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(04/05/07 4:00am)
Xavier Keeling, a freshman forward on the men’s basketball team, will be transferring from IU at the end of the semester, the athletics department said in a press release Wednesday morning.\nKeeling saw limited playing time in his first season with the Hoosiers, averaging 8.2 minutes per game in 22 games. The Huntsville, Ala. native also recorded 1.8 points and 1.1 rebounds per game.\n“I want to thank coach (Kelvin) Sampson, the coaching staff and my teammates,” Keeling said in the release. “I really enjoyed my time in Bloomington. However, I feel it is in my best interests to explore other options at this point in my career.”\nThe 6-foot-6, 230 pound Keeling was recruited out of J.O. Johnson High School by former IU coach Mike Davis. Even after Sampson’s hiring, Keeling stayed true to his commitment to the Hoosiers and came off the bench in a reserve role for this year’s squad.\n“We appreciate Xavier’s contributions and efforts this past season,” IU coach Kelvin Sampson said in the release. “Xavier is a great young man with a bright future and we wish him nothing but the best.”\nThe athletics department said Keeling will finish out his semester course work before deciding on his next school.
(04/04/07 4:00am)
After initially being pushed up from Wednesday to Tuesday because of predicted bad weather, the IU baseball game against Ball State was postponed Tuesday because of thunderstorms in the Muncie area.\nThe match up has not been rescheduled despite the possibility the teams might \nplay today.\nIf the game is not made up, the Hoosiers will add a home game at some point later in the season.\nWith the cancellation of Tuesday’s game, the Hoosiers (11-11, 1-3) will next host Northwestern for a four-game series, beginning 3 p.m. Friday.
(04/04/07 4:00am)
Xavier Keeling, a freshman forward on the men’s basketball team, will be transferring from IU at the end of the semester, the athletics department said in a news release Wednesday morning.\nKeeling saw limited playing time in his first season with the Hoosiers, averaging 8.2 minutes per game in 22 games. The Huntsville, Ala., native also recorded 1.8 points and 1.1 rebounds per game.\n“I want to thank coach (Kelvin) Sampson, the coaching staff and my teammates,” Keeling said in the news release. “I really enjoyed my time in Bloomington. However, I feel it is in my best interests to explore other options at this point in my career.”\nThe 6-foot-6, 230-pound Keeling was recruited out of J.O. Johnson High School by former IU coach Mike Davis. Even after Sampson’s hiring, Keeling stayed true to his commitment to the Hoosiers and came off the bench in a reserve role for this year’s squad.\n“We appreciate Xavier’s contributions and efforts this past season,” IU coach Kelvin Sampson said in the release. “Xavier is a great young man with a bright future and we wish him nothing but the best.”\nThe athletics department said Keeling will finish his semester’s course work before deciding on his next school.
(04/02/07 4:00am)
With three-fourths of a lap remaining, Cutters rider Alex Bishop all but wrapped up his second consecutive Miss-n-Out victory.\nAlthough Bishop was joined on the track with two of the fastest sprinters in the field – Dodds House rider Chris Chartier and Phi Kappa Psi rider Erik Styacich – he won the race by getting to Turn 1 first. \nWhile some might wonder how the race can be decided so soon on the final lap, the nature of the track at Bill Armstrong Stadium means it is unlikely a rider will lose a lead if he gets to the turn first, Bishop said.\n“The last lap is so fast, and ... if you beat everyone to Turn 1 and you are doing a (31-second lap), you pretty much have the race won,” he said.\nBishop had to fight off a push by Chartier down the front stretch to keep his lead into the first turn.\n“I was watching him coming out of Turn 4 out of the corner of my eye,” Bishop said. “I saw him coming up and I said, ‘Oh, I gotta get going now.’”\nThe charge came on the heels of a neutral lap, which gave the final three riders of the competition a chance to rest before a final sprint to the finish.\n“I tried to take the top because I wanted to lead it all the way out,” Chartier said. “Alex is a strong enough rider, and he probably could have taken me anyways, but I knew that would have given me a much higher percentage of winning it.”\nBishop made his charge to the final seemingly without effort. \nRegardless of the final spring series’ outcome, Chartier said, the Cutters showed they have the power to win a final sprint come race day.\n“I think the Cutters proved (they were the best in the sprint) today,” he said. “Definitively, the Cutters showed they had the best sprinter, and that’s Alex Bishop.”\nFor the women, Teter rider Sarah Rieke claimed her second spring series title with a Miss-n-Out championship, but the junior couldn’t be entirely happy with the victory. While holding a narrow lead over Rieke late during the final lap Cycledelics rider Pam Loebig’s bike chain fell off.