10A - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, March 4, 2004 Last chance Mchia to open Big Ten Tournament play pesky. I nois By Eric Ambinder Daily Sports Writer It seems as though the Michigan women's basketball team has short-term memory. Tonight, the second season begins in Indianapolis - the Big Ten Tournament. X Forget that the Wolverines lost to first-round opponent Illi- TONIGHT nois in Champagne on Feb. 1. Forget that they shot 3-of-22 from long-range, and gave up 94 points to the Fighting Illini T:3Q nm. - a season high. lnhwnapolisw Forget a 6-10 conference FOXSettimir record. "I think we can definitely go all the way," said guard Sierra Hauser-Price about Michi- gan's odds in the Big Ten Tournament. "Everybody starts 0-0, so everybody has a chance." The Wolverines have beaten Illinois in the first round of - the Big Ten Tournament the past two seasons by an aver- age of 22 points. But the Illini have dominated during the regular season the past three years. Illinois has defeated Michigan in each of the last four attempts by an average of 17 points. Heading into the Big Ten Tournament, Illinois and Michi- gan are at opposite ends of the emotional spectrum. The Wolverines have won two Big Ten games in a row for just the second time this season. Their latest win came against No. 12 Minnesota. The Fighting Illini have lost four consecutive games. So how can the Wolverines prepare for a match-up that has been so unpredictable in years past? By being predictable. Coach Burnett prepared for tonight as if it were any other game. "I treat the tournament basically the same as I treat every game," Burnett said. "There are some emotional dif- ferences, but strategically and in the starting lineups, I don't see any changes." The Wolverines will continue to use the same offensive and defensive strategies they have used all year - get the ball to first-team All-Conference center Jennifer Smith in the post on offense and eliminate dribble penetration and transition buckets on defense. Smith scored 31 points against Illinois earlier in the season, but the Wolverines were continually beaten down the court by a fast-paced Illini squad. "In our loss to Illinois (this season), it wasn't our offense (that hurt us)," senior Stephanie Gandy said. "It was defense. (Illinois) had too many fast break points. As a team, we need to play better defense." The major key to Michigan's late-season push has been defense. The Wolverines have held their past two opponents to an average of just 51 points, and the- team finally seems WOMEN'S SWIMMING 'Pool rat' B By Anne Uible Daily Sports Writer Doug Boyd is a swimming profes- sional. His resume is packed with achievements that could trump the accomplishments of many head coaches around the country. It makes it difficult to understand why he's currently the volunteer coach for the Michigan women's swimming team. After two years with the Wolverines, it's even harder to believe that Boyd puts in the same hours as head coach Jim Richardson, and doesn't get paid. "I came to Michigan to learn about the team's training style and to help (Richardson) learn about how I coach sprinters," Boyd said. "While coaching and traveling with the team, I also give private swim les- sons and conduct clinics for people around the area." According to Boyd, his swimming career began as a "pool rat" in New York. In 1983 he attended Indiana and swam under the legendary James "Doc" Counsilman. While there, Boyd had one of the world's top-100 oyd chips: fastest times in the 100-yard freestyle. After graduating, he took up his first coaching job as the graduate assistant for the Hoosiers. In 1991, he accepted the head coaching position for the men's and women's swimming teams at UC San Diego. Boyd led the Tritons to top- three finishes in 13 of 16 NCAA championships. He produced 16 indi- vidual NCAA champions, three NCAA Swimmers of the Year and 69 All-Americans. He was also named the Division III Coach of the Year in 1998. In 1999, Boyd left UC San Diego and began coaching at Rice, where he led the Owls to the most successful three years in school history. Boyd left suddenly after his third season as head coach. "Rice wasn't the right fit for me and for what I wanted to do," Boyd said. "So I took a few months to gather myself together and decided Michigan was the best option for me at this point in time." Richardson encouraged Boyd to in for Blue come help the Wolverines, although he didn't have a salary position for him. "It's impossible to only have two coaches for a team this size," Richardson said. "It's not fair to the athletes, especially for an individual sport such as swimming." Boyd has become a familiar fixture at Canham Natatorium. While prima- rily working with the sprinters, Boyd helps the entire team with starts and weight training. Once in a while, he'll even get in the pool and do, a