The Michigan Daily - SportsMonday - December 3, 2001- 3B
Michigan 78
Notre Dame 63
THE DOWN-LOW
GUEVA-RANT:
"WHADDYA THINK?" (GUEVARA ASKED THE
MEDIA WITH A SMILE)
KEY STATS:
MICHIGAN SHOT 68% FROM THE FIELD IN
THE FIRST HALF, OUTSCORING NOTRE DAME
45-27.
WHILE THE IRISH AVERAGE 47 REBOUNDS
A GAME, MICHIGAN OUTREBOUNDED
TURNING POINT:
AFTER FALLING BEHIND 7-4, THE WOLVER-
INES WENT ON A 26-6 RUN TO TAKE THE
LEAD FOR GOOD.
YoU KNEW IT WAS OVER WHEN:
Halftime - Michigan led 45-27
going into the break.
THE DAILY'S MVPs:
ALAYNE INGRAM - 22 POINTS INCLUDING
THREE TRIPLES TO SET A MICHIGAN
RECORD FOR 3-POINTERS.
LEEANN BIES - 18 POINTS AND 12
REBOUNDS FOR THE GAME'S ONLY DOUBLE-
DOUBLE.
NOT IN THE BOX SCORE:
A LARGE PORTION OF THE VAN ANDEL
ARENA CROWD CAME FROM NEARBY LAKE-
VIEW TO CHEER ON LOCAL STAR LEEANN
BIES. SHE DID NOT DISAPPOINT.
YESTERDAY' S GAME
IRISH
Continued from Page 1B
Mason showed she has good touch
in the paint, shooting over smaller
Notre Dame defenders. The Irish
were constantly confounded by the
Wolverines and were unable to stop
the hot Michigan offense, which shot #
68 percent from the field in the firstV
half.
"We came out in the 2-3 and we>
were going to double down, but I
didn't think the 2-3 was that effec-
tive," Notre Dame coach Muffet>
McGraw said. "So we then played a
little bit of man-to-man after that and
we played another defense after that.
So we tried three different things in n
the first half and really, none of them
were successful."
The Irish did not give up easily.
They came out with renewed intensi-
ty after halftime to cut the Michigan -,..
lead to 12. But just as in the first4
half, the strong beginning quickly
faded. Notre Dame also fell victim to
foul trouble early in the second half,
repeatedly sending Michigan players ,
to the line. LeeAnn Bies alone was
10-of- 11 from the charity stripe.
Michigani dominated the boards ~
against Notre Dame, outrebounding
the Irish both offensively and defen-
sively. The Irish were no match for the
Wolverines, who pulled down 40 LESLIE WA*RD/Daily
rebounds and held Notre Dame to just LeeAnn Bies returned home to help lead the Michigan women's basketball team to
28 on the day. a 78-63 victory over defending national champion Notre Dame yesterday.
ack spasms sid eline Goodlow
RAPHAEL
GOODSTEIN
Nebraska in title game?
BCS is coming up short
T ere's an old saying about democ-
racy: It's the worst form of gov-
ernment - except all of the other
ones. I used to think this applied more to
the BCS than it does to government.
After all, the BCS allows college foot-
ball to have its cake and eat it too, and no
other bowl system accomplishes this. It
allows for the bowl system to remain
intact, while a national champion is
crowned. The old bowl system didn't
provide a national champion, and the
Bowl Alliance couldn't get the Big Ten
or Pac-10 to join. So
the Bowl Alliance IS THE BCS ACC
was out and the WHAT IT SET OUT Ti
BCS was in. Big WHAT SYSTEM WOLJ
NCAA sport that doesn't crown its
national champion on the field," and
"think aboui all the money that a differ-
ent system could generate," people
thought.
