-—
Tigers threaten Husker winning streak
By Jeff Singer
Staff Reporter
Just when you thought it was safe
to celebrate a winning streak, in comes
Missouri.
The Tigers will try to end the
Nebraska men’s basketball team’s 13
game home winning string Saturday
at the Bob Devaney Sports Center.
The game will be televised by
Raycom at 3:10 p.m.
The current streak is the second
longest for the Comhuskers in their
16-year history at the Devaney Cen
ter, but streaks haven’t bothered
Missouri in the past. The Tigers broke
Nebraska’s previous record of 16
straight wins in 1983, and they’ve
handed the Huskers a loss three of the
five times Nebraska has managed a
double-figure winning streak at the
Devaney Center.
Nebraska Coach Danny Nee doesn’t
expect anything different from this
year’s Tigers.
“They’re always well prepared and
play hard, and they’re a very good
basketball team, period,” Nee said.
“They’ve got great athleticism, and
they’ve got a great player, and a great
player on a given night can do what
ever he wants.”
That “great player” is guard An
thony Peeler, who is second in the Big
Eight Conference in scoring, averag
ing 22.8 points per game.
Nee said the Huskers have no real
way to stop Peeler, so they have to
work on slowing him down.
“We’ve never matched up well
against him,” Nee said. “If Peeler
wants to score or shoot the'basketball,
he’s shown me he will.”
Missouri enters the game ranked
13th in the nation to accompany its
11-2 record. The Tigers are 0-1 in Big
Eight play after Monday’s 92-80 loss
to No. 6 Kansas in overtime.
Although the Jayhawks beat the
Tigers earlier in the week, Nee said
Nebraska can’t afford to play a physi
cal game with Missouri the way Kansas
did, as the Jayhawks were in foul
trouble much of the game.
“Missouri takes the ball to the
basket, so we can’tend up fouling and
having people foul out, because it
will just kill us,” Nee said.
What the 12-1 Huskers can afford
to do is shoot the three-point shot. In
its conference opener last weekend at
Colorado, Nebraska hit 53.3 percent
of its three-pointers to beat the Buffa
See MISSOURI on 8
NU vs. Missouri Sat. Jan. 18, 3:10 p.m. at Deaney Sports Center
I
C
I • >-7 Jr. 5.5 3.7
I PPG RPG
| F 0 Jevon Crudup 6-9 So. 14.9 8.0
F 45 Jell Warren 6-3 Jr. 12 5 8.4
ot 32 Jamal Coleman 6-5 Sr. 7.4 3.8
C 4 Reggie Smith 6-2 So. 3.9 3.5
G 15 Metvin Booker 6-1 So. 12.5 4,4
G 44 Anthony Peeler 6-4 Sr. 22.8 6,7
Brian Shellito-DN
Missouri learns from losing season
Huskers facing
more seasoned
basketball team
By Chris Hopfensperger
Senior Editor
Winning only three confer
ence games last season was a
good omen for this year’s Mis
souri women’s basketball team.
Last season the Tigers fin
ished the season 10-18 overall
and 3-11, dead last in the Big
Eight, with a team composed
mostly of freshmen, Missouri
Coach Joann Rutherford said.
That team is back this year,
she said, with a year of experi
ence under its belt.
“We just had a tough year,”
Rutherford said. “But we’re a
whole different team, a whole
different chemistry.”
On Saturday, the Nebraska
women’s basketball team will
travel to Columbia, Mo., to meet
the Tigers at 1:30 p.m. in the
Heamcs Center.
The Comhuskers arc 11 -3
overall and 1 -0 in the Big Eight.
The Tigers arc off to a 10-4
start, includinga57-56winovcr
No. 24 Kansas in their Big Eight
opener Wednesday night. The
game, played at Missouri, was
the Jayhawks’ third loss in four
games.
“It was a great game,” Ruth
erford said. “It was a great game
for both teams.”
It was just as good for Ne
braska, Coach Angela Beck said.
The Huskers could gain an
advantage on Kansas, the
coaches’ prescason pick to win
the Big Eight, by winning at
Missouri. The Tigers’ win was
added incentive for the Husk
ers, Beck said, because Okla
homa State and Missouri “are
two beatable teams on the road.”
