6B - The Michigan Daily - SportsMonday - March 18, 2002

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V1 TOP PERFORMANCE: Pittsburgh's Julius
,_40 1) t5 Page. The 6-foot-3 guard from Buffalo scored 17
points on 7-of-10 shooting and pulled down eight
rebounds in the Panthers' 63-50 win over California to
advance to the Sweet 16. Most impressive of Page's and
Pittsburgh's day was a nine-and-half-minute stretch in the sec-
ond half during which the Panthers outscored the Golden
Bears 16-0. Page led that run with seven of his 17 points.
CINDERELLA STORY: Obviously the Kent State Golden
Flash. The No. 10 seed represented the MAC with wins
over big conference teams Oklahoma State (a No. 7
seed) and Alabama (the No. 2 seed in the South).
Next up for Kent State is Pittsburgh.
BRACKET BUSTERS: Did you have Kent State?
We didn't have Kent State. The South was
supposed to be the region where seeds held
and Alabama met Duke in the Elite Eight.
First-year coach Stan Heath and his Golden
Flash thought otherwise.,
BETTER SWEET SIXTEEN GAME: The Duke-
Indiana matchup features two of the most
storied programs in the game's history.
Can Jared Jeffries carry the Hoosiers
against a Duke team that showed its lack of
depth against an inferior Notre Dame team?
Eh, probably not. But it will be fun watching
them try.
BEST POTENTIAL FINAL: We want to see Kent State
continue its Cinderella run against the mightiestE
Goliath in sports, the Duke Blue Devils.

A Pl-
North Carolina-Wilmington's Anthony Terrell, right, dives for a lose ball against
Indiana's Donald Perry during the second half in the Hoosiers' 76-67 win.
Egyptian dogrS Cannot
be stopped in tourney

BOUND FOR ATLANTA: Can you AP PHOTO
say Krzyzewski? Duke's Dahntay Jones

[DANCE
Continued from Page 1B
30-point loss to Maryland proved that
a Big Ten championship this year does-
n't make you a good team.
The Bruins all have "Final Four"
written on their sneakers, and they
could survive the stupidly-difficult
West bracket, assuming they come to
play every game - which is no small
task for them.
Despite beating Florida twice and
playing Duke very tough in December,
No. 4 seed Kentucky has had a rough
season. Marvin Stone left, Jason Park-
er and J.P Blevins got hurt and Gerald
Fitch, Erik Daniels, kashaad Carruth
and Cory Sears were suspended.
But when Tulsa tried to send Tubby
Smith's team home early, the Wildcats
jumped on the back of Tayshaun
Prince. Despite his Somalian-like
pipes, Prince took over the game, scor-
ing a tournament-high 41 points to
power past the Golden Hurricane.
Missouri and UCLA had too much

success early in the season to warrant
Cinderella status, but the Salukis from
Southern Illinois fit into that slipper
very nicely.
After knocking off two overrated
hacks in Texas Tech and Georgia, the
Salukis have everyone in America ask-
ing: What in the world is a Saluki?
Salukis are dogs, but not just any
dogs, mind you. Salukis are the oldest
purebred dogs in the world. Their his-
tory dates back to the Egyptian
Pharaohs. It should come as no sur-
prise to anyone that a nickname like
that could carry a team deep into the
postseason.
Other than the Salukis, the Kent
State Golden Flashes have the second-
best nickname, and, of course, they
made short work of a grossly overrated
Alabama team.
The Golden Flashes' 24 wins in the
their last 25 games may lead some peo-
ple to say that the Mid-American Con-
ference champs are actually still
playing because of talent rather than a
cool nickname. But those people clear-
ly would be wrong.