Following the 1997 season, the BCS
was formed. Four really important bowl
games would be played and generate a
lot of money; one of these four would
be for the national title. The other 20-
whatever bowl games would still be
played, but the BCS bowls - the Fies-
ta, Orange, Rose and Sugar - were the
most important. This
'OMPLISHING
10 DO? IF NOT,
JLD?
year's really important
game is the Rose Bowl,
the bowl the Big Ten
and Pac-10 once cher-
MICHIGAN (78)
FG
MIN M-A
Pool 33 5-12
Smith 33 5-9
Bies 22 4-9
Jara 18 1-1
Ingram 39 8-15
Hauser-Price 1 0-0
Oesterle 10 0-2
Gandy 27 1-5
Mason 16 3-5
McPhilamy 1 0-0
FT
M-A
1-1
0-0
10-11
0-0
3-5
0-0
1-2
2-3
0-0
0-0
REB
O-T
1-1
1-6
7-12
1-1
0-2
0-1
0-1
419
0-3
0-0
A
1
3
4
5
3
0
2
4
1
0
FI
1
2
4
0
2
0
2
1
3
0
PTS
13
12
18
2
22
0
1
4
6
0
Totals 200
29-58 17-22 1540 23 15 78
FG%:.500 FT% .773 3-point FG: 3-7 429 (Pool 0-2.
Ingram 3-5). Blocks: 3 (Smith2, Bies 1) Steals: 6
(Ingram 4, Oesterle, Smith) Tumovers: 13 (Ingram 4,
Gandy 3, Smith 3, Pool, Bies) . Technical Fouls:
none.
Notre Dame (63)
FG
MIN M-A
Haney 22 2-6
Batteast 32 5-17
Borton 20 1-4
Severe 30 2-5
Rattay 37 6-11
Joyce 23 4-8
Hernandez 15 0-1
Wicks 12 1-4
Barksdale 9 1-2
Totals 200 22-59
FT
M-A
0-0
4-4
0-0
1-2
5.5
0-0
0-0
0-2
1-2
REB
0-T
2-4
3-9
1-1
0-1
3-7
1-2
0-0
" 1-2
0-0
A
0
1
0
6
2
1
2
1
0
F PTS
4 4
1 17
3 2
3 5
2 19
0 11
2 0
1 2
3 3
1963
By Jim Weber
Daily Sports Writer
GRAND RAPIDS - Raina Good-
low, where are you?
This Scooby Doo fan missed yes-
terday's game against Notre Dame
due to back spasms and watched the
game from a wheelchair because she
had problems walking. In honor of
the senior forward and team captain,
Michigan coach Sue Guevara put a
piece of tape on
her sports coat BASKETBALL
with Goodlow's
name and num- Notebook
ber, an idea she
got from the players.
"When I walked into the locker
room during pre-game, I saw some-
body's shoes, they had '32,' " Gue-
vara said. "And then I looked around
and they had written (Goodlow's)
number on various places and I said
to the coaching staff, 'I want one.' "
After a slow start to the season,
Goodlow tied her season-high with
15 points in Thursday's game against
Marquette. Goodlow also impressed
her coaches by increasing her com-
munication with other players after
Guevara challenged Goodlow and the
other captains to show better leader-
ship on the floor.
In Goodlow's absence, center Jen-
nifer Smith started for the first time
this year. She halted the Irish's come-
back efforts in the second half with
10 points and three rebounds.
Guevara also turned to freshman
Katrina Mason for quality minutes in
the post. Mason played a season-high
16 minutes after two strong practices
last week.
"You never know when your
opportunity is going to come. But
when it comes, you take advantage of
it," Guevara said in reference to the
6-foot-2 center.
Mason did just that, scoring six
points - all in the first half-- on 3-
for-5 shooting. She made scoring
look easy by simply catching, turning
and shooting for her points. Other
Wolverines like Smith and LeeAnn
Bies also scored in this fashion, a
crucial part of Guevara's gameplan.
Mason and the rest of Michigan's
bench players, impressed Notre
Dame coach Muffet McGraw.
"It seemed like whoever came in
off the bench didn't miss a beat,"
McGraw said.
Guevara made it clear that these
girls were not only playing for one of
the biggest wins in the program's his-
tory, but they were also playing for
their injured teammate.
"It was a big win for our program
and a win for Raina Goodlow," Gue-
vara said.
WHAT RECORD?: Three minutes
into the first half, guard Alayne
Ingram broke the school record for
career 3-pointers --- not that she
would know.
"I forgot about it, actually," Ingram
said. "So when I hit it, coach said
'Nice record!' I was like, what play is
that?"
