Nebraskan
Friday, March 17,1988
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NU's Richard van Poelgeest battles Arkansas State's Bobby Collins in Thurs
day night’s NIT tournament at the Bob Oevaney Sports Center.
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Huskers defeat Arkansas State
in last seconds; season continues
By Nick Hodge
Senior Reporter
One of the season’s smallest Bob Devancy
Sports Center crowds provided the Nebraska
men’s basketball team with its decisive ‘sixth
man’ Thursday night.
Comhusker coach Danny Nee said the
8,862 fans that attended Nebraska’s 81-79 win
against Arkansas State in the first round of the
National Invitation Tournament played a criti
cal role in the Huskcr victory.
‘‘1 really thought our crowd was the sixth
man,” Nee said. ‘‘The sixth man was the
difference in the game.”
Huskcr guard Eric Johnson was whistled for
a foul with no time remaining on the game
clock to send Warrior freshman guard Chris
Dillard to the free throw line with Nebraska
leading 81-79. In the midst of a deafening
frenzy by the Sports Center crowd, Dillard
missed the front end of the one-and-one at
tempt to give Nebraska the win.
The miss left Dillard sobbing and the Husk
ers celebrating.
W/ith tho iinn MokrooL"! nrxwt 1 7 1 anH
assured a winning season, advances to the
NIT’s second round next Monday or Tuesday
against an undetermined opponent.
Nebraska center Rich King said the vocal
Husker fans had a definite affect on Dillard's
missed free throw.
“It made all the difference in the world,”
King said. “I’m sure he’d say that the crowd
didn’t bother him and that he just didn’t con
Cc.ujate because no player likes to say the
crowd got to him. But. as much noise as they
were making the sound waves were bouncing
around in there. I know it had to have had some
effect.”
But Johnson said he doesn’t think he fouled
Dillard.
“I thought that I had gotten alt ball,”
Johnson said. “I felt that I’d gotten all ball
because it kind of got away from him and was
in front of him, so I just reached out and
knocked it down. But the ref made the call.”
With Arkansas Stale leading 79-76 with 48
seconds remaining in the game, Johnson hit a
jumper from the free throw line and then made
two free throws with 14 seconds left to give ihr
Huskers an 80-79 advantage.
Johnson, Nebraska’s team captain, said he
was determined to make both free throws
“I felt they were pretty tough because we
were down,” said Johnson, a6-foot-2 native of
Brooklyn, N.Y. ‘‘I was just concentrating on
making them and putting them in a situation
where they had the pressure on them to come
down and score,
“I thought that if I made these two free
throws things would go our way.”
And go Nebraska’s way they did.
The Warriors were called for a turnover
which led to Husker forward Ray Richardson’s
free throw with five seconds left to give Ne
braska a 81-79 lead.
Arkansas State coach Nelson Catalina said
he was proud of the Warriors’ comeback.
“You have to give our team a lot of credit,”
Catalina said. “We were down by 17 at one
point and came back and made a game of it.”
Nebraska led the Warriors by 17 points
twice in the second half. However, Arkansas
State battled back behind the performance of
forwards John Tate and Ed Louden. Tale
scored 11 ot his game-high 23 points in the
second half and Louden contributed 17 of his
22 points in the Warriors’ comeback attempt.
Catalina said the Warriors, who ended iheir
season 20-10, are used to heartbreaking losses.
Arkansas State lost six games this season by a
total of nine points.
‘‘We didn’t make our free throws,” Catal
ina said. ‘‘But you have to give them credit,
Johnson made a big-time play at the end.”
Nec said the Huskers played their best hall
of the season in the first half. Nebraska com
mitted just four turnovers, made half of its field
goal attempts and connected on 12 of 14 free
throws in the first half. Johnson made two
baskets in the final minute of the first half as
Nebraska scored the half’s final six points to
give the Huskers a 42-33 lead at halftime.
Huskers to race new breed at tournament
By Darran Fowler
Staff Reporter
Softball is one game, but it’s
played in different ways.
The Nebraska softball team will
be introduced to a different brand of
softball when it travels to Tallahas
see, Fla., for a three-day invitational
tournament this weekend.
Nebraska coach Ron Wolforth
said the trip will be a new experience
for the coaches and players because
the Comhuskers are used to the style
of play that they see while facing
Midwest and West Coast teams.
“We have never in the past played
Southern and East Coast teams,”
Wolforth said. “This is the first op
portunity as a team and as a staff to
play those teams. Personally, I’ve
never been to Florida before so I’m
really looking forward to it. We’re
"ti
going to see a lot ot aitrerent teams
that we haven’t seen before.”
Nebraska will open the ‘B’ portion
af the 19-team tournament by facing
Connecticut and Eastern Illinois to
day, and will square off against Flor
ida A & M and Furman on Saturday.
In addition to Nebraska, Connecti
cut, Eastern Illinois, Florida A & M
and Furman, the teams that will par
ticipate in the tournament include;
Missouri, Iowa State, Georgia State,
Illinois State, Bradley and North
Carolina, Ohio State, Northern Illi
nois, South Florida, Miami of Ohio,
Southern Illinois, Southwest Mis
souri Stale, Stetson University of
Deland, Fla., and Florida State.
The tournament’s bracket compe
tition will begin on Saturday, with the
semifinals and championship game
slated for Sunday.
Wolforth said the tournament will
^ -w- A
feature offense against defense. He
said the Midwest and West Coast
teams will employ strong pitching
and defense, while the Southern
teams will rely on strong offenses.