TOP PERFORMANCE: Hate the father, love the son.
Luke Walton led the Arizona Wildcats to a 68-60
victory over No. 11 seed Wyoming on Saturday with 21
points and nine rebounds. They're calling him Cool Hand Luke.
We're calling him a guy who has spent too many hours in the
gym at his father's request. But Lute Olsen isn't com-
plaining, and the Wildcats are quietly advancing
through a tournament in which no one back in
October expected them to be.
CINDERELLA STORY: It's hard to call either
Missouri or UCLA a Cinderella. Both teams
were ranked in the top-five at some point this
season, but played below potential as the season
went on. The Tigers are a 12 seed, and no 12 seed
has ever advanced to the Final Four. The lowest
seed to ever advance that far? An 11th seeded
Louisiana State, which of course is also nick-
named ... the Tigers. Coincidence? Oh yes.
BRACKET BUSTERS: We'll call it Cincinnati,
although anyone who has studied his or her
past brackets knew not to pick the Bearcats to
advance too far. UCLA's win yesterday was a
classic example of an overrated team being
exposed by a team that has played below
expectations but knows how to turn it on in
March. Hear that Bob Huggins? March. Your
team needs to start playing well then.
BETTER SWEET SIXTEEN GAME: This will all
be very interesting. In one game we get the
two of this tournament's underrated teams -
UCLA and Missouri. In the other we get the only 2-
3 matchup of the Sweet Sixteen, between Arizona and
Oklahoma. If you're going to watch one, watch the for- '
mer, if for no other reason than one of the coaches will
likely get a technical.
BEST POTENTIAL FINAL: UCLA-Arizona in a matchup of
Pac-10 teams who have been here before.

TOP PERFORMANCE: Connecticut sophomore guard Caron
Butler didn't let a sappy CBS feature keep him from rocking
North Carolina State with 34 points and nine rebounds in the
Huskies' 77-74 win over the Wolfpack. But it wasn't the number of
points he put up - it was when and how they came. Butler went 12-of-
12 from the free-throw line (including five in the game's final 11 sec-
onds) and knocked down big threes to keep Connecticut moving.
CINDERELLA STORY: What the hell is a Saluki? Our crack research
team has decided its some kind of Egyptian pure-bred canine, but
the rest of the East Region should be more concerned about the
dogs that No. 11 seed Southern Illinois is parading on the
court. The relative unknowns from the Missouri Valley
Conference sent home two teams with coaches who
have won this tournament before - Bobby Knight's
Texas Tech Red Raiders and Jim Harrick's Georgia
Bulldogs.
BRACKET BUSTERS: In the michigandaily.com/Pizza
House pool, less than two percent of entries had the
Salukis in the Sweet 16. Y'all should have been less
concerned with ESPN's prediction of a Cincinnati-
Ohio State Sweet Sixteen and more intrigued by
Dickie V's praise of this increasingly impressive
Southern Illinois team.
b;.BETTER SWEET SIXTEEN GAME: Underachievers?
Overachievers? All labels can be shed in March,
and Maryland and Kentucky will set the record
straight in next weekend's best game.
BEST POTENTIAL FINAL: Can Connecticut hang with
either Maryland or Kentucky? Probably not. But hey,
that's why they play the games.
BOUND FOR ATLANTA: Salukis! No, seriously.
4 y 6 Salukis!
TOP PERFORMANCE: Frank Williams
is supposedly the second-best point
guard named Williams in the country. All
season he kept it a secret, playing inconsistent ball
for Illinois as his team struggled early. But in a perform-
ance that mirrored his season, Williams turned it around in the
second half of the Illini's 72-60 victory over Creighton. The
point guard scored 20 points (all in the second half) and added
five rebounds and five assists to the winning effort.
CINDERELLA STORY: There hardly exists a Cinderella in this region.
It is the region that held truest to seed, as the 1, 2, 4 and 6 seeds all
advanced to the Sweet 16. It came as little surprise that No. 6
Texas knocked off an overrated No. 3 seed in Mississippi State.
But if a Cinderella exists, it may be Illinois. Not for its two wins
this past weekend, but for its ability to rebound from a miser-
able start in the Big Ten. Their injured players are healthy,
their star players are playing as such and the Illini finally
look like they are ready to ride a big orange carriage all the
way to Atlanta.
BRACKET BUSTERS: Creighton's upset over Florida was
the only major one in this region, but if you had the
Gators advancing much farther than the Sweet Sixteen,
you weren't winning your pool anyway.
BETTER SWEET SIXTEEN GAME: Kansas vs. Illinois. Has
our Big Ten bias/Bill Self fetish been made obvious
yet? Kansas is a choke team -just like Cincinnati and
any team coached by Bobby Knight. It's time the Jay-
hawks join their perennial choke brethren in NCAA
Tournament hell.
BEST POTENTIAL FINAL: Texas advanced to the Sweet
Sixteen, but it did so in Dallas. So while it's fun to
pick the underdog, we've got no love for teams that
advance in their own backyards (unless that back-
yard is Chicago). Let's get a look at the much-
hyped Oregon Ducks, and watch them lose in the
Elite Eight to a team from a real conference.
BOUND FOR ATLANTA: Frank Williams and his team-
mates.
Indiana prepares for
Blue Devils in Sweet 16