Ingram hit two more from behind
the arc to set the new 3-point record
at 137. The old record of 134 was
held by Molly Murray (1995-98).
She finished with a game-high 22
points on 8-for-15 shooting despite
Notre Dame's focus to shut her down.
"You would be surprised that we
were keying on her, but we were,"
McGraw said. "That is one of the
things we talked quite a bit about -
we had to stop (No.) 40 from the 3-
point line, so obviously there were a
couple breakdowns."
That wasn't the only breakdown in
McGraw's defense that Ingram
caused. She drove through the
defense on a couple of occasions to
create easy layups for herself.
Ingram's most aggressive drive of the
day resulted in a 3-point play after
she was fouled. It also extended
Michigan's lead to an insurmountable
23 points.
Ingram started at her familiar
shooting guard position but played
the point when Susana Jara was on
the bench. This was the case for most
of the second half; Jara only played
in the final few minutes during
garbage time although Jara did not
appear to be injured.
In her 39 minutes of action,
Ingram also displayed her ability to
distribute the basketball, with sharp
passes into the post to beat Notre
Dame's zone defense.
deal if it had its
flaws. It accomplished what it set out to
do better than any other system.
But now that Nebraska - which lost
its "playoff game" to a two-loss Col-
orado team by 26 points last week -
could be just one upset away from play-
ing in the Rose Bowl, questions will be
asked: Is the BCS accomplishing what
it set out to? And if it's not, what system
would?
The Cornhuskers didn't just lose last
week, they were abused to the point that
halfway through the game, there was no
question who the better team was:
Nebraska players were even admitting
as much: "We had big dreams coming
into today," Nebraska quarterback Eric
Crouch said after the game. "Those are
over with now"
Not only are they not over with, but
they're very possible. The Cornhuskers
fell from No. 1 to No. 4 in the BCS after
the loss. Because of Tennessee and Col-
orado's upsets of No. 2 Florida and No.
3 Texas, respectively, Nebraska finds
itself rooting for Louisiana State to beat
soon-to-be No. 2 Tennessee next week.
If this happens, the Cornhuskers go to
the national title game.
Jan. 1 used to be my favorite day of
the year, filled with great college foot-
ball games from 11 a.m. till 11 p.m.
Twelve hours of non-stop football.
When Jan. 2 rolled around, I might have
been tired of TV and football, but there
were a number of great bowl games, all
of which seemed important, while a
national champion was crowned.
Was two teams sharing the national
title really so bad? Is Michigan's 1997
season any less special because Nebras-
ka won a piece of the title? If anything,
that just made the bowl season seem
that much more important. I truly cared
who won that year's Orange Bowl, and
how often is that the case?
But most disagreed with this senti-
ment. "College football is the only
ished and annually played in.
To determine the national champi-
onship game's participants, a formula
was created to determine the two best
teams. The BCS system seemed to
match up the best two teams in the
country the first three years, or at least
the best team, while the bowl system
remained intact. There were a few
catches -only two of the four BCS
games would be played on Jan. 1, the
Big Ten and Pac-10 were no longer
guaranteed to annually play in the Rose
Bowl, all games that were not the
national title game seemed like consola-
tion games - but, hey, it was the best
system out there.
But after watching the Buffaloes
stampede Nebraska and run over Texas,
can anyone really say that they're not at
least the second-best team in the coun-
try. In fact, after watching Miami (Fla.)
barely beat Virginia Tech, one could
argue that-if there was a playoff, Col-
orado would beat the Hurricanes.
Of course this matchup will never
materialize. Likely, the Hurricanes will
either play Tennessee or Nebraska,
which didn't even win the Big 12. Hell,
it didn't even win its half of the Big 12.
If this happens, not only would the
BCS have failed miserably in what it to
set out to do, but such a scenario would
likely increase the chance of a playoff.
The NCAA needs to identify what's
important before it takes another step
down this road of endless, pointless
controversy because the next step will
be arguing over who the last team to
qualify for the playoff is -"Oregon
should be No. 4." "No Florida should
be ..."
Right now, the BCS is looking less
like democracy and more like anarchy.
