8B - The Michigan Daily - SportsMonday - April 1, 2002 01 * INDIANA 73 % OKLAHOMA 64 MARYLAND 97 KANSAS 88 Danaefler Big Ten Player of the Year Jared Jeffries pumps his fist after the Hoosiers clinched a shot at their first national title since 1987. Hoosiers, Terrapins leave field seeing red AND THE WINNERS ARE ... : Indiana and Maryland. Mike Davis is continuing to prove he can coach, and his Hoosiers are continuing to prove everyone's brackets wrong, as No. 5 seed Indiana will be playing for its first national title since 1987 tonight against top-seeded Maryland. The Terps, who nearly blew a 20-point lead in the Final Four for the second straight year, hung on to beat No. 1 seed Kansas - thanks to 33 points from All-America guard Juan Dixon - to advance to the NCAA championship game for the first time in school history. MOST VALUABLE PLAYERS: Dixon and Indiana's Jeff Newton. It just couldn't get any better for Newton. The Atlanta native shocked the hometown fans with an unsung performance - posting a career-high 19 points, including a crucial bucket after Oklahoma tied the game, 60-60 with three minutes to go. Dixon was his usual self, scoring a career-high 33 points and nailing the key shots when the Terps needed him to. His baseline jumper with 1:14 to go held off the Jayhawks' rally, and his three clutch free throws with less than 30 seconds to go put the nail in Kansas' coffin. KEY MOMENT: With 4:41 to go, Oklahoma's Aaron McGhee - who scored 22 points - fouled out. The Sooners surely missed his offensive talents: While they eventually tied the game, they couldn't overcome the Hoosiers. QUOTABLE: An emotional Davis didn't storm out to halfcourt this time, taking his Hoosiers' magical run in stride in the postgame press conference - where he relieved himself from all the credit. "In basketball, coaches get too much credit," Davis said. "I proved that this year ... Sometimes I have no idea what's going on. No idea. It's true." Price, Gooden fail as favorites head home t AND THE LOSERS ARE ... : Oklahoma and Kansas. The Jayhawks came oh-so- close to another title game, but after another stellar regular season, Kansas will go home empty-handed. The Sooners vaunted defense was expected to handle the Cinderella Hoosiers, but No. 2 seed Oklahoma couldn't contain Indiana's reserves - who ended one of the Sooner's most successful years in recent memory. BIGGEST GOATS: Oklahoma's Hollis Price and Kansas' Drew Gooden. Price, the Sooners' leading scorer and MVP of the West Regional, saved one of his worst games of his-career for the Final Four - shooting just 1-of-11 from the field and being held to six points, nearly 11 below his average. Even more annoying was having to hear Dane Fife get all the credit for Price's off night, as Fife was undoubtedly scratching, clawing and nagging Price all game long. While Good- en had a respectable 15 points on 5-of-12 shooting, he had just one field goal in the first half. Instead of leading his team, he was plagued by foul trouble early on, when the Jayhawks needed him to counter Dixon's offensive explosion. KEY MOMENT: Late in the second half, with Kansas trailing by five, freshman guard Aaron Miles made a huge blunder by traveling - giving the ball and the game to the Terps. QUOTABLE: Kansas coach Roy Williams, whose Jayhawks made it to the Final Four for the first time since 1993, explained in the post-game press conference how his Jayhawks fell behind in the second half and once again let a golden opportunity to win the title go by the wayside. "We made some mistakes, we missed some shots and all of a sudden it was an 18-point lead," Williams said. AP PHOTO Juan Dixon was magnificent once again for the Terrapins, scoring a career-high 33 points in taking his team to its first ever title game appearance. 40 0 AP PHOTO Kansas' All-American Drew Gooden, who scored 15 points, couldn't bear to watch the Terrapins close out their 97-88 victory over the Jayhawks. AP PHOTO Oklahoma's Aaron McGhee couldn't believe that the referees called a touchy foul on him with 4:41 to go, which sent him to the bench with 22 points. 