On the road, she said, the
Huskers want “to be bandits, to
go in and steal a few.”
See TIGERS on 8
Michelle PaulmarvDN
Nebraska’s Sauna Witherspoon fights for a rebound with two players from Athletes In
Action earlier this season. Tne Cornhuskers will be going for their first road win in con
ference play this season when they travel to Columbia, Mo., to face Missouri.
Teams to sneak a peek at conference track
By John Gardner
Staff Reporter
The Nebraska men’sand women’s
track and field teams will get a sneak
preview of the conference track when
they travel to Lawrence, Kan., this
weekend.
The Comhuskers will compete in
the Kansas Invitational at Anschutz
Sports Pavilion, the annual site for
the Big Eight Indoor Conference
Championships.
• «►
Because the conference champi
onships are held at Anschutz every
year, the team refers to it as the con
ference track.
Coach Gary Pepin said he was
excited about getting started.
“This meet is important from the
standpoint that most of the athletes
are anxious to get into some competi
tion,” he said.
Nebraska will run in Lawrence on
an oversized track of 252 meters,
which is 52 meters longer than the
■* ■ /■
standard track.
Men’s sprints coach Dave Harris
said he liked the idea of getting away
from Lincoln and running on a differ
ent track.
“We felt it would be a good idea
this year to gej, the feel of the confer
ence track,” Harris said. “It’s more or
less going to be a training meet.”
Harris said he would send several
sprinters to the meet to help him de
termine which events cadi of them
should run in regularly.
“We’ll have everyone run in sev-J
eral events to give them a good train
ing session,” he said. “Right now,
we’re having a problem in deciding
who will run the 400 and the 600.”
Distance coach Jay Dirksen said
he would keep most of his runners
home. The distance runners must train
for three different seasons, he said,
and they typically aren’t ready this
early.
See KANSAS on 8
Wrestlers
facing dual
in Georgia
By Chuck Green
Senior Reporter
Tim Neumann will be holding his
breath in Atlanta this weekend.
It’s there that his eighth-ranked
Comhusker wrestling team will face
Clcmson and Tcnnessee-Chatanooga
in duals Saturday at Stone Mountain
High School in an exhibition to pro
mote college wrestling.
Last year, during a similar exhibi
tion in Norfolk, the Huskcrs met
Clcmson and lost two starters to inju
ries in the dual. That marked the
beginning of a long string of injuries
that ravaged the Husker roster, leav
ing only three original starters healthy
a month later.
Neumann is hoping this year’s
exhibition doesn’t set off the same
downward spiral of bad luck for
Nebraska’s young team.
“Right now, we’re 100 percent
healthy,” he said. “But it was a year
ago right now that all the bad stuff
started happening to us. I’m keeping
my fingers crossed.”
So far this season, good things
have been happening to the Huskcrs,
who are 3-1 in duals:
Going into this weekend’s compe
tition, Neumann said, he is expecting
the good things to continue.
“Success breeds success,” he said.
“Success makes people work harder,
and we’ve had guys who were in
slumps over Christmas break start to
come out of them.
“It’s easy to keep guys motivated
when they’re doing well.”
But, Neumann said, Clcmson and
Tcnnessee-Chatanooga will be moti
vated to face the Huskcrs and Mis
souri, which will also wrestle in the
meet.
The Huskcrs will not face Mis
souri in the meet.
Neumann said Clcmson “is one of
the teams the polls forgot.”
The Tigers beat No. 14 Pittsburgh
24-11 last week, winning seven of the
10 weight classes. But the Tigers have
a distinct advantage this season against
Nebraska: Gil Sanchez.
Sanchez, a former Husker wrestler
who was the NCAA runner-up at 134
in 1987, is now an assistant coach at
Clcmson after coaching at Nebraska
last season.
Neumann expects the Tigers to be
ready for almost anything the Husk
ers will do.
“I’m sure Gil has them ready for ~
us,” he said.
Tennesscc-Chaianooga, Neumann
said, is also a good team. The Mocca
sins lost to Clcmson in a dual earlier
this season, but the teams were tied
going into the final match of the night.
See ATLANTA on 8 ^