Sports
Wednesday, March 1,1995 Page 7
Huskers not
having fun
on the court
By Todd Walkenhorst
Staff Reporter
Expectations are not too high for the Ne
braska men’s basketball team, Coach Danny
Nee said Tuesday.
After four consecutive NCAA Tournament
appearances, the Comhuskers should be ex
pected to make a return trip this year, Nee said.
The run for the tournament starts with today ’ s
7 p.m. game in Manhattan, Kan., against Kan
sas State.
“I think a good basketball team can handle
the highs, can handle the lows,” Nee said, “and
you expect that learning curve and those bumps
to be in there, but ours are not bumps. They’re
craters.”
And those craters could lead to Nebraska’s
first National Invitational Tournament appear
ance since 1989.
“We’re going to have to play well in the NIT
and do something,” guard Erick Strickland
said. “It’s going to have to be a carry-over
process for next year.”
With only one senior on this year’s team, the
time may be now for the Huskers to start pre
paring for next year.
“I feel there is a process to build a founda
tion that could be laid in the latter parts of the
season,” Nee said. “That would be a great
positioning for maturity. I think there’s a lesson
to be learned through all of these losses.”
Through all those losses, basketball has been
more like work than a game, Nee said.
t “I don’t think it’s fun,” Nee said. “I think it’s
a. job. I thmlotekpressure oiuhem jsjaeal4U
Junior guard Jaron Boone said that he felt
that pressure from Husker fans Saturday during
the Colorado game.
“I came down and threw the ball away and
you hear one of your own fans get on you,”
Boone said.
“When you’re not playing that good, it’s
hard. As long as we stay together as a team, stay
positive, we’ll turn it around. There will be no
problem.”
Junior guard Erick Strickland said that this
year’s crowd support was lacking compared to
a year ago.
“It doesn’t seem the same,” Strickland said.
“In previous years, our team would get down
and they would pretty much still be there. Now
we get down, and it’s like it’s expected of us.”
Strickland said he also believed the Husker
football team’s success may have raised
everybody’s expectations of the basketball team.
“I don’t know if that’s because of the foot
ball team,” he said. “Because of the success
they have had this year, I guess they expect the
same.”
Travis Hsying/DN
Nebraska gymnast Jason Christie is looking to help the Huskers to their second consecutive NCAA gymnastics title.
By Mitch Sherman
Senior Reporter ~~
Jason Christie has two lifelong dreams.
The fir§t, to win an NCAA gymnastics
championship, was accomplished last April.
The second, to participate in the Olympic
Games, is still a year and a half away.
So, in the meantime, the Comhusker jun
ior gymnast said he wouldn’t mind re-living
his first dream one more time this spring.
Nebraska coach Francis Allen, in his 26th
year of guiding the Huskers, has coached
nine Olympic gymnasts. He said Christie
had a legitimate chance to join that exclu
sive club.
“Our goal is to get him ready as far as we
can,” Allen said. “He needs to have a break
through on rings. Last year, he made it. His
breakthrough was perfect.”
But this season, the 5-foot-9 all-arounder
from Lincoln has been slowed by a series of
injuries. Before the season, Christie was
hospitalized because of a stomach illness.
After making it back to full strength, he
hurt his wrist last week in practice. X-rays
were negative, and Christie was able to per
form in weekend road meets at Oklahoma
and New Mexico.
“You have to handle him differently,”
Allen said. “He’s not one of those short,
stocky guys like Richard Grace who can
bounce right back. It takes a little bit longer.”
After the season, Christie said he planned
to rest for about two weeks. Then he’s off to
New Orleans, where he will train for U.S.
Nationals in August. A year ago, Christie
finished 17th at nationals.
Despite his injuries, Christie said the vig
orous Nebraska schedule had aided the young
Husker team. In two of the past three week
ends, Nebraska has competed in back-to
back meets away from home.
“In some ways,” said Christie, the 1994
Big Eight horizontal bar champion, “it’s
hard on us early in the season, but it’s going
to get us ready for the end of the year. It’s
kind of like NCAAs, where you have to go
two days in a row, six events one day and six
events the next.”
When the Huskers are not competing
against other teams, Christie, a two-time
Academic All-Big Eight selection, said the
team prepared for the pressure of competi
tion by dividing into four groups each day in
practice.
