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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 17, 1995)
Sports Friday, November 17, 1995 Page 9 Mitch Sherman Young center likes to cause havoc in paint Rebounds are important. The Nebraska basketball team repeatedly learned that lesson a year ago. They found out what rebounds meant to the success of a team. It was pounded into their heads. Literally. Only one time a year ago did the Cornhuskers lose a game and outrebound their opponent. So when Danny Nee saw his true freshman center Venson Hamilton hammering away among the trees at national high school powerhouse Oak Hill Academy in Virginia last year. Nee knew he needed Hamilton. “I love going for rebounds," Hamilton said Thursday night. Hallelujah. Those may be the five most beautiful words to come out of the mouth of a Nebraska bas ketball player in months, if not years. You see last year, Nebraska’s biggest big man, Mikki Moore, whose future as a Husker is becom ing more unclear each passing day, is not exactly a rebounding ma chine. And the Huskers’ “power” forward last season, Melvin Brooks, well, let’s just say he never proclaimed that he loved going for rebounds. “That’s all I do in practice is go for rebounds,” Hamilton said after thoroughly cleaning the glass Thursday night, grabbing 10 boards in 26 minutes against Team Pella. “The scoring comes. All I concen trate on is rebounds.” Hamilton has played well enough coming off the bench in Nebraska’s two exhibition wins that Nee is nearly ready to give his prize freshman a red shirt. A red shirt, as Nee explained Thursday, is the coaches’ way of telling the player that he has earned a starting spot. “He’s just a natural,” Nee said. “He has a chance of being a heck of a player, a very special player. He just has to learn the intensity, the mental part of it, the detailed part of it.” Nee said he had originally planned to use the 6-foot-9, 220 pound native of Forest City, N.C., at both power forward and center, but the complexities of the two po sitions were a little too much to handle right away. And since cen ter Chris Sallee will be leaving the team at the end of December. Hamilton may be the man in the middle during the Big Bight run. “We knew what we had (when we recruited him),” Nee said of Hamilton, who is 11-of-13 shoot ing in two games and has pulled down a team-high 16 rebounds in Moore’s absence. “We knew we had a very, very good basketball player. But I just didn’t know how quick he’d adjust. „ , “He’s our best rebounder. He s been our leading rebounder in ev ery scrimmage, every game we ve played.” Sounds like a good reason to give Hamilton a red shirt. Sbermaa is a Jnnlor news-editorial major and Ac Dally Nebraskan assistant sports editor. Huskers pound Team Pella 97-75 Freshmen five prove ability in second half By Derek Samson Senior Reporter Nebraska basketball coach Danny Nee allowed senior guard Erick Strickland to give the Comhuskers a cushion, and then let his freshmen take over Thursday night. 1 The Huskers’ —-—-— five freshmen | Team Pella 75 combined for 49 points in Nebraska’s 97-75 exhibition win over Team Pella in front of 7,429 people at the Bob Devaney Sports Center. “I was very pleased that the fresh man stepped up to the plate tonight and played with a lot of poise,” Nee said. “I was very satisfied with all our freshmen.” After trailing early in the game, Nebraska used a 20-5 run midway through the first half to help propel it to a 45-39 advantage at half. Strickland, who led Nebraska with eight points at intermission, scored seven points in the first five minutes of the second half to give Nebraska a 57-47 lead. He added four more points in the next five minutes to put Nebraska up 71 -57, and left the game with a team high 19 points. From then on, Nebraska played four freshmen for nearly the rest of the game. “At one time, we had four fresh men out there with Terrance Badgett, and 1 thought they did a nice job,” Nee said. “The six new people all did a nice job contributing. We have to have that.” The freshmen accounted for 20 of the final 24 points, including eight from forward Andy Markowski. As a team, Nebraska shot 71 percent in the second half and 64 percent for the game, compared to 35 percent for Team Pella. “Whether I get 15 minutes or five minutes, I’m just going out there and trying to make the best of it,” said Markowski, who finished with 12 points in 16 minutes. “We’ve had a lot of repetition in practice, and we finally got to go out and show it to the fans on the court. Scott Bruhn/DN Nebraska forward Terrance Badgett shoots over Brad Pippett of Team Pella during the Huskers’ 97-75 win Thursday night. Badgett finished with 10 points, four rebounds and four assists in 28 minutes of play. “In the exhibition games, the crowd is kind of slow to get into it and it’s hard to get up, but it’s a great oppor tunity for the younger guys.” Markowski, a 6-foot-8,205-pound forward from Ord, .said redshirting last year made the exhibition games even more important. “1 haven’t played a game in a year and a half — since high school,” he said. “This is a good opportunity to get back into the flow of things.” The increased playing time for the freshmen was helped by the single game suspensions of Jaron Boone, Mikki Moore and Chester Surles, along with Tom Wald’s ankle injury. Nee said there could be positives taken from the suspensions. True freshmen Venson Hamilton and Tyronn Lue (14 points) and Badgett (10 points), a senior, all scored in double figures — along with Strickland and Markowski. Hamilton finished with 11 points and 10 re bounds. 