\n“Who knows what would have happened after Turn 4,” Rieke said. “She was in front so she could have won. I was drafting so who knows if I would have sprinted around. But she’s a great rider and she deserved a fair race, and I’m really sad that she didn’t get to finish it.”\nHad she held on, it would have been Loebig’s first ever spring series victory.\n“It is definitely disappointing,” Loebig said. “I don’t want to say that I would have had it, but I was feeling great and I felt like I still had some left in me. All of a sudden, I felt my bike crank a little loud and then there was no resistance.”\nRieke led Loebig and Kappa Alpha Theta’s Brittany Mahoney at the beginning of the last lap. After Turn 2, Loebig started her sprint and, after accidentally bumping Rieke, she catapulted to the front of the pack. \n“I was feeling pretty good and I had some in me, so I didn’t want to wait long,” she said. “I decided coming out of (Turn) 2 that I was going to go into the wind and go to till the end.”\nRieke was just glad the two didn’t crash after they bumped. Once Loebig took the lead, Rieke had to play catch-up. She picked up the pace coming down the back stretch and pulled even with Loebig’s back tire between Turns 3 and 4. That’s when Loebig had the mechanical failure. \n“She was going to finish it,” Rieke said of Loebig. “She looked great, I’m just sad her chain broke and she didn’t get the chance to.”
(03/30/07 4:00am)
ATLANTA – There won’t be any warm and fuzzy scenes like when Jim Valvano sprinted across the court looking for somebody to hug. You won’t see any blubbering meltdowns a la Rollie Massimino, either.\nAnd the next George Mason? That dream got squashed two weeks ago.\nNope, this year’s Final Four is all about the power conferences. There might as well be a sign: “No Underdogs Allowed.”\n“What we did last year as a group was pretty amazing,” George Mason coach Jim Larranaga said. “This year it’s what the high-major teams have been able to do, which is survive some incredible scares and advance.\n“I just think what makes March Madness so special is its unpredictability.”\nNot this season. A year after George Mason delighted the country with its improbable run to the Final Four and the mid-majors elevated themselves with eight of the 34 at-large bids, the power has shifted back to, well, the powers.\nFor the first time since 1993 – and only the second time since the NCAA began seeding the field in 1979 – a 2 is the “highest” seed in the Final Four. Each game Friday night features a No. 1 vs. a No. 2 – Florida vs. UCLA and Ohio State vs. Georgetown.\nSome underdogs, those Bruins and Hoyas. UCLA returns almost the entire team that lost to Florida in the title game last year and was ranked No. 1 for six weeks this season. Georgetown has one of the biggest guys in college basketball and has won 19 of its last 20 games.\n“Last year, everyone was talking about the mid-majors. This year, everyone’s excited about four of the top teams in the country – who were in probably everybody’s mind at the beginning of the year,” Larranaga said.\n“It’s a battle of Goliaths. There is no David.”\nThat takes some of the fun out of it. Part of the tournament’s charm is that there always seems to be some high seed that knocks off a team it should have no business beating – Valparaiso stunning Mississippi on Bryce Drew’s shot from just across the half-court line in 1998. Princeton beating defending champ UCLA in 1996.\nValvano’s N.C. State was hardly a mid-major, being from the ACC. But the Wolfpack were a sixth-seed in 1983, and they beat two No. 2 seeds and two No. 1s, including Houston in the championship game.\nVillanova wasn’t an unknown, either, in 1985, coming out of the Big East. But the Wildcats were a lowly eighth seed when they upset Patrick Ewing and mighty Georgetown.\nLast year, the mid-majors ran amok. Besides George Mason, Bradley, Gonzaga and Wichita State all made the round of 16.\n“The parity in college basketball is just so close now,” UCLA coach Ben Howland said. “Anybody can beat anybody on a given day. I mean, I really believe that we can beat anybody on a given day. I still believe we can be beaten by anybody on a given day.”\nThat the Final Four wound up this way isn’t really a surprise, though. While the regular season was a model of equality – a record-tying 48 schools were ranked at some point – the big schools have dominated the NCAA tournament.\n“Last year there were quite a few mid-major programs that had the perfect ingredients for pulling off some big upsets,” Larranaga said. “This year, some of those teams also got very, very close to doing it and, for one reason or another, fell slightly short.\n“It’s always been difficult (for underdogs). It’ll continue to be difficult,” he added. “But it’s what makes the tournament so good and unpredictable. In any given year, somebody can get hot at the right time and do some amazing things.”\nJust not this year.