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POINT TOTAL PROJECTED CHAMP
50 Duke
49 Duke
48 Duke
47 Kansas
47 Kansas
47 Duke
,47 Maryland
47 Duke
46

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AP PHOTO:
Missouri's Kareem Rush

BOUND FOR ATLANTA: 'Zona.

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The Unflvrsity of Michilgan
College of Literature, Science,
and the Arts
presents

GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) - A.J.
Moye doesn't need a film session or a
scouting report to break down the
Hoosiers' opponent in the South
Regional semifinals.
"I think everybody in the world
knows what Duke is and who their per-
sonnel are," Indiana's sophomore guard
said. "They're kind of like the college
Globetrotters."
Don't expect strains of "Sweet Geor-
gia Brown" or buckets of confetti at
Rupp Arena on Thursday, though, when
top-seeded Duke (31-3) faces the No. 5
Hoosiers (22-11) in the round of 16.
Duke, the defending national champi-
on, only seems to win as often as bas-
ketball's Clown Princes. But Indiana
coach Mike Davis thought he saw some
vulnerability in the Blue Devils' 84-77
second-round victory over Notre Dame
here Saturday.
"Hopefully, they will play like they
did today when we play them," Davis
said Saturday night.
Don't count on it, Irish coach Mike
Brey said.
"The one thing about them is you put
on the jersey and you really don't think
you're supposed to lose," said Brey, who
watched such dominance up close as a
Duke assistant. "They're going to be
tough to beat. There's fearlessness about
them. There's a belief that it's their des-

13th-seeded North Carolina Wilmington
76-67 in Sacramento, Calif., on Satur-
day night to reach the round of 16 for
the first time since 1994.
It wasn't easy, though. Brett Blizzard
and the Seahawks cut Indiana's 49-32
lead down to 64-61 near the end. Jared
Jeffries kept the Hoosiers in front, scor-
ing half his 22 points in the last six min-
utes.
Indiana guard Tom Coverdale thinks
his team matches up well with Duke.
"Their athleticism is obviously better
than ours," Coverdale said. "We're just
going to have to go in this week and see
what we have to do to beat them."
One thing Indiana might want to do is
simply hope that Williams, Mike Dun-
leavy and Carlos Boozer look as flat at
times as they did against Notre Dame.
Williams was just 3-for-10 on 3-
pointers and had four turnovers; Dun-
leavy was 3-for-8 from the field; and
Boozer fouled out in the last minute
with the game still in doubt.
"If we play our game, we can hang
right there with them," Fife said. "We
can beat them."
The scores
EAST
(4) Kentucky 87, (12) Tulsa 82
(2) Connecticut 77, (7) N.C. State 74
(11) S. Illinois 77, (3)_Georgia 75

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