Nebraskan
Wednesday, February 7,1990
Beck’s season won’t end when NU’s does
by jonn AaKisson
Staff Reporter
Coaching basketball doesn’t end
with the final game of the season for
Nebraska women’s coach Angela
Beck.
At least it won’t this year.
Beck was named as an assistant
coach for the South team at this
summer’s U.S. Olympic Festival in
Minneapolis. She said she cherishes
the honor.
“You always hope to have an
opportunity to coach for your coun
try,” she said.
Beck will assist Northwestern’s
Don Pcrrelli in coaching the team.
i--—
i>hc said she is looking forward to
working with Pcrrclli, who has won
250 games in his career.
“He’s a very good coach,” Beck
said. “It will be good experience for
me to work with him. It will defi
nitely enhance my coaching and the
program. I’ll get to learn from some
great coaches.”
Beck has amassed a 62-35 record
at Nebraska, winning more games
than any Nebraska women’s basket
ball coach. In 1988, she coached
Nebraska to its first Big Eight title.
Beck said she is looking forward
to temporarily giving up her coaching
responsibilities and becoming an
assistant.
Beck began her coaching career at
Southeast Missouri State in 1980,
where she compiled a 54-34 record
with the Indians before becoming the
coach at Bradley University in Illi
nois. She became Nebraska’s coach
in 1986.
“It’s going to be fun for me not to
be in the driver’s scat for once,” she
said. “I can really be there for the
players.”
The Olympic Festival coaches arc
selected after submitting applications.
A committee makes the final deci
sion on who the coaches and assis
tants will be.
“Almost every coach in the Mid
west would want this job,” Beck said.
The Olympic Festival position could
be the first of many national coaching
jobs for Beck. All U.S. Olympic
coaches must have Olympic Festival
coaching experience.
‘‘I look for this to be the beginning
of years and years of coaching at the
national level,” Beck said. “My
summers will be pretty well manipu
lated.”
Beck said coaching stability could
be a key to making more competitive
women’s national teams. She said she
also is in favor of having players play
together for several years.
‘‘Our national teams arc running
into other countries whose players
have played together for five or six
years,” Beck said. ‘‘We need more
stability.”
Players for the Olympic Festival
teams arc chosen during tryout camps,
which lake place in the spring. Last
year, there were more than 280 play
ers competing for 12 positions on the
North team.
Several Nebraska players will try
out for the Olympic Festival. Ann
Halsnc and Karen Jennings played
for the North squad last year, and
Beck said as many as eight Corn
huskers will compete for positions
this year.
David Hansen/Daily Nabraskan
Nebraska’s Ann Halsne shoots over Colorado’s Kamala Sherman.
NU women plan Kansas raid
By Paul Domeier
Senior Reporter
The Nebraska women’s basketball learn
will make the first of two raids on the state
of Kansas tonight when it faces Kansas
State in Manhattan, Kan.
The second raid will target Salina, Kan.,
on March 3*5 for the Big Eight tournament,
and the Comhuskers arc starting to think
about the conference championships.
Their focus isn’t split. They aren’t ignor
ing the six games until the tournament, but
the best bet for success for the Huskers, 10
11 overall and 2-5 in the Big Eight, just
happens to be in Salina.
Hopes of a regular-season title were
dampened Saturday when Colorado defeated
Nebraska, 75-74, at the BobDcvaney Sports
Center.
The defeat was Nebraska’s third confer
ence home loss of the season, which means
the Huskers now have more league-losses in
Lincoln than in Beck’s first three seasons
combined.
Nebraska almost rescued the win from a
rout. The Huskers came one point short of
overcoming an 18-point deficit in the last
seven minutes.
That charge was led by Ann Halsnc, who
tallied 16 points during the run.
In one five-minute burst Saturday. Ne
braska scored 21 points — a 170-point pace.
“Wc’ic doing more and more good things
every day,” Halsnc said. “We’re just not
putting two good halves together.”
Beck said Halsne is a prime example of
the team’s potential and frustrations.
‘ To do what she did in the last game was
phenomenal, but she could be a factor for
the first 20 minutes, too,” Beck said.
The junior from Spencer, Iowa, had one
point in the first half against the Lady Buffs.
Beck said she will need a consistent
effort from her veterans on the trip to Salina.
"In order for us to be a factor at the
championships, we’re going to have to have
Ann Halsne and Kelly Hubert come alive,”
she said.
Hubert, the other three-year veteran of
Beck’s squad, scored 8 points on 4 of 5
shooting against Colorado.
Talking about the bright future for next
season and the Huskers’ need for the Big
Eight tournament. Beck didn’t put any pres
sure on her young squad to win the road
game against the conference-leading Lady
Cats.
Kansas State defeated Nebraska in Lin
coln, 67-60, Jan. 24. The Lady Cats, 15-6
and 7-1, lost for the first time in the Big
Eight on Sunday at Missouri, 79-64.
The senior-dominated Lady Cats win
because of their experience and balance,
Beck said.
She compared Kansas State to Michi
gan’s men’s team of last season, which rode
the emotion of a laic-season coaching change
to the NCAA title. Matilda Mossman re
signed as Kansas State’s coach in mid
season and has been replaced by interim
head coach Gayc Griffin.
Beck said the Lady Cats’ loss Sunday
may indicate they arc coming off the high
from the coaching change.