(03/30/07 4:00am)
IU senior swimmer Leila Vaziri continued her rapid ascent to the top of the swimming world last night at the FINA World Championships in Melbourne, Australia, with a gold-medal performance in the 50-meter backstroke. \nVaziri shocked the swimming world again when she matched her own world-record time of 28.16 in the finals of the event at Susan O’Neill Pool at Rod Laver Arena. \nHer time of 28.16 finished her well ahead of Belarus’ Aliaksandra Herasimenia, who finished in second in 28.46, and Australia’s Tayliah Zimmer, who finished third with a 28.50. \nEntering her first World Championships as a 100-meter backstroke specialist, Vaziri competed in the 50-meter backstroke for the first time at a major international meet. \nShe advanced to the semifinals of the 100-back, placing 10th, before winning the 50-back. \nVaziri finished in first place in each of the three swims of the 50-back. She set an American record time of 28.25 in the preliminary heats and set the world record in the semifinals with a time of 28.16, matching the time in the finals. \nVaziri added another medal to the United States’ medal count at the championships. The American swimmers have won 11 gold medals, eight silver and three bronze. \nVaziri wrapped up a stellar career at IU with a bronze medal in the 100-yard backstroke at the NCAA championships. In her four years at IU, she earned a school record 15 All-America certificates.
(03/29/07 4:00am)
Rowing is one of the few sports in which there is no one standout person who can make or break, win or lose, a race. \nWe have to rely on the eight other people in the boat with us, knowing we are all working ourselves, giving all we have to get that boat across that finish line as fast as possible – together.\nSome call what we do a noble madness. But if you ask any girl on this team why she goes through what she does day in and day out, she would most likely – although maybe not as abrasively – tell you she would rather die than let down the rest of the girls in that boat by not giving everything she has, every stroke.\nWe have returned now from our spring training trip and race season kick-off in Clemson, S.C. \nAlthough we as a team may not have raced as we would have liked, or come away with the results that we all thought we were capable of, the work we did during the week was definitely a huge step in the right direction. \nWe started off the week with a team goal: no matter what seat, boat, or circumstance, to make that boat go as fast as possible, give our all and row well. \nThroughout the week, you could feel everyone was doing just that, and using the goal as just another motivational tool to earn the seat in which we sat when it came to race day.\nOur sights now are set on Wisconsin, when the Badgers come to race us at home on Lake Lemon this Saturday. \nThe vibe in the boathouse is noticeably competitive, something we are going to need to harness to race well. Every one of us knows there is a lot more speed to be had and that nobody’s seat is safe. Wisconsin will be fast, and we know that. But when it comes to race day, the first boat across that line will be the boat that came ready to step up and race.\nWe all know we are going to have to work hard for the results we want and think we can produce. But with work comes anticipation and excitement for what is to come.\nGo Hoosiers!\nEditor’s note: Indiana fell to Wisconsin in all three races of both the varsity eight, second varsity eight and third varsity eight on Saturday, March 24, at Lake Lemon.
(03/29/07 4:00am)
For Teter junior Sarah Rieke, No. 1 is becoming a familiar position.\nFour days after helping her team claim the top spot at Qualifications, Rieke broke a Little 500 Individual Time Trial record with an official 2:34.27 mark she set Wednesday night. \n“It’s the best I could do,” she said. “Honestly, I was looking to feel good the whole run; that was the whole goal.”\nRieke’s time broke former Kappa Alpha Theta rider Liz Milne’s 2005 record by more than a second. She also won the ITTs for the fall cycling series.\nIt was wonderful to break the record, Rieke said, but ultimately the series events are just for fun.\n“Our idea is to train through them,” Rieke said, “not for them.”\nRieke rode for the 2005 Teter team that won the race and has flown under the radar since a 12th-place finish last year. \nIt has been Rieke’s goal to put her team back on the map.\n“We don’t want to be stared at as the team to beat, we just want to be one of the good teams,” she said after Qualifications. “We want to show that we’re good so that we can work with other good teams.”\nOn the men’s side, one team took an early lead in the spring series. Riders from Cutters placed first and second at ITTs on Wednesday night. \nJuniors Sasha Land and Alex Bishop recorded times within a second of each other. \nLand won with an official time of 2:18.94, improving by almost three seconds from last year’s time. \nLand said he had no comment after his winning performance. \nHis teammate, Bishop, said the track, and the entire men’s field, were in good conditions. \n“Everyone’s riding fast, so it’s going to be a competitive year,” he said. \nBishop, who also finished second in last year’s ITTs, said he had met his goal for the event. \n“I started off a little too fast but other than that it was a good run,” he said. “I am pretty happy.”\nThough they failed to repeat as pole-sitters, Bishop said the team was looking to repeat as series-event champions and wear the white jersey again. \nThe group graduated one rider, Greg Buhay, from last year’s fifth-place team.\nAnd were it not for transferring rules, the team could have placed one-two-three. Eric Hamilton, who rode for Cinzano last year, joined the Cutters squad this year. Though he cannot ride on race day and his ITT time does not count, he was the third fastest rider of the night. \n“I am in a unique situation where I have to sit out a year because I switched teams,” Hamilton said after his heat. “So this is the only thing I have a chance to win all year.”
