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Sports
Thursday, March 7,1996 Page 9
SPORTS OPINION
Tim Pearson
Five seniors
need to take
charge for NU
Nebraska’s seniors should forget
this season — now.
Erase it from the slate.
Starting Friday against Iowa
State, the five Comhusker seniors
will start a new season, playing ev
ery game as if it were their last. A
loss, and their Nebraska careers are
over. A win gives them another
game.
Jamar Johnson knows the feel
ing well — he’s been there.
Two years ago, Johnson, then a
senior point guard for Nebraska,
was in the same position. Johnson
and the Huskers brought home
Nebraska’s first-ever Big Eight
Tournament championship.
“Right now this part of the sea
son, the postseason, is all about the
seniors,” said Johnson, now an un
dergraduate assistant coach at Ne
braska. “You can’t expect juniors,
sophomores and freshmen to step
up because they haven’t been there.
It’s the seniors’ responsibility.”
The Husker seniors — Erick
Strickland, Jaron Boone, Terrance
Badgett, Jason Glock and Tom
Wald — must assume that respon
sibility and salvage a lost season.
Two years ago, Strickland,
Boone, Badgett and Glock played
roles in the Huskers’ Big Eight
Tournament run, while Wald, sitting
out the year after transferring from
Mankato State, watched from the
sidelines.
“They want to relive that mo
ment,” Johnson said. “You don’t
want to say, 'As a sophomore, we
won the Big Eight Tournament.’
When you’re a senior, you want to
go out with a bang.”
After the Huskers won the tour
nament in 1994, they were greeted
by 5,000 fans at the Bob Dcvancy
Sports Center. Johnson led his
teammates onto the court with the
Big Eight Tournament champion
ship trophy in hand.
This year’s five seniors want to
do the same. Expectations were
high for this year’s team — even
two years ago. Everybody was say
ing, “Wait until Boone, Strickland
and company are seniors.”
Well, we’re still waiting. The se
niors need to take charge. Two years
ago, the team’s four seniors stepped
up when it counted most.
“I can recall practices where ev
eryone came out and practiced hard
with the same focus,” Johnson said.
“This year, there’s not always the
same focus. That was something we
always had.”
That focus translated into a Big
Eight Tournament title.
“We were on such a roll that
teams just wanted to get out of the
way,” Johnson said. “Our attitude
was that we didn’t care who we
played. It all starts with the seniors.”
This year’s Nebraska team has
the potential to be explosive, and
one spark could go a long way.
But the seniors must light that
fire.
Pearson is a senior news-editorial
major and the Daily Nebraskan copy
desk ckiet
Strickland looks for new beginning
By Trevor Parks
Senior Reporter
Erick Strickland knows his playing
career for the Nebraska basketball
team is winding down.
On Wednesday, after all of his
teammates left the arena, Strickland
had assistant coach Bill Johnson throw
passes to him as the senior finished
what might have been his final prac
tice at the Bob Devaney Sports Cen
ter.
Johnson left Strickland alone to
shoot free throws and after a few min
utes, Strickland left the court with a
towel around his neck. Five minutes
after he left the court, the lights in the
arena were turned off.
For now, Strickland has at least one
game left. The Comhuskers, 16-13,
play No. 23 Iowa State in the first
round of the Big Eight Tournament in
Kansas City, Mo. at 6:10 p.m. Friday
at Kemper Arena.
Strickland, a graduate of Bellevue
West, said he wanted to end his career
in the NCAA Tournament.
“It’s my last time to go to the (Big
Eight) tournament, and I want to win
it,” Strickland said. “It’s a lot of fun.
I’d like to go there and do something
this time.
“It also would be nice to get in the
NCAA and do something no team has
done.”
No Nebraska team has ever won an
NCAA Tournament game, but that’s
not because Strickland hasn’t done his
part. He is trying to become the first
Big Eight player in history to score
1,500 points, record 250 steals, dish
out 400 assists and make 170 3-point
field goals.
Strickland has eclipsed the steals
and 3-point fields. He needs only
seven points and three assists to be
come the first player to achieve all four
totals.
In his three trips to Kemper Arena,
Strickland has turned in performances
that if repeated could help his team
have some success and make the
NCAA Tournament.
