Nebraskan
Thursday, March 3,1994
Sports
Page
7
‘Big 12 ’ merger to forge empires in baseball, volleyball
By Jeff Griesch
Senior Editor
and Trevor Parks
Staff Reporter
The focus of the merger between the Big
Eight and four teams from the Southwest Con
ference has been on football dollars and sense.
The alliance is supposed to bring in big bucks
in television revenue and create stronger com
petition on the football field.
But the union of the Big Eight Conference
with Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Baylor
will affect much more than football.
It will also affect Nebraska’s 20 other athlet
ic programs, much to the delight of the coaches
of those teams.
In baseball, Coach John Sanders said, the
“Big 12” could become the premiere conference
in the country.
Texas,TexasA&M,Okla
BiglMlt 4 homa State and Kansas all
playing in the new league.
“The biggest benefit is that it will stabilize
our scheduling,” Sanders said. “The four warm
weather schools will give us a natural place to
play games early in the season and will cut down
on our travel”
Sanders said he expected that trips to Texas
would replace Nebraska’s annual spring trip to
California.
He expects the new conference to be divided
into northern and southern divisions, Sanders
said, but he would like to sec intradivisional
competition.
“I just don’t see any real negatives right
now,” Sanders said. “I think the competition
will make games more attractive to the fans, and
I’m for anything that helps the advancement of
college baseball in Nebraska.”
Nebraska volleyball coach terry Pettit said
the merger would help his program advance
even higher, although it is consistently in the
top 10.
“It’s certainly a plus for Nebraska volley
ball,” he said. “Texas A&M and Texas Tech are
both top 20 programs. Texas is a lot like us —
a top five team.
“So from the volleyball standpoint, it’ll be
great.”
And it will be good from a competition
and Texas were not easy places to play.
Pettit said Baylor, Texas A&M, Texas Tech
and Texas “are not easy places to play.”
“As a coach, I would much rather be in a
conference that has three or four teams that have
See MERGER on 8
I
>
traveled to Omaha last sea
son for the College World
Series, composing half of the
eight-team field. And all four
won more than 40 games last
season.
The four Texas schools
also will give the northern
SW Mhferenceschools in lhe Bis E,sht a
sunny, southern destination
for early-season away games.
Sanders, who always has strugglesd to find
warm, dry places to play in February and March,
said he was excited about the prospects of
NU corrals Cowboys
in seniors ’
By Jeff Griesch
Senior Editor
Nebraska’s seniors made the most of their
last stand, winning a good-old fashioned
shootout with Oklahoma State, 89-81, before a
crowd of 14,605 at the Bob Dcvancy Sports
Center Wednesday night.
And after the crowd cleared and the dust
settled, the Cornhuskcrs, 17-8 overall and 7-6
in the Big Eight, stepped closer to a shot at the
NCAA Tournament with their third-straight
win.
“We felt we could win all three,” senior
forward Bruce Chubick said. “It just came down
to the effort.”
The Huskcrs hustled and muscled Oklaho
ma State, using an intense pressure defense to
avenge a 98-80 loss to the Cowboys on Feb. 19.
Nebraska’s aggressiveness forced 20 turnovers
from the normally sure-handed Cowboys.
“It was much more of a physical game on our
part,” Nebraska point guard Jamar Johnson
said. “We felt we had to match their physical
ness and maintain our defensive intensity if we
were going to have a chance to win.”
Along with defense, the Huskers used the
emotion of the seniors’ final home game and the
final stand
deafening noise of the fans to get off to a quick
start.
“Once again I have to attribute our great start
to the fans and the emotion we had,” Nee said.
The Huskers jumped to a 14-9 lead behind
the hot shooting of Nebraska’s seniors.
Eric Piatkowski,Chubick and Jamar Johnson
combined to score Nebraska’s first 17 points,
and Nee said he was impressed.
“All year long I felt that the seniors would
have to rise up and accept the challenge, and
they met the challenge tonight,” Nee said. “I
think all the seniors did a great job tonight.”
Piatkowski, a senior forward from Rapid
City, S.D., scored 17 of his game-high 32 points
in the first half to carry the Huskers to a 46-40
halftime lead.
Piatkowski’s hot shooting seemed to be con
tagious in the first half, as the Huskers hit 53
percent of their field goals.
For the game, Nebraska finished at just over
48 percent from the floor and 7-of-14 from
behind the three-point arc.
But the Cowboys were just as hot as the
Huskers.
Not even a swarming half-court trap by the
See WIN on 8
Team unites for an ideal ending
By Derek Samson
Senior Reporter
Nebraska’s four seniors sure knew how to go
out in style.
Tom Best, Bruce Chubick, Jamar Johnson
and Eric Piatkowski played their final home
games Wednesday night and left the Bob
Dcvaney Sports Center for the last time with a
89-81 victoryovcr21 st-ranked Oklahoma State.