(03/29/07 4:00am)
IU senior swimmer Leila Vaziri continued her rapid ascent to the top of the swimming world last night at the FINA World Championships in Melbourne, Australia with a gold-medal performance in the 50-meter backstroke. \nVaziri shocked the swimming world again, as she matched her own world-record time of 28.16 in the finals of the event at Susan O’Neill Pool at Rod Laver Arena. \nHer time of 28.16 finished her well ahead of Belarus’ Aliaksandra Herasimenia, who finished in second in 28.46 and Australia’s Tayliah Zimmer, who finished third with a 28.50. \nEntering her first World Championships as a 100-meter backstroke specialist, Vaziri competed in the 50-meter backstroke for the first time at a major international meet. \nShe advanced to the semifinals of the 100-back, placing tenth, before winning the 50-back. \nVaziri finished in first place in each of the three swims of the 50-back. She set an American record time of 28.25 in the preliminary heats and set the world record in the semifinals with a time of 28.16, matching the time in the finals. \nVaziri added another medal to the United States’ medal count at the championships. \nThe American swimmers have won 11 gold medals, eight silver and three bronze. \nVaziri wrapped up a stellar career at IU with a bronze medal in the 100-yard backstroke at the NCAA championships. In her four years at IU, she earned a school record 15 All-America certificates.
(03/23/07 4:00am)
JUPITER, Fla. – St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa was arrested Thursday on a drunken-driving charge after police said they found him asleep inside his running sport utility vehicle at a stop light.\nLa Russa gave two breath samples and had a blood-alcohol content of 0.093 percent, Jupiter police said in a statement. Florida’s legal driving limit is 0.08 percent.\nUndercover officers saw La Russa’s SUV sitting partially in an intersection around midnight and not moving despite two green lights, police said. Officers knocked on the window and La Russa did not initially respond.\nThe SUV was in drive and running, with La Russa’s foot on the brake, police said. When he woke up, the officers asked him to get out of the SUV. La Russa was cooperative during his arrest, police said.\nThe 62-year-old La Russa was booked into the Palm Beach County jail on the misdemeanor count about four hours later, according to police and jail records. He was released about 8:30 a.m. after posting $500 cash bond, said Paul Miller, a Palm Beach County sheriff’s office spokesman.\nLa Russa declined to comment while he was outside the clubhouse in uniform hours later at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Fla., where he planned to manage a spring training game against the Florida Marlins. When La Russa walked onto the field before the game, many fans stood and applauded.\nThe Cardinals said in a statement that the team takes “these matters very seriously” and apologized for any embarrassment and distractions. “The Cardinals organization remains supportive of Tony,” the team said.\nLa Russa is a four-time manager of the year and led the Cardinals to the World Series championship last season. He also won the title in 1989 with the Oakland Athletics and has won three other pennants. His 2,297 wins over 28 seasons with the Chicago White Sox, A’s and Cardinals is third on the career list.