4 I U No By Courtney Daily Sports Wr ATHENS, Tim Sicilian his 400-yard As the finali, NCAA Swim pionships Fr senior - an champion - laps in the co He had f chance to be mer to win f titles. And to REDUC Reduce Terror its from mariju illegal drugs a ists. Afghanis fields in the w largest mariju Al unders www.uni consoling Sicilianc Lewis had just finished eighth out of eight ter competitors in the consolation race. Siciliano swam in the second-to-last Ga. - This was not how preliminary heat that morning, and he o envisioned the end of knew immediately that his title hopes individual medley career. were in trouble. He ended up in ninth sts were introduced at the place, .13 seconds short of the finals. rming and Diving Cham- "Right when I touched the wall I iday night, the Michigan looked up, and I was third (in my id three time defending heat) with a (3:47.43), and I knew it - swam slow, deliberate wasn't a very good time at all. I was ol-down pool. really disappointed with that," Sicil- ailed to qualify for a iano said. come the second swim- The consolation final that evening four consecutive 400 IM was the one that mystified him, make matters worse, he though. Siciliano's 3:51.63 was five seconds slower than his Big Ten E TERRORISM Championships pace, and he looked ism! A little known fact, prof- sluggish and out of sync as he fin- iana, cocaine, ecstasy, other ished 16th overall. re funneled into many terror- "I was like, 'Wow (Virginia's >tan has the largest poppyIwalie Wo (Vrnas orld; South America has the Christopher Greenwood in the next ana plantions in the world. lane) must be going really fast,"' Siciliano said. "And then I touched the wall and I was like 'He wasn't ook at the going that fast, I was just going really side of U of M slow.' I was just like 'Are you serious? That's my time?"' With a strong field in front of him and a tough season behind him, Sicil- iano knew coming into the meet that he might surrender his title this sea- versitysecrets.com son. But he certainly expected to be fighting for it in the final heat. . "Sometimes when you get in the water, you just don't have it," he said. "I don't know what happened, I wasn't ready for that race I guess. My body wasn't ready for it or something." Teammate Garrett Mangieri sug- gested that the extra pressure of trying to join an elite list of swimmers with four national championships could have gotten into Siciliano's head, but Michigan coach Jon Urbanchek said it all came down to Siciliano's physical condition. "He was not capable of defending his title - he just didn't have the work behind him, mainly because of the injuries he had throughout the whole year," Urbanchek said. "But the honest effort was there, and I really respect him for the effort. But that's all the body had." An injured right shoulder limited Siciliano's training most of this sea- son, and while his shoulder pain was gone, he said his whole body hurt this weekend. Even though his teammates knew he had been struggling all year, Sicil- iano has a history of coming up with a big swim when he needs one - he won the 400 IM at Big Tens despite the injury. So his teammates were sur- prised when he missed the finals at NCAAs. "He has always shocked everybody once he's gotten here, so we were expecting the same thing to happen;" Mangieri said. He added that realistically, Sicil- iano's performance "is what should have happened, but it was definitely something new for all of us. Since his freshman year, he has been pulling it out." After his cool down on Friday night, Siciliano watched Southern California's Erik Vendt win the 2002 400 IM championship, but he had to turn away during the awards presenta- tion. "I was sitting down, I couldn't real- ly watch," Siciliano said. "I was just completely bummed out." Later, Siciliano shrugged it off and said that he didn't walk away from his last 400 IM with a bad feeling. But as he searched for words to explain what happened and settled on "I don't know," Siciliano's eyes told a different story. It was the story of a guy known for his competitive fire who just did- n't have one more big race in him. >after 16th-place finish sl %k* ---I- AdL 2w Presenting iPod.'M 1,000 songs. 10-hour battery.6.5 ounces. Ultra-slim 5-gigabyte hard drive doubles as a FireWire disk for your files and applications. Food for Thought Manipulating Opinion In A Viet Cong Memoir, Tn innn NIhu Tanns tatPe i r1