4 NU swimmers sweep meet By Vince D’Adamo Staff Reporter I The Nebraska swimming team doubled its pleasure on Thursday night : at the Bob Devaney Sports Center. The Husker men pummelled No. I 14 Iowa 138-104, and the Nebraska . women defeated Colorado State 125 ! 118. Coach Cal Bentz said it was a big ! win for both the men and the women. “We were swimming a little faster than we did last week,” Bentz said. The Husker men’s 400-medley re lay team of Alex Schliefman, Adrian Costello, Keith Ebbert and Juan Benavides placed-first with a time of 3:25.74. Freshman Eric Rasser fin ished first in the 1000-meter freestyle, recording a time of 9:39.24. In the 200-meter freestyle, Francois Boshoff led the way with a time of 1:41.16. Bjorn Moller topped the 200 meter individual medley with an im pressive 1:53.56, and Ebbert placed first in the 200-meter butterfly at 1:53.94. Benavides finished first in the 50 meter freestyle with a time of 20.46 seconds. Boshoff did not disappoint in the “We ivere stvimming a little faster than we did last week. The men have had two really hard weekends traveling to Texas and California. ” CAL BENTZ i « NU swimming coach 100-meter freestyle, placing first with a time of 46.74 seconds. Freshman diver Danny Bergman finished second in both the 1-meter and the 3-meter diving. On the women’s side, the 400 meter freestyle relay team of Melanie Dodd, BriAnna Wilkins, Erin Carew and Julia Russell punctuated its tri umph over Colorado State with a first place time of 3:29.95. “Fortunately, we had our lineup intact, and were able to pull it out,” Bentz said. In the 200-meter breaststroke, top ranked Penny Heyns earned a first place time of 2:18.58. Wilkins topped the 200-meter individual medley with a time of 2:06.44. Russell finished first in the 100 meter freestyle at 52.18 seconds, and Mikaela Lauren topped the 200-meter butterfly with a time of 2:04.85. Jane Glazebrook took the 200-meter back stroke by swimming the event in 2:03.75, and T.D. Rowe won the 1 meter dive with a score of 262.05 points. “Our women are doing a great job,” Bentz said. The Huskers are back in action to night, Saturday and Sunday at the Devaney Center for the Nike Sprint Classic. The competition begins at 7 pm Also competing are men’s and women’s teams from Alabama, Kan sas, and Miami. «, The men’s teams from Iowa and Utah will also participate, along with the Colorado State and Arizona State women’s teams. The Huskers have to be at their best this weekend, Bentz said. “We’ve asked these teams tp cpme in because they represent a high level of competition,” Bentz said. Moore’s playing status uncertain By Todd Walkenhorst Staff Reporter Nebraska basketball coach Danny Nee said he would like to leave the suspension of three Comhuskers be hind him with the exhibition season. Under Nee’s new disciplinary point system, senior guard Jaron Boone, junior center Mikki Moore and sopho more forward Chester Surles sat out during the Huskers’ 97-75 exhibition victory over Team Pella at the Bob Devaney Sports Center Thursday night. Freshmen Tyronn Lue, Andy Markowski, Venson Hamilton and Chad Ideus combined for 95 minutes of playing time in the Huskers final exhibition game of the year. The Huskers’ will leave for Hawaii today to play in the Big Island Invitational. Nebraska’s first regular season game is next Friday against Toledo. The Huskers play their home-opener against Georgia Southern on Dec. 1. Nee said the suspensions were no ticeable during Thursday night’s game. “We were missing a couple of key people,” Nee said, “and we sputtered in a couple of spots. The up side of it was that we got to look at all of the freshmen.” Senior forward Terrance Badgett, who at times played with four fresh men on the court, said he believed the Huskers could turn the suspensions into h positive. It was kind ot sad tnat it nad 10 happen,” Badgett said, “but this is Coach Nee’s team, and what he says goes.” See SUSPENSIONS on 10 Beck wants win against Portugal team By Mike Kluck Staff Reporter Exhibition or not, Nebraska women’s basketball coach An gela Beck wants a win this week end, especially since her team is playing at the Bob Devaney Sports Center. On Sunday, Nebraska will play host to the Portuguese Na tional Team at 2 p.m., in the Cornhuskers’ final exhibition game. Beck said exhibition games were important for the Huskers to retain their homecourt edge, which they lost by going 2-5 at home last season in the Big Eight. “We want to establish the Devaney Sports Center as our house or house of pain,” Beck said. “We don't want any oppo nent to go away with a win or happy. “We can’t tolerate a loss at home during the exhibition sea son because during the regular season we can’t accept a loss. We are playing to win.” Besides playing to win. Beck said, Nebraska is also working to limit its turnovers. In a 67-60 win over Athletes in Action on Nov. 7, Nebraska committed 19 turnovers. She said the Huskers’ goal is to commit fewer than 15 turnovers. “We need to have very few See PORTUGAL on 10