(03/23/07 4:00am)
DES MOINES, Iowa – Iowa coach Steve Alford told his players during a team meeting Thursday that he is leaving to take over at New Mexico.\n“Things came up, and this is the decision he had to make,” senior guard Mike Henderson said. “He’s going to New Mexico.”\nAlford, a former star at Indiana, had a 152-106 record in eight seasons at Iowa. He led the Hawkeyes to three NCAA tournament appearances, but Iowa won just one NCAA tournament game under his leadership. Last season, the Hawkeyes were upset by 14th-seeded Northwestern State in the opening round.\nIowa finished 17-14 this season, missing out on postseason play. Athletic director Gary Barta said last week next year’s team “just needed to be better than we were this year.”\n“Coach has a great opportunity to go somewhere else. It’s a great move on his behalf. I know he’s happy and excited,” senior guard Adam Haluska said. “It sounds like the best move for him and his family right now.”\nAlford has been mentioned as a candidate at New Mexico since coach Ritchie McKay was fired after five seasons. McKay, who had three years remaining on his contract, was 82-65 in five seasons, including a dismal 8-41 road record.\nIowa players said Alford wanted a new start after eight seasons in Iowa City.\n“He wanted to get his family out of this negative environment,” center Seth Gorney said.\nNew Mexico athletics department spokesman Greg Remington said there likely would be a news conference Friday in Albuquerque.
(03/23/07 4:00am)
IU men's basketball junior forward Lance Stemler had surgery Thursday to fix a chronic left ankle injury that he aggravated during the season, according to an IU Media Relations news release. \n"The Columbia, Ill., native reinjured the ankle prior to the team's Feb. 15 game at Purdue," the news release said. "Stemler returned for the Hoosiers' final eight games. He finished the season averaging 6.6 points and 4.1 rebounds in 23.8 minutes per contest"
(03/23/07 4:00am)
The IU Student Foundation will allow alumni coaches to coach in the pits during Little 500.\nIn an e-mail sent to Little 500 riders and alumni coaches, IUSF Director Jenny Bruffey wrote that the foundation will allow alumni coaches to “encourage the continued involvement of the many supportive Little 500 alumni and volunteers.”\nTeams can have either or both an alumni and student coach in the pit on race day, according to the e-mail.\nPreviously, only student coaches were permitted in the pits during the race.\nEarlier this year, IUSF implemented a student-coaching initiative that barred nonstudent coaches from participating in the pits on race day.\nIn September, IUSF officials defended the initiative, saying it would help increase student leadership positions.\nRiders and alumni coaches criticized IUSF for not discussing the initiative before its implementation.\nIn September, Bruffey told the Indiana Daily Student that “we're not going to not implement this initiative this year. In our minds, it's not something that's up for discussion.”\nThe move comes on the eve of Little 500 Qualifications, which begin at 8 a.m. Saturday at Bill Armstrong Stadium.
(03/23/07 4:00am)
Though the fields for the men’s and women’s Little 500 were set Saturday, the biggest story of the day was who did not make the race.\nDefending men’s champion Alpha Tau Omega failed to make the field for the 57th men’s Little 500 after faulting on all three qualification attempts. ATO faulted on their first two attempts by dropping the bike during the exchange, forcing them to try one final time at the end of the day.\nThe third run ended on the first exchange for the reining champs. The team attempted a full bike exchange, where each of the two riders were using a different bike, when the second rider began moving before his teammate completed the hand tag required by rule.\nAfter a day of fast racing, Phi Kappa Psi and Beta Theta Pi took the top two places for the men’s race on April 21. Teter and Kappa Delta finished one and two for the April 20th women’s race.\nOn the men’s side, Cutters started the morning on the pole, staying there until late afternoon. As the day progressed, the track became faster and times improved. Two different teams took the lead in the afternoon before Phi Psi won the pole with the second to last run of the day.\nTeter grabbed the pole mid-day from Kappa Delta and held on for the rest of the afternoon. The 2005 champion will look to win its second Little 500 championship in three years.