“They play a different brand of
bail because their pitching is not quite
as strong,” he said.” “They lend to
be more offensive oriented compared
to that of the Midwest and West Coast
teams where pitchers arc so domi
nate.
“In the South, they have a lot
bigger girls, so they go more for the
long ball. In the West, we rely much
more on being speed oriented and
base hitting for runs and leading off
with bunts.”
Nebraska, 6-10, is coming off a 1 -
6 campaign at the Roadrunncr Invita
tional in Las Cruces, N. M. That per
formance dropped the Huskers out of
the national ratings.
Wolforth said one bright spot for
Nebraska has been its speed. The
Huskcrs have stolen 23 bases this
season, which Wolforth said is three
limes as many as their opponents.
“ 1 f we can put the other aspects of
our game together with our running
game we’ll really become a factor,”
he said.
Wolforth said he is not concerned
about the attitude of his players.
“We just don’t panic,” he said.
4 ‘Over the last three, four years we’ve
had plenty of chances to panic, but
it’s just not our nature. We still think
we can win the Big Eight champion
ship and we’re not going to change
from that.
‘‘Everyone has to go through ad
versity and see how they respond to it
and we have another chance to see
how we respond this week.”
Woltorth said his players always
set high goals at the start of each
season. He said that is why he is
confident about the rest of the season.
“Right now, it’s such a shock
because we’re not right where we
want to be, but that’s not all that bad
because we want people that expect
excellence and expect to win,” he
said.
With injuries and personal prob
lems out of the way, Wolforth said
this weekend’^ tournament is the best
position he has been in this season.
“One aspect I now have is that l
will have everyone this weekend,’’
he said. “This allows me to change
the line-up... it allows me variabil
ity. If someone was having a bad
tourney the past two tournaments I
had to stay with them. I can do more
coaching this time. That makes me
feel very well.”
lyreese tor the Heisman wins intramural
By Craig Christensen
OCR Relations Director
All-University Playorf Champion
ship will be held Thursday, 6:00 p.m.
at the NU Coliseum. _
»y jeii Apei
Senior Editor
Tyrcesc Knox did not let a good
friend down during the -Class ‘C’
intramural basketball championships
Thursday at the Military and Naval
Science Building.
Knox said he was glad he kept a
promise while helping Tyrcesc for
the Heisman win the title with a 63-53
victory against the Savage Dogs. He
said the victory capped off a pre
scason challenge made by teammate
Bob Cook.
Knox said the challenge involved
winning the Heisman Trophy. He
said Cook touted him as a Heisman
candidate when he arrived at Ne
braska as a highly publicized running
back, but was disappointed when he
spent his entire Cornhuskcr career as
a reserve.
Knox said he was determined not
to let Cook down a second time.
“He said, ‘Tyreese, you’ve al
ready lost one Heisman, don’t lose
dlUHIICI, IxllwA N1IU. I Net K1 I
wouldn’t.”
The Legal Gunners were also not
determined to let anyone down, as
they used a last-second shot to defeat
the Fiji’s 42-40 and win the light
weight title.
In other intramural action,
Schramm 6-A won the residence hall
‘A’ title by defeating Burr-2 West A
72-64, Abel 7-B captured the ‘B’ title
by defeating Harper 9-B 67-50 and
Gather 4 captured the ‘C’ title by
defeatingCather 1047-40. DeltaTau
Delta won the fraternity ‘C’ title by
defeating Beta C-2 50-51 and Karl’s
Running Rebels captured the inde
pendent B’ title by defeating the
Stones 64-57.
Knox said the key to Tyreese for
the Hcisman’s victory was balanced
scoring and pressure defense. Ty
reese for the Hcisman forced the
Savage Dogs to commit 24 turnovers,
and also bcnefitied from a scoring
attack in which five players scored
five points or more.
Eiiiv «dj;nu, d u-imn-i iui wdiu,
led Tyreese for the Hcisman with 21
points. Cartier Walker, a former
Nebraska defensive back, added 15,
while Steve Sandman had nine.
Knox said he wasn’t surprised by
Wagner’s performance. He said
Wagner has been Tyreese for the
Heisman’s big scorer all season.
“Thai’s pretty much his game,”
Knox said. “He’s a good shooter.”
Wagner said he w as confident that
he could hit his shots. He collected 12
of his points on 3-point shots, and
added the rest from either short jump
shots, driving la> ups or free throws.
“If I’m open, I can usually hit
them,” Wagner said.
Savage Dogs forward Kevin
Miller, who led his team with 13
points, said he was impressed with
Wagner.
“(Wagner) was real good,”
Miller said. “He hit the 3-pointcrs
and he made his free throws down the
line.”
Miller said the Savage Dogs
swucncu irom a /one to a man-to
man defense early in the second half
in an effort to contain Wagner’s 3
point shooting. That strategy paid off,
as the Savage Dogs cut Tyreese for
the Heisman’s advantage to 50-48
with 2:01 remaining.
But in the game’s closing minutes,
Tyreese lor the Heisman used four
points from Walker and Sandman,
three Irom Dan Ziegler and two from
Knox to post the victory. The win
raised Tyreese for the Heisman’s
record to 10-0, while the Savage
Dogs fell to 10-2
Tn the second half we did a real
good job early,” Miller said. “But
we got out of our game plan and
missed some shots at the end.”
Knox said Tyreese for the Heis
man cherished the victory. He said
the win was especially satisfying
because this was the team’s first year
together.
“We’ve got a celebration all
planned,” he said. ‘‘Believe it or not,
we take this seriously.”
