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SPORTS
TUESDAY
FEBRUARY 13, 2001
10
CHRIS
DUPREY
Hockey looks to flick the switch on powerplay
.intense IMplay
in tense refereeing
he deal was as follows: $6.50 an hour, a healthy
sweat and the opportunity to take flak from a
diverse sampling of the University community.
In return, I would donate my nights throughout the
eitj of five weeks. The job: Officiating intramural
b ketball.
- Oertain driving factors got me in the door. The tal-
ent scout in me was looking for the next Freddie
Himter. Hunter is part of IM lore, dating back to the
earMy499Os when he made such a name for himself in
iet that he earned a walk-on spot on Steve Fisher's
sqiad. Just one year later, he was named captain of Fab
Five Part I.
The Steve Welmer in me wanted to know if slapping
sicone with a 'T' was as much of a thrill as it looked
'o television. And the Richard Simmons dimension
propted the idea that refereeing could be a weird way
to g some windsprints.
xWhkilc participation in flag football, fall's principal
sppr, js overwhelming in number but relatively social
injature, basketball is quite the opposite. The teams
tha doplay IM hoops are smaller in number, but they
piyt win.
hey expect to win. When teams don't, they come
s tc ing for a scapegoat. Usually there's one with a
biglshirt conveniently stationed under the basket or
ourtnear the 3-point line.
The basic arguments boil down to these: Someone
on jhe other team is always getting away with some-
thiig. Anyone who drives to the basket out of control is
still'entitled to a blocking foul. An airball must be the
resultrof some kind of contact.
°hould a particular opponent be dominating, a play-
er-specific whine is engaged. Defenders feel that since
they can't stop an opponent, certainly the referee can.
I a big man is proving to be toosmuch to handle,
thfe heWs been in the lane for eight seconds. Call it.
1f a guard is having success penetrating, he must be
pushing off. Or palming the ball. Or something - any-
thing: Call it.
lt' tough to argue with the players. Not necessarily
be a se they're right. Because nine out of 10 times,
they6 on't know the rules of basketball as well as they
think they do.
iall that hits a defender's foot is not a kicked ball
un s he tried to kick it. A player who drops a pass
may or may not be able to dribble, depending if he tried
to catch and dribble in the first place. A defender stand-
ing with his arms straight up will not be called for a
foul, even if he is involved in contact.
Some referees shy away from the argumentative part
of the job. They'd just as soon not deal with it.
I enjoy it. That's what made for great stories these
past five weeks, as I recounted to my roommate the
charging call I made on the game's crucial possession
or the technical foul I dished out to the kind 250-pound
fellow who told me to screw off.
Players have legitimate gripes on occasion. Certain
referees call games tighter than others, which can lead
to inconsistency. And like the Big Ten and any other
league, some refs are better than others.
I've found the truly good players don't need to
spend time complaining. If someone bumps them on
their way for a layup, causing them to miss, they'll grab
th rebound and score anyway.
There are a few of these caliber of players knocking
around the IM leagues. I didn't find any Freddie
Hunters, as I had set out to do. A few Mike
Gotfredsons, maybe.
I'm mourning the conclusion of the season, but it's
been a blast. I've revitalized myself with the exercise,
stockpiled a few hundred bucks for Spring Break, and
felt the swell of true power.
Can't we go another five weeks?
Chris Duprey can be reached at
cdurev umnich.edu.
By Ryan C. Mooney
Daily Sports Writer
One powerplay goal in 12 attempts against Northern
Michigan. Shut out at home in the Saturday night rematch. A
split weekend when only a sweep would do.
At the height of the CCHA regular season race, the
Michigan hockey team did not expect an offensive power
outage. Simply put, the Wolverines' scoring-amnesia could-
n't have come at a worse time.
When Michigan gets hot, the mercury explodes from the
thermometer - the team has averaged a shave under five
goals in its 21 victories so far this season.
But in their eight losses, the Wolverines managed an aver-
age of exactly two goals per game.
Interestingly, the powerplay numbers are similar in terms
ofjaw-dropping disparity. Michigan converts 25.8 percent of
its opportunities in wins - 10.8 percent in losses.
"There's no coincidence there, no question," associate
head coach Mel Pearson said. "When your powerplay plays
well and scores, it gives the team confidence - when you
don't score you don't find that confidence or energy to feed
off of."
The varying percentages are, of course, dependent on the
attempts Michigan gets in a game. The Wolverines average
5.9 powerplay opportunities in wins versus 6.1 in losses - in
wins and losses, the team gets the same amount of extra-man
chances.
Meaning, all things being equal, as the powerplay goes so
goes Michigan.