(03/22/07 4:00am)
When the IU women’s basketball team enters South Dakota State’s Frost Arena tonight, a different type of crowd awaits them.\nNearly one-third the population of Brookings, S.D. will be in attendance when the Hoosiers (19-13) play in front of a sold-out crowd of 6,000 in the quarterfinal of the WNIT. On Monday, the Hoosiers advanced out of the second round of the tournament with a last minute 74-71 win against Iona. Tonight they will take on South Dakota State (24-5) for the first time in IU history, competing against a team that has won its last 13 games.\nFollowing the victory over Iona, IU coach Felisha Legette-Jack spoke about the sense of urgency her team played with Monday night. If the Hoosiers keep playing in such a way, she said she believes her team can go very far in the tournament.\n“This team doesn’t know how to surrender,” Legette-Jack said following the Iona victory. “We have fought, and we have faced adversity, and we have fought through that adversity. We play with such freedom and ability to just go out there and have fun with this game of basketball, so we’re excited.”\nWhile the Hoosiers improved their WNIT home record to 4-0, the team is only 2-3 on the road in the tournament. South Dakota State is also averaging five more points per game than the Hoosiers this year (72 to 67, respectively).\nSouth Dakota State is fresh off its 61-48 win against Illinois State in the second round of the WNIT. Though the Jackrabbits did not shoot particularly well against ISU, they still found a way to win their seventh straight home game, led by senior forward Megan Vogel. Vogel scored 23 points to lead all scorers in the contest and averaged 17.6 points over the season, shooting 52 percent from the field along the way.\nBut, IU will look to counter the difference with a favorable height matchup in the low post with senior center Sarah McKay.\nHaving a breakout year, McKay is second in scoring for the Hoosiers with 11.8 points per game and was named to the All-Big Ten third team by the conference’s coaches. The senior center is also averaging nearly six rebounds and two blocks a game this year. McKay scored 15 points and grabbed nine rebounds against Iona. \nIn order for the Hoosiers to come out with a victory, McKay can’t be the team’s lone force of production. All season long, Legette-Jack talked about how her team is one that takes open shots, one that doesn’t have a “go-to” player. Instead, the Hoosiers will look to settle for a game that produces multiple players in double figures and where the all players hustle collectively on the defensive end of the floor.\n“Coach always talks about passion and it’s just the will to play one more day,” said junior guard Nikki Smith. “We don’t want to have the year end yet. We just need to go out there and play as hard as we can. It’s just us running the floor and running Indiana basketball.”
(03/22/07 4:00am)
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – The University of Illinois will not discipline Athletic Director Ron Guenther for yelling at men’s basketball coach Bruce Weber and Illini players during the team’s NCAA tournament loss last Friday, officials said.\nGuenther yelled substitution advice to Weber – who was just a few feet away – and at one point called Illini forward Warren Carter an idiot, according to a columnist for CBS SportsLine.com, who sat two seats from Guenther on press row during Illinois’ 54-52 loss to Virginia Tech.\nThe columnist wrote that Guenther also pounded the table throughout the game in Columbus, Ohio, during which the Illini blew a 13-point second-half lead.\nRichard Herman, chancellor at the Urbana-Champaign campus, told the Chicago Tribune for a story first published on its Web site Tuesday night that Guenther – in his 15th year as athletic director at Illinois – would not be disciplined. He said Guenther had apologized to Weber and planned to apologize to Carter.\nCarter told the newspaper that Guenther had apologized.\nThe outbursts happened because Guenther is a fan, Herman said.\n“I think this was an unfortunate lapse and he is very embarrassed by it and certainly regrets it,” Herman said. “You don’t get to lapse into being just a fan when you are an (athletic director).”\nNeither Herman nor Guenther returned calls from The Associated Press on Wednesday.\nBut in an interview published Sunday in The (Champaign) News-Gazette, Guenther acknowledged his comments and actions.\n“Did I slap the table? Yes,” Guenther said. “But I didn’t direct my comments to anyone in particular, and I certainly didn’t intend for my words to be picked up. That did not represent the way I feel about our players, and they know it.”\nPeople who sit on press row aren’t supposed to openly root for either team, regardless of their loyalties.\nGuenther, who was a lineman on the Illinois football team in the mid 1960s, often watches Illinois sports events from out-of-the-way places because he reacts as a fan would, Illinois athletics spokesman Kent Brown said Wednesday.\n“Everybody in this department knows there is no bigger supporter and no bigger fan of Illinois athletics than Ron Guenther,” Brown said. “Every sport he attends he cares about.”\nGuenther and the Illinois basketball and football programs have been under pressure this year over a variety troubles.\nThe basketball team’s first-round NCAA exit followed a car accident that led to felony charges against player Jamar Smith for drunken driving and leaving the scene of an accident that left his passenger, player Brian Carlwell, with a serious concussion. And Rich McBride, a senior on the team, pleaded not guilty this month to drunken driving after an arrest last fall.\nFootball coach Ron Zook’s strong incoming class of recruits led to public speculation that he couldn’t bring high-caliber players to Illinois without cheating. Then, two weeks ago, Zook kicked two Illini football players off the team after they were charged with burglary and theft. Jody Ellis and Derrick McPhearson pleaded not guilty.