But the way Nebraska earned the win will
stick in the minds of the seniors.
Piatkowski, who scored a game-high 32
points, said the pregame ceremonies for the
seniors helped to motivate him.
“1 was extremely fired up from the time they
announced all the seniors to the time I walked
off the floor,” Piatkowski said. “Throughout the
whole game it never really crossed my mind that
this would be my last game in the Devancy
Center.”
The seniors were ready from the start and
dominated the first half.
Chubick started the game with a convention
al 3-point play, and Best ended the first half
with a 3-pointcr from the corner with five
seconds remaining.
The foursome combined to score the Husk
ers’ first 17 points and 19 of their first 21 .which
helped Nebraska leap out to a 29-17 lead. Best’s
3-pointer gave Nebraska a 46-40 halftime ad
vantage.
In all, the seniorscombined for31 at the half.
Piatkowski had 17.
Nebraska’s younger players said they knew
the game was important not only for the team’s
chance at an NCAA-tournament bid but for the
seniors as well.
See SENIORS on 8
Travis Heying/DN
Nebraska’s Erick Strickland battles for the ball with Oklahoma State’s
Brook Thompson (on floor) during the first half of the Cornhuskers’ 89-81
victory Wednesday night.
After this winter s events, Osborne needs a spring break
Ever since Byron Bennett’s last
second feld goal sailed wide to the left
in Nebraska’s 18-16 loss to Florida
State,Comhusker football coach Tom
Osborne has watched things fly past
him at a frenzied pace.
A hectic recruiting season went
down to the wire. Then a shooting
incident surfaced, allegedly involving
one of his players.
And of course, he had the same
nightmare he has every January: more
legislation from the NCAA Conven
tion.
All of it has left Osborne feeling
like a bus load of burned-out students
in mid-March.
He can’t wait for spring break.
“I just want an opportunity to get a
little break,” Osborne said Wednes
day. “The big thing about coaching is
that from the first part of August on,
we go seven days a week.
‘This last weekend was the first
weekend I had a day off.”
And what did he do?
“I took a nap. I haven’t done that in
a long time.”
Unfortunately, Osborne couldn’t
sleep through the past two months.
A day after experiencing another
heartbreaker in Miami, Osborne be
gan the January recruiting blitz in the
South.
It was a battle that almost didn’t
end.
‘‘The recruiting was a little nerve
racking,” Osborne said. “It came down
to the end. With a week left, we only
had 10 or 11 players. We ended up
with five or six good players commit
ting during those last few days.
“So it was tougher than usual, but
it ended up OK.”
Osborne only hopes Tyrone Will
iams’ situation ends the same way.
Williams has been charged with
two felonies. He is accused of firing
two shots into the back of a car on Jan.
30.
“The situation with Tyrone has
ruary, when Osborne choked up while
apparently referring to Williams.
“Now, you realize you’re going to
have todeaJ with those kinds of things,”
he said.
To top it off, Osborne had to con
tend with more constrictive legisla
tion from the NCAA. At this year’s
convention in January, member insti
tutions passed a rule eliminating the
position of recruiting coordinator.
With it, the NCAA’s noose on
football programs became a bit more
snug.
“We’ve seen very little legislation
loosen up lately,” Osborne said. “It
seems like it continually tightens.”
As does the pressure on Osborne.
Osborne has said Dave Gillespie, Ne
braska’s current recruiting coordina
tor, will remain on staff, probably as
an assistant coach.
That most likely means Osborne
will have togetridofanotherassistant
coach.
Or hope for the best.
“Rather than try to fire a coach,
we’ll wait and sec if someone gets a
coaching position somewhere else,”
he said. “We hope to do it through
natural attrition.”
If that doesn’t happen, Osborne
will have to make another difficult
decision by Aug. 1.
It’ll be about as tough as the past
two months have been.
“I really haven’t been able to gel
away,” Osborne said. “But it hasn’t
been that bad. I enjoy coaching. You
just know that there is going to be
turmoil. It comes with the territory.
“You’re in trouble any time you get
to thinking as a coach that you’re
going to have six months where you
don’t have to deal with anything.”
Six months?
For Osborne, spring break would
suffice.
Cooper it a senior news-editorial major
and the Dally Nebraskan sports editor.
Todd
Cooper
been disturbing,” Osborne said.
Probably more than Osborne will
let on. Osborne has said he won’t
condone Williams’ actions. But he
also has said he can’t abandon the
compassion he has for Williams.
He hasn’t. When he should have
only had to worry about investigating
the latest offensive schemes, he felt
compelled to conduct his own crimi
nal probe.
He interviewed the victim and his
players and went to look at the car.
The incident, unlike any he has
experienced in 30 years of coaching,
took its toll. The emotional damage
was visible at a banquet in early Feb