0 8- Friday, March 23, 2007 JCers face tough squad By AMBER COLVIN Daily Sports Editor When it comes to the NCAA Tournament, Western Collegiate Hockey Association teams have steamrolled the competition. Hogged the spotlight. Monopo- lized the winner's circle. What's the word for that? "I guess they've dominated," Michigan senior captain Matt Hunwick said. Ah, there it is. Six of the past seven National Champions have been from the WCHA, a power conference M -g boasting the likes of Min- atNCAA nesota, Denver and Wisconsin. Tournament And then Matchup: there's the North Dakota CCHA, the Wol- 22-13-5; Mich- verines' stomp- igan 26-13-1 ing grounds. The last CCHA When: 7:30 team to claim p.m., Saturday the nation's Where: Pepsi college hock- Center ey crown was TV/Radio: Michigan in Comcast Local/ 1998. The last WTKA 1050 CCHA team to make it to the Frozen Four? Michigan in 2003. Since then, CCHA representa- tion in the Tournament has been downright pitiful. Last year, the only squad from the CCHA's four Tournamentteams to survive the first round was Michigan State. Of course, the Spartans were axed in the second round, so even then, the results were not becom- ing for the conference. In 2004, when the CCHA had a record five teams in the 16-team field, the Wolverines were the The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com BEN SIMON/Daily Senior captain Matt Hunwick leads a departing class of Wolverines hoping to make its first NCAA Frozen Four. - Coaching search spans country By H. JOSE BOSCH Pros: Like many of the candidates Daily Sports Editor in Martin's search, Hobbs has a solid resum. He took his first head- Over the course of this week, The coaching job with a school that was Michigan Daily will profile 12 pos- mired in scandals and mediocrity. sible candidates (three each day) to But his work paid off and he coached replace former Michigan basket- George Washington to a 27-3 record ball coach Tommy Amaker. Athletic last season (best in school history) Director Bill Martin intends to name and had the team ranked sixth in a new head coach by the middle of the nation at one point. He's also April. responsible for the Colonials' first The profiles are listed in no par- Atlantic-10 Conference Tournament ticular order. title in 2005. Add this past season's success (another Atlantic-10 tourna- Candidate: John Calipari ment title) and Hobbs has led George Current job: Memphis head coach Washington to the NCAA Tourna- Coaching experience: 25 years (17 ment three consecutive seasons. as a head coach) Hobbs has also been praised for Pros: With Tubby Smith now his ability to develop talent, some- signed on at Minnesota, Calipari thing that Tommy Amaker lacked in may be the highest profile name on his six years in Ann Arbor. Michigan's list of candidates. In his According to the school's athletic 14 years as head coach at Massachu- website, Seattle Supersonics guard setts and Memphis (he was a head Ray Allen was quoted as calling coach of the NBA's New Jersey Nets Hobbs a "terrific guard coach" and for three years) Calipari made a post- credited him for his development. season tournament all but once. In Cons: Hobbs has no significant that span, he's been to eight NCAA Midwest ties. His previous coach- Tournaments and five National Invi- ing stints were with Boston Univer- tational Tournaments (winning the, sity and Connecticut. He also uses NIT with Memphis in 2002). He's a high-octane transition offense, taken his team to the Final Four which may not work out with Michi, once, and reached the Elite Eight gan's current crop of players. two additional times. Calipari is also upfront with how Candidate: BenBraun he deals with players. Current job: California head "I'm firm with these guys," Cali- coach pari said at a press conference dur- Coaching experience: 32 years (30 ing this year's NCAA Tournament. asa head coach) "If you're sitting close enough, I'm Pros: Braun has Midwest ties hard on them. But they know I love because he coached just 20 minutes them. They know I love them and I away at Eastern Michigan for 11years care about them, so I can treat them prior to his tenure at Cal. He led the like I would my own son. I can grab Eagles to three NCAA .Tournaments them at times. You're not supposed and was voted the Mslid-American to grab them? I do." 'Conference Coach of the Year three Cons: Calipari runs a motion times. In his first year at Cal in offense, which didn't work at all dur- 1996, he lead the Bears to a Swt 16 ing Amaker's six years at Michigan. appearances. In 1998, he also ledtie And Calipari doesn't have much of a Bears to an NIT Championship. reason to leave. Memphis was a No.1 Cons: As mentioned earlier Braun in seed this year's Tournament, and hasn't gotten past the second round they play in ah NBA Arena. Trad- after his first successful run, and ing those digs for Crisler Arena isn't in the last four years at Cal, Braun appealing. has made the NCAA Tournament just once. And some bloggers have Candidate: Karl Hobbs criticized Braun's offense for being Current job: George Washington too stagnant and have called for his head coach resignation. Martin may want to Coaching experience: 20 years stay away from a coach who is being (six as a head coach) pushed out of his current job. sole representatives from their league in the second round. Tomorrow, No. 8 Michigan begins another quest to slay the WCHA, facing off against col- lege hockey's hottest team, No. 6 North Dakota (13-10-5 WCHA, 22-13-5 overall) at the Pepsi Cen- ter in Denver. "We've had to listen to all the propaganda about the WCHA being the best league," Michigan