The Michigan Daily - Thursday, December 2, 2001- 11 ABBY ROSENBAUM/Daily The 3-1 Michigan soccer team was home this weekend against Cleveland State but traveled to Penn State. This weekend it will travel to Louisville before remaining home for the rest of the month. soccer takes off for Bluegras *State before long home stretch By Chris Burke Daily Sports Writer A trip to Louisville awaits the Michigan men's soccer team this weekend. It's the last trip the team will have to take for a while because after two games at the Louisville OInvitational, the Wolverines will not leave the state of Michigan for more than a month. The only two road games that will face Michigan between Sunday and an October 26th trip to the Florida International Invitational in Miar4i, Fla. are treks to Oakland and Michi- gan State. "We just had a good experience on *he road at Penn State in terms of not having to deal with the distractions of being home - having friends and family around all the time, things like that," Michigan coach Steve Burns said. "It's a better environment on the road in terms of being focused on one task and one task only." But the abundance of home cook- ing is something Michigan will con- centrate on after this weekend. ,Wollowing a 4-0 loss to Penn State last Sunday, the Wolverines will be tested with match-ups against Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo and Louisville. It's an important weekend for the Wolverine team that currently sits with a 3-1 record, as it attempts to bounce back from a tough loss against the nationally-ranked Nittany Lions. Cal Poly-SLO and Louisville also pose unique challenges because they are teams the Wolverines don't normally see on their schedule. "We still have to be concerned with how we're prepared and address the style of other teams," Burns said. "Our style would be considered more of a possession team - we play shorter balls, try to pull the other team out of position and then catch them with long balls one-on-one. "But teams can take that away from you and we have to prepare for that. Right now we're in the process of learning how Louisville plays, but Cal Poly-SLO will be more difficult because we have less connections in trying to learn their type of play.' Prior to the loss to Penn State, the Wolverines had won three-straight games - the longest winning streak for the team since it gained varsity status last year. The early streak was spurred by the play of redshirt fresh- man goalkeeper Joe Zawacki. In the Wolverines' first three games, Zawacki allowed only one goal behind a fairly young team. Howev- er, in the loss to Penn State, Zawacki was able to take away something that might prove even more valuable than a win - experience. "He's a very good goalkeeper and for the first half of the game, he kept us in it," Burns said. "Obviously that sort of experience is extremely important in terms of the develop- ment of a scholarship goalkeeper." The team as a whole also took strides in the match at Penn State and is ready to roll into Louisville this weekend. , "It's not something I want to call upon often and say 'We're a young team and we learned from this expe- rience,' but we have to call it like we see it," Burns said. "Unfortunately Penn State was the better team last weekend, but we are a young team and our young team is learning to compete." No need for luggage After this weekend's trip to Louisville, the Michigan men's soccer team will stay close to home, thanks to a schedule that includes seven out of nine games in Ann Arbor. Graduation rate among college athletes flattens INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Graduation rates among college athletes held steady in the most recent NCAA figures, but the rate among men's basketball players dropped to its sec- ond-lowest level since 1984. The rates, which were released yesterday and are announced annually, reflect graduation patterns for athletes who entered college in 1994-95. While graduation rates for all Division I athletes remained at 58 percent - the same as surveys conducted the last two years by the primary governing body for college sports - the rate among men's basketball players dropped from 42 percent to 40 percent. The rate among white male basketball players in Division I declined 4 percentage points to 52 percent. But the rate for black male basketball players, however, increased by 1 per- cent to 35 percent. That's 4 percentage points higher than the black male student body. Richard Lapchick, head of the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University in Boston, called those figures encouraging. "That is a halt of the decline of black graduation, so it's kind of consistently ratcheting down," Lapchick said. Lapchick added that the rates are "still low enough in bas- ketball that we have to build in safeguards" to ensure athletes have a realistic opportunity to complete college degrees. Black female basketball players in Division I showed the single largest increase ever, graduating 61 percent from the class that enrolled in 1994 - a 9 percentage point jump from the previous year and 19 percentage points higher than the black female general student population. Division I white female basketball players also showed a slight increase, graduating 70 percent in the 1994 group, compared with 69 percent among students who entered in 1993. Overall, women basketball players at Division I schools graduated at a rate of 65 percent, up 2 percentage points. Graduation rates for Division I football players also improved, from 48 percent to 51 percent. After dropping to an all-time low of 55 percent in the 1993 group, the graduation rate among Division I-A white football players improved to 60 percent. The rate for Division I-A black football players rose three percentage points, from 42 percent to 45 percent. Experts say the NCAA's figures must be interpreted with caution. "The problem with graduation rates always is it's a snap- shot of a single year," Lapchick said. "That may be a distort- ed year." The NCAA began tracking graduation rates in 1984, using a formula that counts all transfer students - even if they go elsewhere and graduate - against the rates of their original school. It allows six years to complete a degree program, so graduation rates for the 1995 freshman class will not be com- piled and announced until next year. And although eligibility standards were set for incoming freshmen in 1986, graduation rates have hovered between 57 and 58 percent. Still, the graduation rate among athletes remained 2 percentage points higher than the rate for the general student population. Knight coached at Indiana before being let go last September. Indian1a AD wants to forget Knight BLOOMINGTON (U-WIRE) - A lot has changed since Indiana University President Myles Brand fired former bas- ketball coach Bob Knight Sept. 10, 2000. Indiana hired a new athletics director. Knight found a new job 1,100 miles away. Indiana's spokesman during the firing, Christopher Simpson, left to start his own business. The stu- dent at the center of the firing, Kent Harvey, transferred to IUPUI. Of the key players involved one year ago yesterday, only Brand remains at Indiana. And he says it's time to move on. "It was a tumultuous year. Coach Knight has a position at Texas Tech. I wish him well," Brand said. "We've moved on." Brand fired Knight last year for violating a "zero-tolerapce policy" established by the University on May 15, 2000 - a policy that would have been outlined and approved at the board of trustees' Sept. 15 meeting. "The problem is that he has continued a pattern of unac- ceptable behavior which is similar to the pattern he had prior to May 15, except it's gotten worse," Brand said at the news conference announcing Knight's firing. "There wasn't just one instance. It was ongoing." Knight grabbed freshman Kent Harvey at Assembly Hall the Thursday afternoon before he was fired, setting off a chain of events that would lead to his firing. The Indiana Police Department began investigating the incident, details were leaked to the media and high level talks considering termination of Knight began. At the N.C. State football game that Saturday last year, Brand told former athletics director Clarence Doninger that he was seriously considering termination, Doninger said. Meanwhile, Knight had left for a brief vacation in Canada Saturday morning, despite a request from Brand that Knight stay in town. Sunday morning, Brand offered Knight the chance to resign during a 10-minute phone conversation. Upon hearing Knight's refusal, Brand told Knight that he was being removed - effective immediately. DATE 9/21 9/23 9/28 9/30 10/3 10/7 10/11 10/14 10/21 OPPONENT BUTLER NORTHWESTERN DAYTON WESTERN MICHIGAN OAKLAND INDIANA BOWLING GREEN MICHIGAN STATE WISCONSIN LOCATION ANN ARBOR ANN ARBOR ANN ARBOR ANN ARBOR ROCHESTER ANN ARBOR ANN ARBOR EAST LANSING ANN ARBOR I. a - small-c ompany environment big-company impat'l As a proven achiever you've always been passionate about the way you spend your days. You demand more from yourself and those around'you. 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