workout with them. "I swam competitively until I was 27," Boyd said. "And I guess I haven't got it out of my skin yet." With Michigan's swim season coming to a close in three weeks, Boyd is unsure of his future plans with the Wolverines. "Working with the team has been a great experience," Boyd said. "But with this job, I'm sort of year-to- year. I'm always in search of a new challenge, so now I'm just waiting for opportunities as they present themselves." a MEWSoaGAcnrCi AftrWOyears, Gatti contributing By Ian Herbert Daily Sports Writer RYAN WEINER/Daily Michigan center Jennifer Smith goes up for a rebound in the Wolverines' loss to Michigan State on Feb. 12. to be adjusting to Burnett's unique trap-style defense. If Michigan defeats Illinois tonight, it will face No. 6 Purdue on Friday - the team that has knocked them out of the Big Ten Tournament the past two seasons. But don't expect the Wolverines to look toward tomor- row; they try not to look too far ahead. "We only go one game at a time," Burnett said. "That's our vision, not our goal. I've always coached that way. We will pack for five days, but we will play one game at'a time." FIRST-TIME FIRST-TEAM The media selected senior Jennifer Smith to the first-. team All-Big Ten team on Monday. She is the first Wolverine to be selected to the first team since 2000. Junior Tabitha Pool also received an honorable mention honor. PPG.RPG. Jennifer Smith, C, Michigan 21.5 7,3 Lindsay Whalen, G, Minnesota. 20.7.5.0 Kelly Mazzante, G, Penn State 20.6. 4.0 Tanisha Wright, G, Penn State 24.7 4.5 Shereka Wright, F, Purdue 20.4 6.0 It's been a tough couple of years for men's gymnastics captain Chris Gatti. The redshirt junior competed last week for the first time in almost two years. Gatti injured his left wrist at the beginning of last season, and the sur- gery to shorten his ulna by seven mil- limeters forced him to spend a year on the bench. Gatti returned this sea- son, having been elected captain by his peers for the second straight year. But his plans to compete were cut short when he began having problems with his right elbow. He had surgery in December to clear bone and carti- lage chips out of his elbow and he has been working to come back since. "He's slowly been training and try- ing to get back into the season," assis- tant coach Lou Levine said. "This isn't a sport where you can take time off and then just come back and be ready. So he had to build back up and get back into routines to be ready." For Gatti, the elbow problem came as a big surprise. He began feeling numbness and locking in the joint at the end of November and had surgery just a couple weeks later. The setback was hard to take. "Last year wasn't as hard because I knew that the surgery that I had was pretty extensive and I knew it would keep me out for a while," Gatti said. "So I accepted that pretty easily. But hearing that I needed elbow surgery in December was another shock. It was real disappointing. I had been sit- ting out for so long." Last week was the first time in the last two years that the team captain was able to lead by example in a competi- tion. He turned in no top-five perform- ances. Because of the injuries, Gatti has had to find other ways to lead. "He leads by how hard he works," Levine said. "He's a quiet guy, but when he speaks everybody listens, and last year he couldn't really lead by example. But now he really can lead by competing well and working out hard." Gatti admitted that being injured was a change for him too. He had to take charge in different ways and learn to be more vocal. "It's definitely tough (being cap- tain and not being able to compete)," Gatti said. "You are put into a posi- tion where you want to be a leader by example. It's hard sitting on the side- lines and not being able to compete and hit your routine." But the captain's long recovery process is nearing an end. He has been practicing at full strength for a couple of months, and last week at Oklahoma, he competed for the first time since the 2002 NCAA Championships. "I felt good," Gatti said. "I didn't have real difficult sets, but I did the skills that I wanted and did everything pretty cleanly, so I was pleased. It was a good start." Gatti looks to add difficulty and compete in the parallel bars and high bar again this weekend when the No. 6 Wolverines travel to Iowa. He is optimistic about the team as it heads into the last month of the season. "We just came off Spring. Break training, which was a hard week of training," Gatti said. "It was a really good week in terms of improvements and I think the team is really starting to come together just in time for when we need it. NCAAs is just five weeks away. So if we can gear up and peak for that, we'll be all set." Gatti will have to wait and see whether he will be in the lineup for the postseason. 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