"They’re cither going to be like major
league animals, or they might be suspect,”
she said.
And if they arc suspect, and Nebraska
plays its best from the start, Beck said the
Huskers could steal a win on their first
Kansas raid
"It’s all going to be in our frame of
mind,” she said. “It just depends on who is
going to play -- when and where.”
LJNN spurs vision 01NU
entering strong conference
Last Saturday night I stopped off at a nearby
McDonalds and brought home my dinner to
watch some television.
While I flipped through the channels, I
stopped at a Cable News Network report about
the new McDonalds in Moscow. The report
staled that the Soviet people wailed in line for
up to four hours for a taste of the American
food.
As I stuffed my face with my Big Mac, I got
McGraw
^Milhaven
to thinking how lucky wc arc and how the
Soviet Union must change to fit in the world
that has passed them by.
It is sort of like the Nebraska basketball
team and the Big Eight, with the conference
being the strong and free United Slates econ
omy and the patchwork Comhuskcrs being the
struggling Soviet economy.
As we watch in the coming months to sec if
and how the Soviet economy moves to become
more like the U.S. economy, the Huskers will
inevitably change and become a powerhouse
of the Big Eight.
This is not the season that Coach Danny Nee
wants. The players are not happy losing, and
needless to say, the fans have given their
views on the season.
But with a win over Kansas State this past
weekend, it gives the true basketball fans a ray
of light for the future and saves this season
from obscurity.
The light at the end of the tunnel comes from
the Big Eight conference. Al McGuire, the
N BC color commentator, said, without a doubt,
the best conference in the country is not the Big
East or the Big Ten.
That’s right *- he said it’s the Big Eight.
Lets take a history lesson into other confer
ences that at one lime were the best in the land.
The Atlantic Coast Conference is consid
ered the best conference in the history of col
lege basketball, and 10 years ago, Georgia
Tech wasn’t a rambling wreck, they were a car
wreck.
But today, they arc in the lop 20 and re
cruited freshman guard Kenny Anderson is the
most highly touted guard in the country since
Lamar Mondane.
How did they sway Anderson away from the
rest of the country and get to be so good? They
sold the conference.
In the early ’80s, the Big East was consid
ered the best in the land, and Scion Hall and
Connecticut were on the outside looking in on
the monsters of their conference. But this year
Connecticut beat Georgetown and is lied with
Georgetown for the top spot in the league.
Last year, in the championship game, Seton
Hall came within a foul of being the crowned
prince of all college basketball. The two schools
gained exposure because of the conference
and look advantage of it.
This year the Big Eight is finally getting the
national exposure it deserves, and the Ne
braska basketball program will reap the bene
fits.
In years to come, the top players around the
country will come to the conference. If they
cannot play for the best, they will want to beat
the best.
If they can’t play for Kansas, Oklahoma or
Missouri, then they will want to beat them and
will come to Lincoln to showcase their talents.
For all this to happen, the team will need a
coach who has character and class. This coach
must go into the homes of the players and tell
the parents the way it is. _
See NEE on 6
Comhuskers hope flame bums
Buffaloes in conference battle
By Jeff Apel
Senior Editor
A smoldering flicker could lum into a bon
fire when the Nebraska men’s basketball team
faces Colorado tonight in Boulder, Colo.
Nebraska coach Danny Nee said he is con
cerned about the Colorado contest because the
Comhuskcrs have not performed well on the
road. He said Nebraska, which has lost 17
straight road games, has burned itself by get
ting off to poor starts.
A poor start could ignite Colorado, which
has lost its last five games despite possessing
two of the Big Eight’s top-three scorers. The
Buffaloes are led by center Shaun Vandiver
and guard Steve Wise, who rank first and third
respectively in conference storing with aver
ages of 21.8 and 20.7 points per game.
Nee said Nebraska must stop Wise and
Vandiver in order to beat the Buffaloes. The
Huskcrs, who arc 8-11 overall and 1-5 in the
Big Eight, will get a chance to do just that when
they face Colorado at 8:35 p.m. in the Events/
Conference Center.
• Nee said Vandiver’s and Wise’s numbers
speak for themselves.
“Wise and Vandiver arc putting the num
bers on the board,” Nee said. “Stat-w ise, that’s
signmcani.
Ncc said Wise complimenis Vandiver’s
rugged inside game by launching an abun
dance of shots from the outside. He said Wise,
a 6-foot-3 junior from Detroit, has matured
since he arrived on the Buffaloes’ campus.
“He’s just growing up,’’ Ncc said. “He has
the green light (to shoot).
“When he’s on a roll he’s really tough.’’
Ncc said the rest of Colorado’s lineup con
sists of steady players who know their roles.
Those players arc guard Reggie Morion and
forwards Asad Ali and Rodcll “House” Guest.
The 6-1 Morton leads the trio with an aver
age of 12.3 points and 3.5 rebounds per contest.
Ali averages 7 points and 4.9 robounds per
game, while Guest averages 6.9 and 5.7.
Nee said he is impressed by Colorado’s
starting lineup.
‘ ‘They got a bunch of hard-nosed kids,’ ’ he
said.
Ncc said he will use the same starting lineup
against Colorado that he employed against
Kansas State on Saturday. That lineup includes
guards Ray Richardson and Clifford Seales,
forwards Carl Hayes and Dapreis Owens, and
center Richard van Poclgccst.
See IGNITE on 8