Christie, along with senior Rick Kieffer
and freshman Ted Koziol, form one of die
most experienced groups on the squad.
See CHRISTIE on 8
It’ll take more than coulds and shoulds to lift Huskers
Just when the Nebraska basket
ball team appeared to finally have
found the golden road to the NCAA
Tournament last week with a huge
win over Missouri, die Comhuskers
drove straight down the exit ramp
Saturday in Lincoln.
And they parked in the lot
marked NIT.
If there was ever a time to make
a run — one last stab at the Big
Dance — it was Saturday. Nebraska
should have been pumped up. They
should have been more than ready
to play. The win at Mizzou should
havenrevitalized their lifeless
season.
From the looks of the game
Saturday, all the Huskers did in
Columbia was roll over in their
graves. There’s no other way to
explain it.
The momentum lost'from the
setback to the Buffs offset the steam
gained from the win at Missouri 10
times over.
The coaches and players said it
wasn’t a matter of heart. Husker
coach Danny Nee says this team has
character. They have had a tough
conference season, he said, because
they are immature, because they are
less talented than die other teams of
the Big Eight.
That is not altogether true.
There are players on this team
who simply do not care what
happens. Most of them don’t have
their heads in the clouds, but it only
takes one bad apple to ruin the
whole batch.
You don’t see Erick Strickland
out there moping around. Terrance
Badgett and Chris Sallee want to
win games. Jason dock and Tom
Wald are playing as hard as they
possibly can.
That, however, can’t be said
about all the Huskers.
On Saturday against Colorado at
the Bob Devaney Sports Center,
that simply did not happen,
Four minutes into the game, a
loose ball bounced down the court
toward the baseline. Melvin Brooks,
the Huskers’ starting power forward
and only senior, jogged in the
direction of the ball, looking as if he
didn’t really care if it bounced out
of bounds.
He stayed inbounds, looked at
the ball and without exerting an
Mitch Sherman
ounce of energy, he flipped it
toward the seats in the direction of
no Nebraska player. What was he
doing?
Thirty seconds later. Nee yanked
his power forward. The Husker
senior returned for one minute late
in the half and warmed the bench
the whole second half.
Players on a winning team,
players on an NCAA Tournament
team, do not have that kind of
attitude. So when Nebraska needed
leadership late in the gam?, trailing
by seven points to the last-place
team in the conference, its only
senior was inauspiciously absent.
I’m not knocking Brooks’
ability. But something happened
earlier in the season that made him
stop trying.
Maybe it was the losses. Maybe
it was the coach. Who knows? But
if he doesn’t want to play, he
shouldn’t be out there on the court.
During Saturday’s game against the
Buffs, Nee recognized that and
benched him.
“The reason he sat a lot was very
simple,” Nee said. “He is not
producing at the expectations that I
want, and that’s it.”
Melvin Brooks isn’t a bad
player. He is just playing like one.
And by the time Nee finally
decided to do something about the
Huskers’ lackluster effort, it was
probably too late. Mathematically
speaking, Nebraska could still make
the NCAA Tournament. With 17
wins, the Huskers could beat K
State tonight, and they could beat
Iowa State Sunday.
A 6-8 conference record could
earn Nebraska a seeding as high as
fifth at the Big Eight Tournament,
and a game against Oklahoma or
Missouri, both of whom the
Huskers have beaten before this
year and could beat again.
A victory would give Nebraska
20 wins and a meeting with Kansas
or Oklahoma State in the second
round. In other words, a loss.
But 20 wins would more than
likely get a revitalized group of
Huskers their fifth straight invita
tion to the NCAA Tournament.
Unfortunately, that little scenario is
not going to happen.
You see, the Huskers would have
to win three straight games, some
thing Nebraska hasn’t done since
Jan. 9 through Jan. 18, when it took
care of Long Beach State, Kansas
State and powerhouse Missouri
Kansas City.
That group of Huskers had a
different attitude. That group played
as a unit, not as a group of individu
als. Most people expected the 1995
Huskers to be sitting on the bubble -
of the NCAA Tournament at this
time.
Not this year, gentlemen. That
bubble has already burst.
Sherman Is a sophomore news-editorial
major and a Dally Nebraskan senior re
porter.