The Michigan Daily - SportsMonday - December 5, 2005 - 3B *Bears burned by Burnett's lineup By Daniel Bromwich Daily Sports Writer time all s more assis "It spea As the Michigan starters trotted elected he out onto the floor of Crisler Arena Burnett sa before their game on Saturday against a great c Maine, two things were immediately stands wha apparent. Coach Cheryl Burnett had she brings altered her lineup yet again - the superb co fifth different group to start a game ship skills this year. And second, this lineup well." looked strangely familiar. Michiga After suffering deflating losses a backseat to Toledo and Central Michigan, the nonstarter Wolverines needed to do something. half, and D They were lacking in communica- player to tion, leadership and execution. Bur- on the flo nett decided that a veteran presence throw with would help cure these woes. only point So on a team with five freshmen, "(The s five sophomores and just one junior, together fo Burnett did what she could to insert longer tha that presence. She gave sophomore "It's nice captain Krista Clement her first start you've pla of the season in place of freshman fidence th Jessica Minnfield and surrounded or 'Shia is her with fellow sophomores Janelle nice to hav Cooper and Ta'Shia Walker, in addi- but surely, tion to the elder statesman of the the rest of team, junior Kelly Helvey. The vet Forward Carly Benson was the to be reun only freshman starter, and the only extended p one to play significant minutes. verines co Clement played 39 out of a possible ters for ea 40 minutes and stayed in- the game put togethe until just 1:54 remained. Walker and run, Cleme Helvey each played 38 minutes, and energize t the frontcourt combination of Ben- huddled du son and sophomore Katie Dierdorf reminding played 39, alternating due to foul play hard a trouble. "It felt "I made the decision to go with Helvey sai our veterans because sometimes you try out the have to make a change that brings ing and sta the group together," Burnett said. the end." "We've been having trouble execut- Burnett ing, and those veterans do a great with her job of eliminating mistakes while in the pas executing what we need to execute." alternate h( The veterans truly did rise to indication the occasion. Walker had a career- "I don't high 24 points and seven offensive forward," boards, while Helvey posted a sea- you're so y son-high 13 points and a career-high a lot of in 13 rebounds, 10 of which came in the what's goi first ialf. Clement contributed a sea- that, today son-high five assists, and for the first great job f MAINE Continued from page 1B with penetration along with long-range jump shots. For the first time this season, Michigan's assist- to-turnover ratio was above 1.0 as the team went on to have a season-low 13 turnovers. Walker's game-high 24 points were the result of a balance of inside and outside scoring. Several of her mid- range jump shots came off Clement passes that were made possible by drawing Maine away from the post. "We have a lot of kids taking some really good shots that I call rhythm jump shots," Burnett said. eason the Wolverines had ts than turnovers. ks volumes that the team r captain as a nonstarter," id of Clement. "She's such ommunicator, she under- at we want to execute, and s the group together. Her mmunication and leader- that really served us very n's youth movement took t for the Maine game. No scored a point in the first )ierdorf was the only bench get more than 10 minutes or. Stephany Skrba's free h 17.5 seconds left was the scored by a freshman. tarters) have been playing or a long time, or at least an most," Clement said. to play with people that yed with before. It's a con- ing. I know where Janelle going to be, and it's really ve that confidence. Slowly , we are getting that with the team." erans were visibly excited nited on the court for an period of time. As the Wol- nsistently found open cut- asy baskets and the team er scoring run after scoring ent and Helvey continued to heir teammates. Michigan wring every play stoppage, each other to continue to and communicate. really good out there," d. "We had great chemis- ere, and we just kept talk- ayed positive and fought to made no promises to stick veteran lineup. Her style t has been to consistently er lineups, and there is no so far that it will change. really have a plan going Burnett said. "When young, you're going to have consistency. I don't know ng to happen. I just know , this (veteran) group did a or us." Evil corporations: " " Stop ruining the world of sports W atching Reggie Bush and the Southern Cal Trojans dis- mantle UCLA on Saturday, I was captivated by the run- ning back's speed and quickness. I loved that every time he touched the ball, he had the chance to take it all the way. Then at halftime - with Bush already over 200 yards rushing - the drama switched to something else: the jaw-dropping Dr. Pepper Halftime Report as part of the Dr. Pepper Championship Saturday on ABC. Tostitos Fiesta Bowl; Nokia Sugar Bowl; FedEx Orange Bowl; The Rose Bowl sponsored by Citi. It doesn't even arouse suspicion anymore. We just recognize that bowl games are going to be sponsored by big-time corporations. It's been happening for years, and it