(03/21/07 4:00am)
INDIANAPOLIS – Butler guard A.J. Graves thinks Florida has the perfect combination to win another championship, and coach Todd Lickliter is still trying to find a weakness his team can exploit.\nYet as lopsided as Friday night’s regional semifinal game may appear on paper, the Bulldogs believe they can shock the college basketball world by dethroning the defending national champs.\n“They’ve lost this year, so that means somebody has beaten them,” said senior forward Brian Ligon, who grew up in St. Petersburg, Fla. “I don’t think you can go into a game thinking you’re going to lose. That’s not the right way to prepare.”\nButler (29-6) could care less about conventional wisdom, which suggests the Gators are too big, too deep, too athletic and too experienced to succumb to the Bulldogs’ blue-collar tactics.\nPlayers have heard those complaints all season – and throughout their college careers – and have routinely proven the critics wrong, perhaps because their team photo looks like something straight out of the movie “Hoosiers.”\nNo active player stands taller than 6-foot-7, and they have a wispy-looking guard in Graves, who is generously listed at 6-1 and 155 pounds. Even the short haircuts look circa the 1950s.\nSo stopping players like Joakim Noah, Al Horford and Taurean Green will be a daunting challenge.\n“They’re the defending champs, the overall No. 1 seed, the SEC champions,” Lickliter said. “You know, I could keep on going, but I’m already losing sleep now.”\nThen again, Butler has overcome its shortcomings all season.\nCritics continually expected the Bulldogs to get run over by bigger-name opponents, but Butler kept winning. They were more disciplined than Notre Dame and IU, played better defense than Tennessee and out-shot Gonzaga to complete an improbable run to the NIT Season Tip-Off title.\nLast week, Butler did it again.\nWith prognosticators calling the Bulldogs ripe for an upset against 12th-seeded Old Dominion, Butler finally pulled away late before defying the odds again by wearing down Maryland’s superior athletes to reach the round of 16.\nNow comes Florida.\nThe Gators (31-5) are trying to become the first team to win back-to-back national titles since Duke in 1991 and 1992, and have the same starting five that started last year’s championship game. They’re deep, fast and experienced enough to take advantage of the versatile Noah and the powerful Horford – major problems for Ligon and senior forward Brandon Crone.\nBut this is familiar territory for Butler.\nIt’s back in the more familiar role of prohibitive underdog, and Crone insists the Bulldogs will not be intimidated by the Gators’ successes.\n“We have to play our game, which is something we’ve been really good at all year,” Crone said. “We may not hit our shots or may have too many turnovers sometimes, but pretty much all year, we’ve played our game and that’s what we’ve got to do Friday.”\nWhat Butler does best is play precision basketball.\nIt commits the nation’s fewest turnovers (9.5), ranks seventh nationally in free-throw shooting (75.9 percent), fifth in scoring defense (56.9) and 17th in 3-pointers per game (9.0).
(03/21/07 4:00am)
COLLEGE STATION, Texas – Moments after Texas A&M defeated Louisville to reach the regional semifinals, Acie Law was crying with joy. Aggies coach Billy Gillispie walked up to his star point guard and said, “Didn’t you believe me?”\nWhen Gillispie took over at A&M three years ago, he told Law the Aggies were going to win sooner than anyone expected.\nA victory against Memphis (32-3) in San Antonio on Thursday will send the Aggies (27-6) to their first regional final, a step no one saw coming after A&M went 0-16 in the Big 12 in 2003-04. Least of all Law, a freshman that season.\nHe was skeptical of Gillispie’s vision and considered leaving when the new coach implemented workouts that resembled boot camp. But Law stuck it out, and ultimately realized his demanding coach was right.\n“This season is something he promised me,” the 6-foot-3-inch senior said.\nAlong the way, Law understood that Gillispie had a plan for him, too – to make him the cornerstone of a resurgent team.\nLaw is a finalist for the Wooden and Naismith awards, given to college basketball’s best player. He led the Aggies in scoring, assists and steals this season, but he gets no special favors from Gillispie.\n“I like the fact that he treats me like one of the guys and he doesn’t make it easy for me,” Law said. “He believes that even though I’m getting all this attention, that I can go further. You feel good inside when you play for a person who believes in you and continues to push you to get better.”\nLaw has taken Gillispie’s tough love and produced all year, especially late in close games. A player from Penn, the team A&M ousted in the first round, called him “Captain Clutch.”\nLaw averaged 6.9 points in the last four minutes of Big 12 games. He sank a 3-pointer and two free throws in the last 24 seconds of A&M’s 69-66 win at Kansas on Feb. 3. Three weeks later, Law hit a 3-pointer to force overtime and another to force double overtime in a 98-96 loss at Texas.\n“He’s developed a great talent,” Gillispie said. “People ask how guys perform like that in the clutch. First of all, you have to be a really good player to do it time and time again. A bad or mediocre player might do it once, luck into it or whatever.\n“A guy like Acie, you have to be very talented and you have to have great confidence. He has both of those things.”\nMelvin Watkins, Gillispie’s predecessor at A&M, said that when Law played for Kimball High School in Dallas, he already had a natural feel for the game.\n“He had a calming presence whenever he had the ball,” said Watkins, who resigned after the Aggies went 7-21 in 2003-04. “But you also had the feeling that when he had the ball, something special might be about to happen.\n“He could make plays you can’t teach,” said Watkins, now a Missouri assistant. “If you could, you’d teach all your kids to make them.
