Huskers to face OU in Big Eight tourney
Nee: Experience gives NU
edge against slumping OU
By John Adkisson
Staff Reporter
When Nebraska beat Oklahoma three weeks
ago in Lincoln, Comhusker players and fans
chanted “Sweep” after their team had wrapped
up a 105-93 victory.
For the First time since 1980-81, the Huskers
had won both regular-season games against
Oklahoma.
But the Sooners are back.
Tonight, Nebraska will try to get the broom
out again against Oklahoma in the First round
of the Big Eight conference tournament in
Kansas City, Mo.
With a 24-6 overail record and a 9-5 confer
ence mark, Nebraska enteis the tourney as the
third seed behind Oklahoma State and Kansas.
Oklahoma, 16-13 and 5-9 in the league, is the
sixth seed.
Despite having a higher seed and better
record than Oklahoma, Nebraska senior center
Rich King said the Huskers will not take the
8:35 p.m. game at Kemper Arena lightly.
“We’re thinking about them being Okla
homa and having a lot of pride,” King said.
“They’re still the perennial favorite and we’re
still Nebraska.”
Last year, Oklahoma won its fourth Big
Eight tournament by beating Colorado in the
Finals. But this season has been different, with
the Sooners losing 10 of their last 12. The
Sooners’ best and maybe only chance to make
the NCAA Tournament is to earn the automatic
berth given the Big Eight tournament cham
pion.
Honor goes to Nee
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Danny
Nee of Nebraska, whose team was picked
last and whose career was thought to be
in jeopardy, has been named Associated
Press Big Eight coach of the year.
Nee, 45, was thought by many to be in
trouble entering his fifth year at a Ne
braska program that had failed to make
the kind of leap forward administrators
had wanted.
At the preseason basketball luncheon
with coaches and media representatives
last November, Nee asked writers what
would become an embarrassing ques
tion.
“Why did you guys pick us last?” he
said.
It is not exactly a sense of vindication
Nee now feels.
“It’s a sense of relief,” he said. “A
feeling of relief that, hey, we stuck with
these guys and our program. We be
lieved in ourselves and we accomplished
our goals. You have to believe in your
self. You have to maintain that sense of
self-confidence.”
King said a slumping Oklahoma is frighten
ing.
“They’re scary,” King said. “They’re play
ing to keep their season going.”
See NEE on 8
Player shines for unlucky OU
By Robert Richardson
Senior Reporter
and John Adkisson
Staff Reporter
Jeff Webster’s breakthrough season has
coincided with a backbreaking year for his
team.
Webster, a freshman forward, has been one
of the few bright spots in an otherwise dismal
season for the 16-13 Oklahoma Sooners, who
will play Nebraska tonight.
In his first full season at Oklahoma, Webster
is averaging 18 points and five rebounds per
game. He was named to the All-Big Eight
second team and Thursday was named confer
ence newcomer of the year.
But he isn’t happy.
“I’m not satisfied with my play,” Webster
said. “I know there is always someone out there
better than myself. Points aren’t everything.”
After entering Oklahoma as a highly touted
instate recruit from Midwest City Carl Albert
High School, Webster missed all but three
games last year with a foot injury. He received
a medical redshirt, and has lived up to all
previous expectations this season.
It’s not the same story for his team.
After starting the year 14-3, the Sooners
have lost 10 of their last 12 games. Included in
that stretch are two losses to league doormat
Kansas State, including a 101-98 home loss to
the Wildcats last Saturday.
With Oklahoma’s losing streak has come
speculation that the Sooners may miss the
NCAA tournament for the first time in nine
years. Winning the Big Eight tournament may
be the only way Oklahoma can advance.
For that reason, Webster said the Sooners
will be gunning hard for a tournament win.
“Going into the Big Eight (tournament), we
have nothing to lose and we have everything to
win,” he said. “I feel anyone in the Big Eight,
we can beat.”
The Sooners, seeded sixth, have lost both
previous meetings with Nebraska. The Com
huskers won 111-99 in Norman and 105-93 in
Lincoln.
Webster said Nebraska uses a total team
effort to win games.
“It’s not just one player, the whole team is
impressive,” Webster said. “You can’t just
look at one person.”
Nonetheless, Webster said, the Huskers can
be beaten.
“They know we’re no pushover team,”
Webster said. “We’re going to play OU basket
ball like it should be played, and come out on
top.”
Michelle Paulman/Dally Nebraskan
Nebraska’s Keith Moody slips a pass around Adonis Jordan of Kansas.