seems natural that the bowl games - NCAA foot- ball's biggest moneymakers - have these names attached to them. Some of these games are nothing but sponsorships. The Rose Bowl and Orange Bowl have history to fall back on,. IAN but what about the Capital One Bowl or the HERBERT Champs Sports Bowl? For whatever reason, I've never complained. The SpotsMonday I've accepted the fact that bowl games will Column always be sponsored - the Michigan athletic department budgets $12 million every year from bowl game revenue generated by the Big Ten, and that money has to come from some- where - so I've moved on. But when did championship Saturday become Dr. Pepper Champi- onship Saturday? When did we create a television show for the bowl game selection and make it Tostitos Selection Sunday? Why can't we watch a championship football game that's simply called the ACC Championship Game? Was the hour's worth of commercials during the game and the millions of dollars of advertising money that comes along with that just not enough? We've gotten to the point where there has to be a name on every- thing. Saturday's game between Southern Cal and UCLA was one of the biggest of the year for the Trojans because a win sent them back to the National Championship for the third straight year. And it was huge for Joe Paterno and the Penn State Nittany Lions, who might have taken Southern Cal's spot in the Rose Bowl if the Bruins had been able to put up just 48 more points. But it was also probably an important game for the world of corporate athletics - like Michigan, Southern Cal is sponsored by Nike while UCLA collects its money from Adidas. Congratulations to Nike for its big win this weekend. When I start ranting about corporations taking over collegiate ath- letics, my slightly more moderate friends tend to question my motives. It seems to them to be perfectly harmless for Tostitos, Nokia and Dr. Pepper to get involved in the biggest games on college campuses. Why should I care if the logo on ABC's halftime set has the Dr. Pepper insignia on it? Other than themselves, who does it harm when the talking heads have to mention "the world's oldest soft drink" before telling us what happened in the game? The truth is that it harms everyone. Maybe not that much, but as we become desensitized to advertising (like I have with the bowl games), society suffers. Instead of buying the best product available; consum- ers are more inclined to buy the biggest product - the one by the company that spends the most on advertising. FedEx, for example, is a $30 billion company. And the bigger the corporation becomes, the more it feels it's above the law - see McDonald's with tomato farmers or Coke with union workers in Colombia. That's the "No Logo" argument. But there's something a bit more tangible for collegiate athletics. Even those who don't buy the argu- ment against big corporations might understand the purity of college sports and the desire to keep it that way. That's why we don't pay the athletes, right? It's supposed to be about 22 guys on the football field - or 14 swimmers in the pool during a water polo game - battling it out for pride and love of the game. There's this commercial for the NCAA Championships that comes on ESPN every once in a while. It's just video clips of athletes cel- ebrating - and agonizing - over college sports. Every time it comes on, I get fired up. Because that's what college sports are about. I love the emotion that's thrown into them. When the Michigan-Ohio State game ended a few weeks ago, and I walked around on the turf of the Big House for possibly the final time, I stopped in front of the Michigan bench and took in the expressions of Michigan linebackers David Harris, Shawn Crable and Prescott Burgess, who had just lost the last game of a 7-4 regular sea- son. It was heartbreaking. And even though it probably wouldn't have been noticeably differ- ent if it had been the SBC/Yahoo Michigan-Ohio State game, some- thing would have been lost. The purity of it all would have been gone. So Dr. Pepper has Championship Saturday and Tostitos has Selec- tion Sunday. The Wolverines will wear their Nike uniforms in the Alamo Bowl, sponsored by MasterCard. Please 'corporate America, just don't take any more of our collegiate sports. - Starting the season in the top-five: zero dollars. A 7-4 season with a trip to the Alamo Bowl: priceless. Ian Herbert loves those MasterCard commercials and can be reached at iherbert@umich.edu. PETER SCHOTTENFELS/ Daily Sophomore point guard Krista Clement made her first start of the season on Saturday. "Whenever our team is taking rhythm jump shots we are executing well and we are going to have a better field goal percentage besides the fact that we got the ball inside a lot. I am one of these coaches where you have to go inside to out and that also helped because it gave everyone a lot of confidence." On the other end of the court, the Wolverines were finally able to bring all aspects of their scramble defense together, holding the Black Bears for seven minutes without a field goal, giving up with barely a minute left in the game. Helvey was the backbone of Michigan's defense as usual, pulling down 13 boards to complete her double-double with 13 