(03/21/07 4:00am)
BATON ROUGE, La. – Louisiana State University center Glen “Big Baby” Davis is moving on to the next stage of his basketball life.\nThe 6-foot-9-inch, 290-pound junior said Tuesday he will skip his senior year to enter the NBA draft.\n“After my toughest year, I now feel I am physically and mentally ready for the NBA,” Davis said at a news conference. “In my mind and in my heart, I felt that it was time for me to move on.”\nHe has signed with agent John Hamilton of Performance Sports Management but will remain enrolled at LSU until the end of the semester. The NBA’s predraft camp is May 28 to June 5 in Orlando, Fla., and Davis expects to be there.\nDavis averaged 17.7 points and 10.4 rebounds this season, missing several games late in the year because of a strained quadriceps. He is the only LSU player other than Shaquille O’Neal with career totals surpassing 1,500 points, 900 rebounds and 100 blocks. Davis was an AP second team All-America selection during the 2005-06 season, when LSU went to the Final Four.\n“Last year, the team had great success. I was part of only four (LSU) teams to make it to the Final Four,” Davis said. “I decided to stay and hoped to build on that this year. Unfortunately that didn’t happen.”\nCoach John Brady said he advised Davis to turn pro unless he was fully committed to returning to LSU for his senior year. The coach told Davis not to base his decision purely on projections about how high he will go in the draft.\n“I told him two weeks ago that he needs to go where his heart moves him to go, not where someone tells him he’ll go (in the draft),” Brady said. “He had three outstanding years at LSU. I watched him grow. ... He’ll do well.”\nDavis said he’s been told he could be selected anywhere from the middle of the first round to early in the second. First-round picks get guaranteed three-year contracts. Second-rounders do not, and many get cut in training camp. In rare cases, however, being picked in the second round can be a financial boon to players who perform well since they can enter the league under shorter contracts and become free agents sooner.\nDavis played center and power forward in college but is expected to play power forward in the pros.\n“It’s just about being ready and I’m ready,” Davis said. “The game is still called basketball. I’m well qualified to play the game. Basically, I was ready for the next level. I feel I have nothing to prove. ... I believe no other power forward can do what I do. I can score and I can rebound.”
(03/21/07 4:00am)
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Bowie Kuhn was remembered Tuesday as a fierce and passionate advocate for baseball, dedicated to charitable work and now secure in the “big Hall of Fame.”\nAmong the 300 mourners at Our Lady Star of the Sea were current commissioner Bud Selig, former American League president Lee MacPhail and former National League president Len Coleman.\nKuhn, who died Thursday at age 80, was baseball’s commissioner from 1969-84, a period of upheaval in the sport.\n“I think it is a crying shame that Bowie is not in the Hall of Fame. But he’s in the big Hall of Fame,” said former Detroit Tigers owner Tom Monaghan, who gave one of the two eulogies.\nAlso in attendance were Philadelphia Phillies owner Bill Giles, Houston Astros president Tal Smith, Atlanta Braves chairman emeritus Bill Bartholomay and Hall of Fame chairman Jane Forbes Clark.\nRachel Robinson, Jackie Robinson’s widow, and daughter Sharon Robinson was at the service. \nFormer Los Angeles Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley and former Montreal Expos president John McHale were pallbearers.\nMonaghan talked of Kuhn’s charity work, visiting AIDS patients and the elderly in hospitals and his support in building Legatus, a Catholic organization for business and civic leaders. Monaghan also spoke about Kuhn’s resolve.