“It’s given me a lot more confidence knowing that the crowd is behind
me,” Moody said. “A lot of times I’m on the bench and hear the crowd
calling my name saying, ‘Put Moody in!’”
Attitude change spurs success
Husker adjusts game
By Nick Hytrek
Staff Reporter _
He looks the same and he still wears
No. 11 on his uniform, but the Keith
Moody playing basketball for Nebraska
this year is not the same Keith Moody
who played last year.
The 5-foot-11 senior point guard said
he knows of more than one reason for his
improved play this season, but maybe the
most important is a new attitude.
Moody entered the Comhusker basket
ball program last season after transferring
from Hagerstown Junior College in Mary
land.
A lot was expected of him. He was a
point guard, a position on Nebraska’s
team left open by Eric Johnson’s gradu
ation.
“I got a lot of press coming out of
junior college and I came here and I was
supposed to produce some big things right
away,” Moody said. “There was pressure
to be the point guard. I was looking
forward to playing a lot. I started at the
beginning of the season and then I didn’t.
My play was up and down.”
As the team struggled through a 10-18
season, and as he became frustrated with
his individual game. Moody took fan
criticism to heart.
See ATTITUDE on 8
Men gymnasts to face ASU
By Todd Cooper
Staff Reporter__
The Nebraska men’s gymnastics
team didn’t get a look at Arizona
State last weekend when the two teams
competed in the six-team UCLA Invite.
But freshman Che Bowers said the
weekend was an eye-opener. And it
will help when the Huskers meet the
Sun Devils Sunday at 2 p.m. at the
Bob Devaney Sports Center.
“It was our biggest meet of the
year,” Bowers said. “There was a lot
going on. a lot of potential distrac
tions, but we performed pretty well.”
Nebraska’s 281.45 points were
enough for second place behind
UCLA’s 284.15 total. The Huskers’
score was their highest of the season
and was enough to beat fourth place
Arizona State by 2.95 points.
“We can’t let that go to our heads,”
Bowers said. “They didn’t have a
really good meet last weekend.”
Bowers did. The freshman from
Atlanta scored a career-high 56.5 in
the all-around at UCLA, good for
sixth place. Bowers was in the top
three of the all-around after the first
day of competition.
“Seeing my score was compara
tively close to some great talent boosted
my confidence,” Bowers said. “And
our team got a boost as well when we
were only down one-tenth of a point
(to UCLA) after the first three events.”
Had the Huskcrs performed better
on the parallel bars Sunday, they might
have won the meet, Coach Francis
Allen said.
“Coach (Jim) Howard figured out
that if we would have scored what we
normally score on parallel bars, we
would have won,” Allen said. “We
were in control going into the last
event but we we didn’t finish them
off.”
Even though they didn’t win the
meet, Allen said his youthful team
(five gymnasts are freshmen) contin
ues to impress others.
“UCLA had to be thinking,4 Man,
we almost got beat by them and they
don’t have hardly anyone back from
last year,”’ Allen said.
Freshmen Sumner Darling, who
has a sore back, probably will per
form in three events Sunday, Allen
said. Josh Sacgert, who is recovering
from a broken leg, probably will per
form where Darling can’t.
Swimmers in 2nd
By Vicki Burge
Staff Reoorter
The Nebraska men’s swimming
and diving team will have to get up
and fight to claim its 12th straight
Big Eight title.
After Thursday, the first day of
the three-day competition at the
Bob Devaney Sports Center, Kan
sas leads with 188 points, followed
by the Comhuskers with 184, Iowa
Stale with 117 and Missouri with
59.
“We’ve got to make a turn
around,” Nebraska coach Cal Bent/
said. “I know this team has the
potential to do it, but they haven’t
done it yet.”
Bent/ said with only three other
teams competing, the Huskers don’t
warn to get too far behind.
“It’s no secret that I think we
can swim a lot faster than what we
showed here,” Bentz said. “We’re
better than that and we have to
show it.”
Bentz said he was pleased with
Nebraska’s two NCAA qualifying
marks. Husker Jan Karlsson had a
first-place swim of 20.20 seconds
in the 50-yard freestyle, and the
200 freestyle relay team finished
first in 1:20.54.
Nebraska also had an automatic
diving qualifier on the 1-meter
board. Nebraska freshman John
Arcaroli took first with 510.45 points
and Husker Matt Easun placed
second with 494.90. Kansas and
Iowa State divers trailed close
behind.