8B - The Michigan Daily - SportsMonday - March 25, 2002 t, I r CU. AP PHOTO Trevor Huffman had been Kent State's best player In Its run to the Elite Eight, but he was silenced by Indiana in the Hoosiers' 81-69 win In the South Regional final. Hoosiers top Kent, head for Final Four AND THE WINNER IS ... : Indiana. The Hoosiers pulled off the biggest shocker of the entire NCAA Tournament when they knocked off top seeded Duke, 74-73, last Thursday night. The Blue Devils jumped out to a 17-point lead in the first half, but a complete inability to rebound or defend Big Ten Player of the Year Jared Jeffries did Duke in. Not to mention the fact that Jason Williams couldn't hit a clutch free throw if his life depended on it. MOST OUTSTANDING PLAYER: We're going to have to dis- agree with the media at the South Regional, which inexplicably voted Tom Coverdale the Most Out- standing Player. Apparently, they didn't watch him play like trash against Duke, when he couldn't have made a shot if nobody was defending him. Instead, our pick is Jeffries. Not only did he single-hand- edly take apart Duke (24 points, 15 rebounds), , r but he drew so much attention from Kent State in the regional final that Indiana's perimeter players were able to hit 15 threes. BEST MOMENT: How funny was Indiana j coach Mike Davis' reaction after Dane FifeY fouled Williams on a three-pointer with time running out and the Hoosiers up by four? Then again, when you put a total stiff like Fife on the floor at the end of the game, you have to expect the worst. BIGGEST GOAT: Fife nearly walked away with this award thanks to his aforementioned foul on Williams, but Williams bailed him out by bricking the free throw that would have tied the game. For all of the awards Williams wins and all of the acclaim he gets, he choked - again--in the clutch (do Florida State and Virginia ring a bell?) As a result, Duke will be sitting at home watching the Final Four. ~' Danee leer ATLANTA AND THE WINNER IS ... : Maryland, but it wasn't easy. After winning a couple of home games in Washington, Q D.C. to get to the Sweet 16, the Terps had to fend off a C resurgent Kentucky in the semis and then beat Connecticut in what was by far the best regional final. Plus, the regionals were in Syracuse, right in the heart of Big East country, where the Huskies should've had the edge in fan support. No matter - Maryland is going to Atlanta. MOST OUTSTANDING PLAYER: He beat out Duke's Williams for the ACC Player of the Year trophy, and he came up huge in the East Regional to back it up. Maryland senior guard Juan Dixon was terrific in Syracuse, leading the Terrapins with 19 points against Kentucky and pouring in 27 against Connecticut. BEST MOMENT: Call us party-poopers, but the best moment was clearly when Southern Illinois was crushed by Connecticut in the Sweet 16 on Friday night. The whole 'Cinderella' shtick was cool for a little while, but let's face it - Texas Tech and Georgia were two of the most overseeded teams in the tournament, and Southern Illinois got a ridicu- lous gift from the selection committee, which placed the Salukis in Chicago for the first two rounds. BIGGEST GOAT: As tempting as it is to name Williams the biggest goat in every region (how great is it that he blew the season for Duke?), we're going to have to go with Kentucky's Keith Bogans. He moped around after bombing out of last year's pre-draft camps and played like a mal- content for the first 30 games of the season. If he'd played anywhere near his potential, Kentucky AP PHOTO could've gotten a top-two seed and Indiana's Jared Jeffries avoided having to face a team like Mary- land in the Sweet 16. LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) - Indi- ana is back in the Final Four thanks to nearly unprecedented 3-point shooting. Making their first eight long- range shots and close to 80 percent overall, the Hoosiers rolled past upstart Kent State 81-69 Saturday night in the South Regional to return to the national semifinals for the first time since 1992. Indiana (24-11) - at No. 5, the lowest-seeded team left in the tour- nament - will play Oklahoma next Saturday in Atlanta. The Sooners won the West Regional by beating Missouri 81-75. "It's an unbelievable feeling," said Dane Fife, who led Indiana with 17 points. "We've done what we came down here to do. Now we've got to go get Oklahoma." Kent State's nation-leading 21- game winning streak ended, as did its attempt to become the first No. 10-seeded team to reach the Final Four. Instead, Indiana - stunned by Kent State in the first round of last year's NCAA tournament - gets a chance to add to its five national championships, the last of which came in 1987. The victory was easily the most significant of Indiana coach Mike Davis' tenure in a state where bas- ketball is a religion. Davis was Bob Knight's assistant for three seasons