josh Blackburn. Moments later, on a rebound from behind the net, the Falcons took a 2-0 lead as Austin de Luis followed the errant shot of Michael Jones for a score at 15:14. Outshooting Bowling Green 12-8 in the first period, the Falcons extended their lead as Marc Barlow beat Blackburn to his left from the right circle at 6:39 of the second period. Later in that frame, Scott Matzka did his best to ignite a Michigan comeback as he tallied his second goal of the weekend with a breakaway score. Michigan continued to flirt with chances to claw its way back into the contest after, Bowling Green's Greg Day scored to start the third period. On a strike nearly identical to Barlow's, Michigan's John Shouneyia notched his fourth score of the year with a goal at 4:31 from the right circle. By the time Michigan scored again at 19:08 on a shorthanded goal from Matzka, Bowling Green had put the Wolverines away with goals by Scott Hewson and Craig Des- jarlais. But Matzka's goal helped the junior complete a successful four-point weekend campaign with a goal and an assist in Fri- See FALCONS, Page 4B Michigan sufflers worst loss evers State humiliates 'M' to win Big Ten By David Den Herder Daily Sports Editor A P PHOTO Purdue smothered the Wolverines to send them home early. ftfter title, tankers prep for NCAAs By Benjamin Singer Daily Sports Writer The most storied Big Ten team reclaimed its title as conference cham- pions after being separated from the trophy for two years as No. 7 Michigan, in its home pool, "brought it back" just over a week ago - something the Wolverines had talked about all year long. That was fun, but now Michigan sets its sights on the NCAAs, three weeks ay in Minneapolis. Only 235 swimmers and divers in the nation are invited to the NCAA cham- pionships and Michigan is likely to send at least six. "We are in the eleventh hour here trying to figure out who gets to go," said assistant coach Eric Namesnik ers are currently the top-rated team not in the Big Ten; the Santa Barbara Gauchos are win- less - perhaps due to their loca- tion near the beach which renders college a permanent spring break site. The Michigan gymnasts responded to their week of train- ing in the sun by posting their best score of the year, 231.975. The effort was led by Scott Vet- ere, who easily took the all- around with his score of 58.55 - outperforming teammate Aim high The top-ranked mensym- nasts set both team and individual records over spring break. Team: Rings -39.625 Hligl Bar-38.625 Scott Vetere: All-Around-58.55 Rings -9.95- Vault - 9.95 Foor Exercise 9.9 EAST LANSING - The 2000 Big Ten Championship banner now hangs from the rafters'of Michigan State's Breslin Center. It could have been lowered at halftime. Or perhaps sooner.M Michigan's 114-63 humiliation at the 1 MICHOAN 63 hands of the Spartans was its worst loss MICHIGAN ST. 114 in school history. The band belched the "M.S.U. Fight , Song" over and over as the raucous i0 . . faithful watched the points keep rising. i But the Spartan Brass refrained from Worstloinhistory playing the most appropriate song for this afternoon: "Sweet Georgia Brown" Michigan State records: - the famous anthem of the Harlem *Most points by one team Globetrotters. ever in a Big Ten game Led by the newly crowned Big Ten ets-iagame assists leader, Mateen Cleaves, the Glo- Most career assists in Big betrotters made a mockery of these Ten (Cleaves--769) Generals until the final buzzer - and even a bit after. By the time Cleaves was kissing the block "S" on his way out of the game, he had 20 assists on the day (a Big Ten record) and 769 for his career (a Big Ten record). The Globetrotters sank 16 3-pointers (a Big Ten record), including four from high-point man Charlie Bell, who finished with 31. Four of Bell's teammates finished with him in double digits, while Josh Asselin was the only General to reach the same mark, scoring 13. "For MSU, this may be a day that never gets passed by," Michi- gan State coach Tom Izzo said after wiping his suit clean of the confetti from the postgame celebration. "It is an incredible A P PHOTO Mateen Cleaves only shot the basketball on Saturday to set up the pass. The senior had 20 assists to become the Big Ten record-holder. late in the second half. Then, one by one, they were subbed out - taking sweet time to give and receive love from their team- mates and even the hardwood. As Cleaves rose from his knees at center court (the kiss, he later admitted, was inspired by Shawn Respert), he patted Kevin Gaines on the butt. "We're pot going out there and trying to embarrass them," Cleaves said. While the Generals scored 63 points in the game, the Globe- trotters scored 63 in the second half alone. "There was no trying to run up anything," Izzo said. Kevin Roulston, who scored 56.475 to take second-place. Vetere won three events, and scored above a 9.9 in three events, all team records. On both still rings and vault, Vet- ere recorded a 9.95 en route to the event title. Despite his 9.9 on the floor exercise, Vetere finished third, but managed to take first on the pommel horse with a 9.85. It was only a poor performance on the parallel bars that kept him from breaking 59.0. The meet may have been the most dominant individual performance ever by a Michigan male gymnast and set a new school record in the all-around - only missing the NCAA record by .05. "He has been nursing a sore lower back for a couple of weeks," Michigan coach Kurt Golder said. "We brought him back slowly, and everything came together for him at once." The Wolverines also received strong performances from freshman Kris Zimmerman, senior Lalo Haro and junior Kenny Keener. Zimmerman won the event title on the paral- lel bars with a 9.85 and tied Keener for second on the still rings with a 9.90. Haro tied for second on the vault with Roulston and took third on the parallelbars and high bar. The performance by the Wolverines was timely because Oklahoma recorded its best meet of the season, scoring 231.25 to finish a close second. The Sooners led the meet by two points through four events, but could not hold off