"The way the powerplay plays on that night is usually a
reflection of how the rest of the team is playing," coach Red
Berenson said.
Though they hold CCHA's best powerplay, Michigan has
come up flat against some of the league's best penalty killing
teams. Michigan State and Ohio State, No. 1 and No. 3 in the
league in penalty killing, respectively, have combined to hold
the Wolverines to a I-for-19 stupor with the extra man.
ALYSSA WOOD/Daily
When Michigan is winning, its potent powerplay is giving goalies fits. But in games when the powerplay is not clicking,
the team rarely finds ways to put the puck in the net.
As the picture of Michigan's postseason scenario in the
CCHA and NCAA tournaments becomes clearer, success
against top-tier, penalty killing teams moves from a concern
to a necessity.
"The last month in practice we've been playing different
guys in different situations to see how they handle it,"
Pearson said. "We have an idea now but we've got to spend
more time with it. Definitely in the playoffs you need to have
good special teams and we'll pay more attention to it now that
we know the direction we're heading with it."
The coaching staff has experimented with different power-
play unit combinations throughout the season, but starting
Friday against Notre Dame, the frequency of personnel
changes on both lines will likely decrease.
"We can make changes as the game goes on, but we're
headed towards (a set unit lineup)," Pearson said.
Despite the powerplay's anemic showing in losses this sea-
son, Berenson remains unfettered in his belief that the long-
term success of the unit outweighs its occasional struggles,
including this weekend.
"You're not going to have a perfect season. Sure you'd like
to take back those losses, but there are only six teams with a
better record in the country right now" he said.
"If you blow-out a tire, are you going to start crying? Are
you going to leave your car, sell it or are you going to fix
it?"
om one
Coaches are
driving force
for Michigan
By Nathan Unsley
Daily Sports Writer
Every so often, the Michigan wrestling team's
practices consist of simulated matches. They offer
the coaches an opportunity to see people wrestle out
of their weight class, and force the wrestler to adapt
his style to his opponent's weight.
The last time simulated matches were scheduled,
an especially intriguing match took place.
Following practice, co-captain Otto Olson took on
assistant coach Tony Robie.
Though the outcome of the match was unclear, it
was apparent that this was no playful scrum
between coach and player.
Coach Joe McFarland knows that Robie fulfills a
role that he no longer can.
"As I've gotten older, I want to make sure I run a
quality practice, and I want a practice with a lot of
intensity," McFarland said. The assistant coaches
can help by "getting in there and wrestling hard
with the guys."
Robie, in his first year with the team, and Kirk
Trost, in his 15th year with Michigan wrestling, are
the unsung heroes of the third-ranked Wolverines.
"Those guys do a great job - they put a lot of
work into it," McFarland said. "They havejust as
much invested in this as I do."
Perhaps more than any other sport, coaching
wrestling requires knowing how to wrestle - and
Robie and Trost certainly know how to wrestle.
When Trost was a teammate of McFarland's on
the Michigan teams of the early-to-mid 1980s, he
compiled a record of 139-48 and was the NCAA
champion at heavyweight in 1986.
Trost said that his most memorable moment as a
wrestler came in that championship victory, as well
as winning a World Cup match against the Soviet
Union's best wrestler. Akmed Atodov. in 1987.
NWCA TOP 10
As of Feb. 7, 2001
From the National Wrestling Coaches
Association
Team Record PVS
1. Minnesota 17-1 1
2. Oklahoma State 15-1 2
3. Michigan 15-3-1 5
4. Iowa 17-3 3
4. Iowa State 17-4 4
6. Oklahoma 17-4-1 8
7. Illinois 11-2 6
8. Nebraska 11-5 9
9. Ohio State 15-4 11
10. Lehigh 15-5 10
Robie wrestled for Edinboro, graduating in 1997.
He was a two-time All-American, and was the run-
ner-up at NCAAs in his senior season.
Robie thinks that the success of the two coaches
is a great help to the young Wolverines.
"I think that when you're an accomplished
wrestler and then you get into coaching, they real-
ly have more of a propensity to believe you,"
Robie said. "They know that a lot of the stuff we're
telling them, we've done in the past, and it worked
for us."
"The thing about being a good wrestler and
wrestling with the USA team is that we had expo-
sure to so many other great athletes," Trost said. "So
you learn from all these other people and there
might be some little things that you can do to help
our guys."
Both assistants find rewards in both coaching and
competing. The joy of seeing a proteg6 succeed is
particularly gratifying.
"I really like to see the guys get to the point
where they reach their personal best. I know when I
got there myself, it was a great feeling to know that
I really excelled at that time," Trost said.