and took over when Knight was fired in September 2000. In the stands Saturday, a sign read: "Knight-time is over, it's a new Da-vis!" "Going to the Final Four is really, really big for the program," Davis said. "To be here this year after all we've gone through is a blessing." The Hoosiers knocked off top- seeded Duke on Thursday thanks to bruising inside play. Saturday's vic- tory came courtesy of hard-to- believe outside shooting. Six players hit 3-pointers for Indiana, with Fife going 5-for-6. Kyle Hornsby added 16 points for the Hoosiers, who tied for the Big Ten regular-season title. "Give Indiana credit," Kent State coach Stan Heath said. "I haven't seen a shooting display like that in my 13 years of coaching." Indiana finished 15-for-19 on 3s - 78.9 percent, the fifth-highest ever in an NCAA tournament game. The 15 made set a school record. "If we had had 10 people out there, I don't think we could have stopped them from shooting tonight," Kent State's Andrew Mitchell said. Antonio Gates scored 22 points, and Mitchell added 19 for Kent State (30-6), which was playing in a regional final for the first time and was trying to become the first Mid- American Conference school in the Final Four. Indiana led by as many as 20 points, and had to weather one sus- tained run when point guard Tom Coverdale left with about 9 1/2 minutes remaining after re-injuring the left ankle he sprained in the first round of the tourney. Kent State used a 13-0 run to draw within 59-52, but Fife, one of two Indiana seniors, stemmed the rally by making - what else? - a 3-pointer with a little more than,6 minutes to go. Playing on rival Kentucky's home floor, Indiana seemingly couldn't miss a shot early. The Hoosiers' frenzied red-and-white-clad fans got louder and louder each time the ball dropped through the net. "We looked out there, (and) I was trying to figure out how Indiana got so many tickets," Heath said. "It was a sea of red. It made it feel like it was a road game." AND THE WINNER IS ... : Oklahoma. The Sooners got est dissed by the selection committee, which handed perennial underachiever Cincinnati the top seed in the West. Undaunted, Oklahoma basically ran roughshod over the region, blowing out Ari- zona in the Sweet 16 and holding off Missouri in the regional final. MOST OUTSTANDING PLAYER: Keeping with the theme of disagreeing with the rest of the media, our choice is Missouri sopho- more forward Ricky Paulding. With all due respect to Oklahoma's Hollis Price, does anyone remem- ber a single thing he did this weekend? Mean- while, Paulding demonstrated that he could be one of the best players in the country next year. His explosiveness, outside shooting and highlight- reel dunks were a big reason the twelfth-seeded Tigers pulled off three straight upsets to get to the regional title game. BEST MOMENT: For those of you who think we're a bunch of arrogant, heartless people who love ripping on Michigan's football and basketball teams we aren't, completely without feeling, so our pick here is the sight of Oklahoma coach Kelvin Sampson cutting down the nets in San Jose. Sampson's father had emergency brain sur- gery the day before Oklahoma took on Ari- zona, but the coach and his team didn't lose their focus. BIGGEST GOAT: Jason Williams ... just kidding. Actually, it's UCLA coach Steve Lavin. You've heard of guys getting the most out of their talent? Well, Lavin probably gets less out of his talent, on an annual basis, than any other coach in America. He's so clueless on the sidelines that it's comical, but his pere- nially underachieving team always manages to win two games in the Big Dance. Then, just when it looks like UCLA has its act together, the Bruins lose in the Sweet 16, usually in a blowout. AND THE WINNER IS ... : Kansas, finally. ic After years (and years, and years) of wasting high seeds in the NCAA Tournament, the Jay- hawks managed to figure things out this year. Granted, & they almost lost to Holy Cross in the first round. But after that near-collapse, they got their act together and earned their first Final Four berth since 1993. Somewhere, Roy Williams is having a stiff drink and a nice, hearty laugh at the expense of his critics. MOST OUTSTANDING PLAYER: In a surprise move, we've decided to give Oregon's frontcourt this honor. Thanks to the Ducks' total lack of interior scoring, defense or rebounding, Kansas forwards Drew Good- en and Nick Collison were able to post obscene numbers in the regional final - Gooden had 18 points and 20 rebounds, while Collison had 25 points to go with 15 boards. In fact, Collison and Gooden outrebounded Oregon by themselves, and the Jayhawks as a team collected 30 -. yes, 30 - more boards than the Ducks. It got to the point where it didn't even matter if Kansas missed shots, because you knew that none of Oregon's players were going to box out and that