coach Red Berenson said. "I'd like to see the teams that come out of our conference advance. That's been the weakness that teams from our conference have shown over the last 10 years." Three other CCHA teams (Northeast No. 4 seed Miami (Ohio), Midwest No. 3 seed Michigan State and Midwest No. 1 seed Notre Dame) join Michi- gan in the Tournament. For the Wolverines to book a ticket to the Frozen Four in St. Louis, they first have to get past the Fight- ing Sioux, and then possibly WCHA Champion Minnesota. The Golden Gophers take on No. 4 seed Air Force in the first game tomorrow. Various reports have identi- fied the NCAA West Regional in Denver as the toughest bracket in the Tournament, mostly because of its two WCHA juggernauts. Last season, Michigan opened the Tournament against North Dakota and didn't stand a chance in a 5-1 loss on the Fighting Sioux's intimidating home ice. And though the Pepsi Center is technically a neutral arena, don't expect this year's crowd to be too welcoming, either. "Whether it's in North Dakota or not, it's WCHA territory and everyone's talking about North Dakota and Minnesota being the teams," Berenson said. "So maybe they don't know we're in the region, but hopefully we can do something." The Wolverines (18-9-1 CCHA, 26-13-1 overall) go west after an encouraging CCHA Tournament that didn't bring a conference title, but did include a resound- ing sweep of Northern Michigan, a victory over archrival Michi- gan State and a toe-to-toe contest with the top-ranked Fighting Irish, a 2-1 loss. Senior alternate captain T.J. Hensick was a big factor in that success and leads Michigan and the CCHA in playoff points (4- 6-10). The Hobey Baker Award finalist and the rest of his senior class may have the most motiva- tion this weekend. If they don't emerge victorious from the regional, they will be the first class of Wolverines to graduate without a Frozen Four appear- ance since 1991. "That's our goal, to get to the Frozen Four," Hunwick said. Said Hensick: "We're sure we'll have WCHA fans out there against us. But it's a chance to go out there and see what Michigan hockey is all about." I . I Former Michigan coach Cheryl Burnett has urged future recruits to uphold their commitment to the Wolverines. Reactions from the recruits have been mixed, but both may still end up playing in Crisler Arena for their college careers. Despite retirement, coach affects recruiting By DAN FELDMAN Daily Sports Writer Cheryl Burnett may no longer be the Michigan women's basket- ball coach, but her direct impact on the program looks like it will last for at least four more years. Veronica Hicks, a senior at Thornwood High School (South Holland, Ill.) signed a National Letter of Intent in November, and the Burnett recruit still plans to attend Michigan. "She told me, 'Coach, it doesn't matter,' " said Kevin Connor, Hicks's coach at Thornwood. "'I have to get used to a new coach other than you anyway.' So she was like, 'It didn't matter to me at all.'" Hicks averaged 18 points, seven rebounds, 6.3 assists and 4.4 steals her senior year. She set a school record by scoring 40 points in a game, and added 11 rebounds, 10 assists and 10 steals for a quadru- ple-double. Connor said the 5-foot-9 point guard has a wingspan of about 6- foot-3, which allows her to get so many steals. He also said Hicks has great court vision and would thrive in a system that lets her control the ball, penetrate and make plays. Hicks also drew a lot of interest from Iowa prior to her commit- ment, Connor said. Hicks couldn't be reached for comment. Alex Guyton could push Bur- nett's direct effect on Michigan even further into the future. Guyton, a junior at Blooming- ton North High School, verbally committed to Michigan before her junior season, but has decided to "start the recruiting process all over again" after hearing of Burnett's retirement and getting a call from the former coach. "She just apologized and said that she wishes that she could be there," Guyton said. "She under- stands my feelings and she had to do what she had to do." . Despite the apparent obstacles, it's still very possible Guyton ends up a Wolverine. "The biggest factor was that we were extremely comfortable with coach Burnett and her staff and the way they went about recruit- ing her and the honesty and the integrity that they had and the fact that the University of Michi- gan is an outstanding school," said Robin Guyton, Alex's mother. "Alex is actually hopingthat when the new coach comes in, it will be somebody who will want to pur- sue her. She's definitely leaving it open to come back as a commit- ted person to Michigan, provided that when the new coach comes in, that they can work together. "Right now, Michigan isstill at the top of Alex's list. She talked to (sophomores Ashley Jones and Melinda Queen the day after Bur- nett retired). They want her. She still wants to play with them. But until we know what the situation is there, we needed to let other coaches know that she's available in the event that once the coach comes in, Alex doesn't fit their system." Robin Guyton said her daugh- ter wasn't in a rush to choose a new school and would wait until Michigan hired its new coach. But Alex Guyton did say, once the new coach is hired, she would wait for him orher to call her. Alex Guyton said she received offers from No. 12 Purdue (Big Ten Champions and alive in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tourna- ment), Indiana (alive in the Sweet 16 of the Women's National Invi- tational Tournament), Cincin- nati and Princeton before she verballed to Michigan. Answers That getter.