In 1994, he averaged 13 points and
six rebounds as the Huskers defeated
Oklahoma, Missouri and Oklahoma
State to win the only conference tour
See STRICKLAND on 11
Nebraska junior Ted Harris has been the Cornhuskers’ most consistent gymnasts on the still rings this season. Harris and junior
Ryan McEwen have combined to form a formidable all-around duo this season.
Duo boosts Husker scores
By Gregg Madsen
Staff Reporter
The Nebraska men’s gymnastics
team has a secret weapon.
It isn’t just one gymnast. It’s a com
bination of two.
Juniors Ted Harris and Ryan
..McEwen have
lused into an
all-around tan
dem that has
become a scor
ing force for the
third-ranked
Cornhuskers.
Harris spe
cializes in the
■..v.v,.,,;, stlll nngSf ^
McEwen McEwen com
• petes in every
other event. Twice this season, their
combined score has been the best all
around mark on the team.
Last Sunday against Oklahoma, the
two combined to score 56.375 in all
six events, which was higher than
sophomore Jim Koziol, who won the
all-around with a 56.35.
Although having the top score
didn’t earn the duo any recognition at
the award ceremonies, they both
agreed that it did give them bragging
rights in the practice gym.
“We’re always talking about it,”
McEwen said. “It gives us a lot of
competition between the all
7 think they’ve created a good monster.
FRANCIS ALLEN
Nebraska men’s gymnastics coach
aroundcrs, and it’s a lot of fun. It’s for
bragging rights, no doubt about it.”
Nebraska coach Francis Allen said
he didn’t remember a higher-scoring
tandem in his 27 years of coaching.
“I think they’ve created a good
monster,” Allen said.
With injuries sidelining freshmen
Marshall Nelson and J.D. Reive this
season, the monster has turned into an
even more valuable part of the Husk
crs’ scoring power, assistant coach Jim
Howard said.
“To have a really strong team, you
mix and match and try to create more
all-arounders,” Howard said. “That
philosophy has worked out well for
us over the years.”
McEwen said the team had devised
its own scoring system for the season.
Five points go to the top all-around
scorer from each meet, and four points
go to second place.
“It’s going to get tight down the
road,” McEwen said.
But to look at Harris and McEwen
only as a dynamic duo does not
present one with the whole picture.
Harris, a Kearney native, tied the
school record at the NCAA Champi
onships team finals last year on the still
rings, scoring a 9.9. TTiis season, he
has won the event at every meet, in
cluding a season-high 9.8 at Iowa on
Feb. 23.
“I guess I’m kind of like the desig
nated hitter on this team,” Harris said.
Even though McEwen competes in
five events to Harris’ one, McEwen
said Harris was just as valuable to the
Huskers’ success.
“Actually, he’s just as much a part
as I am,” McEwen said. “He’s got one
of the best ring routines in the nation.”
A graduate of Lincoln Christian,
McEwen attended Penn State for two
years before transferring to Nebraska.
He said that injuries, along with the
childhood dream of being a Husker,
convinced him to make the change.
McEwen was named Mountain
Pacific Sports Conference gymnast of
the week after his performance against
Oklahoma on Feb. 11. In the Nebraska
dual meet win, he won the parallel bars
(9.625) and horizontal bar (9.650), and
finished second in pommel horse (9.6)
and vault (9.250).
Frazier
continues
to improve
By Mike Kluck
Senior Reporter
, Former Nebraska quarter
back Tommie Frazier should be
released from Bryan Memorial
Hospital cither Friday or Satur
day, one of his doctors said
Wednesday night.
Dr. Deepak Gangahar, a car
diovascular surgeon at Bryan,
said Frazier, who has been hos
pitalized since Feb. 26, had been
making steady progress and was
up and walking.
“He was pretty sick one time
last week,” Gangahar said. “But
he has been improving the last
four or five days. Most of the
pain and discomfort has left him
for good.
“If all the signs are satisfac
tory and he is stronger and
doesn’t have much pain, then he
will be released.”
Frazier entered the hospital
suffering from a severe sinus
infection, but media reports have
said he also had a swollen leg.