some Jayhawk was going to get the rebound and an easy layup. BEST MOMENT: CBS' interview with Utah coach Rick Majerus during the Oregon-Kansas game was hilarious, if only because you just knew that Majerus was waiting for the interview to end so he could get more bratwurst. He's already had a quadru- ple-bypass heart operation, why not go for the quintuple to complete the set? BIGGEST GOAT: Oregon coach Ernie Kent. Knowing that Kansas wanted nothing more than to draw the Ducks into a fast-paced game, what did Kent do? Naturally, he played right into Kansas' hands and turned the regional final into a track meet. So long, Oregon - the Ducks got blown out by 18. The runner-up in this catego- Missouri's RickyPAPPHOTOry? You guessed it - Paulding Jason Williams. t Sooners, Jayhawks, Terrapins thinking title a Launch a New Career. Buy an Apple iMac. CEMr L. SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) - On a night when Maryland's senior stars led the way, struggling junior Steve Blake hit the shot that sealed a second straight trip to the Final Four. The No. 1-seeded Terrapins beat sec- ond-seeded Connecticut 90-82 yester- day in an East Regional final where the lead swung back and forth for most of the final 13 minutes. Lonny Baxter had a season-high 29 points, and fellow senior Juan Dixon scored 27 for Maryland, which reached the 30-victory mark for the first time in school history. "We have tough guys. We didn't think we would lose this game," Mary- land coach Gary Williams said. "We're going back. We want to do something this year." The frantic finish included seven lead changes and eight ties in the last dozen minutes. But as the shot clock wound down in the final minute of the tight game, Blake sank a 3-pointer - his first points of the evening - to make it 86-80. The Terrapins weren't challenged again. "That shot was the biggest one I could hit for this team," said Blake, who had been banished to the bench by coach Gary Williams just minutes before his key bucket. KANSAS 104, OREGON 86: The Jay- hawks met a team that wanted to run with them. They jumped all over the Ducks instead. Drew Gooden and Nick Collison each had double-doubles by early in the second half yesterday, and top-seeded Kansas never trailed in a 104-86 rout of Oregon that put the Jayhawks in the Final Four. Kansas controlled the fast, end-to- end action in the Midwest Regional final and dominated the boards, outre- bounding second-seeded Oregon 63-34. Indeed, Gooden and Collison outre- bounded the Ducks all by themselves - 35 to 34 - and the Jayhawks grabbed 26 offensive rebounds, leading to 31 second-chance points. "We knew the way to beat them was to beat them on the boards and get extra shots," Gooden said. "I think it was contagious. We were relentless out there on the backboards." Gooden had 18 points and 20 rebounds, and Collison added 25 points and 15 rebounds, putting the Jayhawks (33-3) in their first national semifinal since 1993 and third under coach Roy Williams. OKLAHOMA 81, MIsSOURI 75: Okla- homa coach Kelvin Sampson is going to another Final Four - only this time, he won't have to go alone. With a dynamic combination of toughness and late-game cool, Okla- homa rolled to its first national semifi- nal since 1988 with an 81-75 victory over 12th-seeded Missouri on Saturday. Hollis Price scored the last of his 18 points on two free throws with 6 sec- onds left to give the Sooners their 12th straight victory and a ticket to Atlanta to face Indiana, an 81-69 winner over Kent State. "Coach goes to the Final Four every year, but he never takes us;" Price said, grinning. "We're tagging along this time." DJ. College of Literature, Science, and the Arts Twenty-Fourth Distinguished Senior Faculty Lecture Terrorism and Testimonial: consequences of aftermath Ross Chambers Marvin Felheim Distinguished University Professor of French and Comparative LiteratureA 2001-2002 Warner G. Rice Humanities Award Recipient Tuesday, March 26 4:14Oom And down the stretch they come ... With the Final Four teams decided in the NCAA Tournament, the race for first place in the michigandaily.com/Pizza House challenge is also starting to take some shape. Here's a rundown of the top 10 scores through the Elite Eight games, as well as each person's picks for the championship game. 4 Create your own mixes with iTunes. Burn your own CDs. Store 1,000 tunes on your Apple iPod. Special Pricing for UM Students iMacs starting at $1,249. Apple iPod $369. 1. Robert Higman 2. Ray F. Schnueringer Eric Goodman 4. Jonathan Kim Erik Paschall Leslie Bolgos Mike Koester Knox Cameron 9. David Remias Danielle Mosher 76 pts 71 71 70 70 70 70 70 69 69 Duke def. Kansas Kansas def. Oklahoma Maryland def. Oklahon Kansas def. Duke Duke def. Kansas Maryland def. Oklahon Maryland def. Duke Duke def. Kansas Duke def. Maryland Maryland def. Duke a 4 I .... 4', I