points on the night. But, it was her 10 defensive rebounds that eliminated many put-back chances for Maine, who, after shooting just 38.5 percent was only able to con- vert 11 points from offensive rebounds the entire game. The team's improved communication allowed them to successfully run the scramble, something they have struggled with so far this season. With the Wolverines in a disguised zone defense they were able to force Maine into three shot-clock violations while causing the Mack Bears to have 18 turnovers, of which Michigan was able to con- vert into 11 points. "We really worked on our communication (this past week)," Helvey said. "That really pushed us through to the end. We kept talking and staying positive and continued to fight to the end." " TRACK AND FIELD Records fall in intrasquad track battle. By Kimberly Chou For the Daily For a nonscoring event, the Michi- gan track and field intrasquad meet certainly got a little heated. The meet boiled down to a fierce, co-ed 8x400-meter relay in which Blue runners took first and fourth place, but ultimately did not get enough points for the overall win. The Maize team defeated the Blue team 457 to 419 points Saturday afternoon to repeat last year's intra- squad victory. Splitting the men's and women's teams evenly and pit- ting them against each other, coaches and team members were finally able to see where each runner, thrower and jumper stood. The last time these participants competed was at the Big Ten or NCAA Champion- ships last spring. "We get to see what our freshmen are like," men's coach Ron Warhurst said. "And for the rest of (the runners, throwers and jumpers), this is their 'Let's see where we're at' after two and a half months of training." The Warhurst-coached distance runners have been running since August and finished their season just before Thanksgiving. Women's coach James Henry said he was pleased with Bettie Wade's 1.73-meter jump as well as fresh- man Tiffany Ofili and Casey Taylor's respective first- and second-place finishes in the long jump. Despite winning the long jump, 60-meter dash and 60-meter hurdles (setting a meet record of 8.67 seconds), Ofili was unable to propel her Blue team to a win. The freshmen "are excited (and) a lot more nervous - it's their first time wearing the Maize and Blue," Henry said. Some freshmen seemed less ner- vous than others - men's first-year thrower Sean Pruitt kept his compo- sure and won both the shot put and the weight throw. Not surprisingly, key veterans dominated the men's track events. High-hurdles junior Jeff Porter and distance sophomore Mike Woods broke meet records in their special- ties - Porter had an 8.15-second finish in the 60-meter hurdles and Woods ran the 2,400-meter run in 6:35.64 to further help the Maize Team. Back in women's field, Blue team- ers Kelly Catino andKristen Pearson tied 'for first in the pole vault with jumps measuring 11 1/4 feet, break- ing the meet record. Ultimately, the health of the ath- letes was the main concern going into the indoor season, which officially starts with the Jack Harvey Invita- tional at home Jan. 7. "Our main goal of the intrasquad meet is that nobody gets hurt," men's sprint and hurdles coach Fred LaPlante said. "If they run fast, that's (a plus)." Said Henry: "It's just a prelude of great things to come." Tankers have fun in weekend rout By Nate Sandals Daily Sports Writer YPSILANTI - During a tough stretch, it's important for any team to remember to have some fun. The Michigan women's swimming and diving team did just that at the Eastern Michigan Invitational on Friday and Saturday. In the midst of its hardest weeks of train- ing of the season, Michigan won the meet with 1,075 total points, posted some superb results and managed to have a good time in the process. It was clear that the Wolverines were having a ball throughout the course of the meet, and many of the swim- mers spent the majority of their time joking with team- mates, posing for funny pictures and singing and dancing to the music playing on their iPods. But, the comedic highlight of the meet came during the final event, when the Michigan "B" 400-yard medley relay team - consisting of senior Elsa Larson, junior Kaitlyn Brady, sophomore Valeria Silva and freshman Christine Brady took the opportunity and ran with it. "I knew it was important that we have some fun this weekend," Brady said. "So when coach opened the door I started to think of the best way to do it. It was really fun for us to dress up and swim our worst strokes. Even though we will never get a chance to do this again, I'm glad we went all out with it." Even while having fun, Michigan (2-1 Big Ten, 2-3 overall) was clearly the superior team at the invitational. The Wolverines dominated against the competition of Eastern Michigan and a plethora of small schools. Michigan kicked off the meet by sweeping the swim- ming events on Friday night. Starting with the meet's first race, the 1,650-yard free- style, the Wolverines showed their power in the pool. Freshman Emily Brunemann won the competition in a meet-record time of 16:52.21. The Wolverines continued to perform well on day two, once again finishing as the leader in every swimming event. .. . ' }: .. f .: r ... . ยง