Even though both Robie and Trost have aspira-
tions of one day becoming a head coach, they know
that their situation is about as good as it could get as
an assistant.
"With the university behind us and the resources,
and the rest of the coaching staff and the athletes we
already have here, I think we can do real, real well"
Robie said.
extreme
to another
The Associated Press
Shades of the USFL.
The XFL wasn't as big a turn-on in
Week 2, as the football league that's as
much about spectacle as sports drew
only half as many viewers as it did for
the debut broadcast on NBC and was
pummeled in the TV ratings by the
film "The Parent Trap."
The 50-percent decline mirrors
what happened to the USFL, another
spring football league, albeit one that
- unlike the XFL - lured away some
top talent from the NFL.
The USFL went from a 14.2 rating
in its first game, on ABC in 1983, to
7.4 in its second game. It was down to
3.3 by Week .15 and folded after three
seasons.
Similarly, the preliminary overnight
rating for Saturday's XFL show on
NBC was a 5.1, meaning an average
of 5.1 percent of television homes in
the country's largest 49 markets tuned
in at any given time. Last week's pre-
liminary Nielsen number was 10.3.
Another bad sign: Repeating a pat-
tern seen in Week 1, the XFL rating
decreased each half-hour from 8 to
10:30 p.m. EST.
That was followed by a razor-thin
increase for the next 30 minutes, but
then the audience expanded by 25 per-
cent from 1I to 11:45 p.m. as the Los
Angeles Xtreme pulled out their 39-
32 victory over the Chicago Enforcers
in double overtime.
The silver lining for the network
and its partner in the XFL, the World
Wrestling Federation, though, is that
even with the decline, Saturday's rat-
ing was in line with the 4.5 national
rating that advertisers were promised.
Saturday night's national rating should
be out today.
"We remain a work in progress, and
our numbers (Saturday) are exactly
where we said they would be the last
six months;' NBC Sports chairman
Dick Ebersol said.
What remains to be seen is whether
the XFL can prevent further ratings
erosion.
"We have to wait at least four weeks
to get an accurate prediction for the
season," said former CBS Sports pres-
ident Neil Pilson, who now runs a TV
consulting firm.
The Week 2 rating, though, "does
establish that last week we had an
enormous tune-in from people who
probably are not going to be regular
viewers of the XFL," Pilson added.
"I thought the rating last week sim-
ply was a result of the terrific promo-
tion for the debut. Now you have to
Wonen's goffhas
lead after irst round
The Michigan women's golf team is
tied with Brigham Young for the lead
after day one of the San Diego State Lady
Aztec Invitational in Lakeside, Calif.
Michigan had three golfers in the top
five. Cortney Reno led the way for
Michigan, tying Alison Hiller of
Southern Illinois with the second lowest
score of the day at 74. Brigham Young's
Carrie Summerhayes had the best day
shooting a 71.
- Staff reports
S RE
Former Badger back
Bennett arrested
MADISON (AP) - Michael
Bennett, one of the nation's best running
backs last season, was arrested at his
apartment building early yesterday after
knocking in a woman's door, police said.
The former Wisconsin player was
accused of a felony count of criminal
intimidation of a victim, a misdemeanor
of criminal damage to property and dis-
orderly conduct. Bennett has not been
charged by the district attorney.
The arrest occurred after a dispute
between Bennett and the 19-year-old
female student, police spokesman.
Benjamin Vanden Belt said.
The 22-year-old running back called
the woman several times and then dam-
aged the woman's door but was unable to
enter the apartment, the spokesman said.
DeGregorio leaving
Rhode Island job
SOUTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. (AP) -
Jerry DeGregorio announced yesterday
he will not return as Rhode Island's
men's basketball coach next season after
a 10-44 record that is the worst two-year
stretch in school history.
DeGregorio, in the second year of a
three-year contract, will finish the sea-
son with the Rams while the school
looks for a new coach, athletic director
Ron Petro said.
DeGregorio said he had not anticipat-
ed some of the challenges he faced. The
Rams have been plagued by personnel
losses because of injuries and academic
problems.
AP TOP 25
As of Feb. 12, 2001
first-place votes in parentheses
Team Record Pts Pvs
1. North Carolina (62)21-2 1,742 1
2. Stanford (8) 22-1 1,659 2
3. Duke 22-2 1,633 3
4. Illinois 19-5 1,487 7
5. Mlchigan State 19-3 1,459 4
6. Kansas 19-3 1,337 5
7. Iowa State 21-3 1,317 12
8. Arizona 17-6 1,263 11
9. Boston College 18-2 1,087 17
10. Syracuse 19-4 1,083 9
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