Raphael Goodstein oan be reached at
raphaelg@umich.edu.
i91-15 132813
FG%: .373. FT%: .733 3-point FG: 8-25, .320 (Bat-
teast 3-8, Severe 0-1, Rattay 2-7, Joyce 3-7, Hernan-
dez 0-1, Wicks 0-1). Blocks: 3 (Haney, Severe,
Barksdale). Steals: 6 (Haney, Batteast, Borton,
Severe, Rattay 2). Tunovers: 11 (Haney, Batteast 2,
Borton 1, Severe 4, Joyce 2, Barksdale). Technical
fouls: none.
Michigan...................45 33 78
Notre Dame ..............27 36 63
At: Van Andel Arena, Grand Rapids
Attendance: 6, 482
Team leaders
THROUGH YESTERDAY
POINTS PER GAME:
PLAYER
1. LeeAnn Bies
2. Alayne Ingram
3. Tabitha Pool
REBOUNDS PER GAME:
PLAYER
1. LeeAnn Bies
2. Raina Goodlow
3. Jennifer Smith
PPG
16.2
15.4
11.3
Then and Now
Last year, Notre Dame demolished Michigan in the second round of the
NCAA Tournament. Yesterday, the Wolverines were "out for blood" and
exacted their revenge.
RPG
8.3
5.6
5.3
ASSISTs:
PLAYER
1. Alayne Ingram
2. Stephanie Gandy
3. Susana Jara
FREE-THROW PERCENTAGE:
Ass
18
18
17
Then
PLAYER
1. Jen Smith
2. LeeAnn Bies
3. Tabitha Pool
FT%
1.00(13-13)
.846(33-39)
.833(10-12)
FIELD-GOAL PERCENTAGE:
PLAYER
1. LeeAnn Bies
2. Jennifer Smith
3. Raina Goodlow
FG%
.615(32-52)
.533(24-45)
.515(17-33)
88-54 Notre Dame
"They just had too much,
and we didn't have
enough"
South Bend
NCAA Tournament
second round
Three, including AP
Player of the Year Ruth
Riley
One Point(0-6 FG), Four
Rebounds
Score
Losing coach
says ...
Location
Situation
Irish
Senior Starters
LeeAnn Bies'
Performance
MARJORIE MARSHALL/Daily
Now
78-63 Michigan
"I keep thinking, I miss
my team from last year"
Grand Rapids
Women's Basketball
Showcase
One
18 Points, 12 Rebounds,
10 of 11 from the line
In the paint with: Jen Smith
Smitty File
Year: Sophomore
Hometown: Lansing
Position: Center
Height: 6-3
* ^
V !GA
HANGIN' IN THE BARN: Jen takes great pride in her free throw-shooting and this season she has yet to
miss an shot from the charity stripe. She attributes this, in part, to when she was younger her brother
turned t heir barn into a basketball court.
"We would alw ay s have the family go shoot out at the barn," she said.
There she generated a lively rivialry with her brother.
"He still thinks he can beat me," she said
3-POINTERS:
PLAYER
1. Alayne Ingram
2. Tabitha Pool
3. Susana Jara
3-PT FG
9
4
3
HOW THE TOP 25 FARED
Team:
1. Connecticut
2. Tennessee
3. Oklahoma
4. Vanderbilt
5. Iowa St
6. Louisiana Tech
* 7. Stanford
8. North Carolina St.
9. Texas Tech
10. Purdue
11. Colorado
Last week:
beat Wake Forest 88-38 , beat BaliState 103-69
beat George Washington 88-57, beat No. 8 North Carolina State 93-56
beat TCU 7660, Beat Wichita State 89-68
beat Xavier 7&56, Beat Wisc-Milwaukee 79-64, beat James Madison 90-44
beat Creighton 75-74
lost to No. 14 Duke 7664
beat San Francisco 103-72, beat Pepperdine 7563, beat Santa Clara 94-62
beat Old Dominion 74-58, beat Charleston Southern 99-45, lost to No. 2 Tennessee 93-56
beat Oregon 64-60, lost to New Mexico, beat North Texas 63-53
beat Valparaiso 7658, beat Southern Miss 80-40, beat LSU 70-54
Lost to Colorado State 81-69, beat Iowa 92-83