Hard work lands McDill
■ ■ ■ « . -■ ■ *• ■ -
on Husker’s starting lineup
McDILL from page 7
expects McDill to crash the boards
for rebounds, slip the second- and
third-chance shots through the net,
and spark the Huskers on defense
with her physical play in the lane.
Sanderford said he expects
McDill to perform die dirty work for
Nebraska.
“She’s going to do whatever I ask
her to do,” Sanderford said, “and
that’s why I have so much confidence
in her. She didn’t haw a great game"
this Saturday, but she held
Kentucky’s leading scorer to eight
points, and that’s what I asked her to
do.”
After averaging one rebound and
, / 1.6 points per game last year, McDill
has taken her game to another level. >
The Gillette, Wyo., product has aver
aged 4.9 boards per game while scor
ing 6.4 points per contest in the
Huskers 6-1 nonconference run.
“It helps to be a year older, but I
think it’s mainly because Coach
Sanderford sees things in me that
maybe the old coaches didn’t,”
McDill said. “He takes advantage of
my strengths and doesn’t focus on
my weaknesses.
“I’m a strpng player. I may not
have the greatest outside shot, but he
doesn’t try to turn me into something
i-:-- A' ■ - ** 1 '■ ■■ •
I’m not.”
While Sanderford realizes that
McDill probably won’t become NU’s
leading scorer, he does want her to
accept a greater offensive role for die ?
Huskers. McDill has hit 38 percent
of her field goals this season, making
13 of 34 from the field.
“Sometimes I think she slips
back into her role-player mentality,”
Sanderford said. “We can’t let her do
that because she is a major part of the
team this year.
“With Cori, you get 110 percent
all of the time. She’s a great defen
sive player, she’s very aggressive, we
just need her to be confident in her
offensive ability, but that will come.”
McDill agrees that the scoring
will come, and she will continue to
build on her early-season success.
McDill credits Sanderford as a big
factor in her improved attitude.
“Just having new coaches has
helped,” McDill said “It’s not neces
sarily that the old ones were bad and
now it’s better. It’s just different It’s a
change that I really needed.”
But Sanderford said McDill is
solely responsible for her success.
“I have not given Cori anything,”
Sanderford said. “She starts because
she earned it. Through four weeks of
hard practices, she was our most con
sistent player day in and day out.
1-1 '• —■— - ; 1 ■ "r ~ ; -t *
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Regular-Priced
Merchandise in Stock*
* - . ^ ' - . . . 1* 3
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Tuesday, December 2 ‘
9:00am-8:00pm
Show your UNL Identification Card to receive
this special discount on The Original Big Red Collection,
books, and .gift items from Nebraska Bookstore, downtown.
‘Certain exclusions apply. See store for details.
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Monday >F riday
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Saturday
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1300 Q 124M|u-SMpm
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I
IfiKA
zr
y' -
was held out of football practice
Monday, sidelined with a sore back
hat has been plaguing him for
ore than two weeks. - . •>
id Defensive
Coordinator
a r Ti e;
i r i d e
ibed the
pain as simi
lar to a severe
muscle cramp
in the lower
The
senior from
Locust, N.J., said, however, there is
no way * (jury could keep him
from playin^ in Saturday’s Big 12
Championship game '**
A&M in San /
“It was hurting bad,” Peter said
after missing practice Monday.
“After the game, it was tough to
even walk.”
McBride called Peter's defen
sive effort in Nebraska’s 27-24 win
over Colorado last Friday impres
sive, considering Peter’s back tight
ened up after the inactivity at half
time. Early in the fourth quarter,
Pet&r recorded his only sack, run
ning down CU backup quarterback
Jeremy Weisinger for a 5-yard loss.
The 6-foot-5,285-pounder fin
ished the game with four tackles,
including three unassisted.
Peter said the tightness seems to
subside with the activity of a game.
However, after a game and dur
ing halftime the muscles in his
lower back tighten to the point that
he can barely move.
Trainers began evaluating
Peter’s back Monday, but McBride
said that there was no disc-type
problem in his back; it was mostly a
muscular injury.
“The rest will do him some
good,” McBride said of Peter’s day
to-day practice status. “He’s been
here long enough, he knows what
he’s doing.”
Peter said he couldn’t trace die
injury to a specific instance, he just
remembers waking up one morning
with a pain in his back.
His case could be similar to run
ning back Ahman Green’s back
problems earlier this season.
Green’s problems stemmed from a
very simple problem of sleeping on
the wrong type of mattress. Peter
said the problem could be some
thing as simple as that.
Traditionally, Peter has been
very fortunate in his college career,
suffering from few injuries. Last
season, Peter played most of the
season with a cast on his hand pro
tecting a broken finger.
In his Nebraska career Peter has
never missed a game because of an
injury.
1KXAS from page 7
sources in 1995, after leading the
Wildcats to the first of back-to-back
conference titles. He is 27-29-1 in
lis NU career, after taking over the
ifelong doormat of a program in
1993.
Media outlets also have chroni
cled Barnett’s intense desire for a
lational champipnship, something
Austin,
checking out sites to build a future
lome, and his love of the
Southwestern United States has
ieen well documented. Two years
igo, just before signing a 10-year
contract extension with NU, Barnett
was quoted in several papers nation
wide as saying Texas was one of die
few jobs for which he would consid
er leaving Northwestern. He was
recently offered the head coaching
position at Notre Dame, but he
turned down the job and Bob Davie
was hired instead.
Dodds said Saturday that there is
not yet a No. 1 choice for the job,
adding that his list consists of coach
es and assistants from both the col
lege and professional ranks.
“We’re going to go after the best
football coach in America, wherever
he is,” Dodds said. “Above all, we
want somebody who wants to be at
Texas.”
Dodds refused to profile further
the ideal replacement, however,
avoiding all questions regarding the
role that age, experience and other
qualifications will play in the selec
tion process.
The goal is to find someone who
will turn the program info a perenni
al top 15 contender, regardless of
biographical information, he said.
“What I want is a top program,
and I’d like to have a national cham
pionship every once in a while,”
Dodds said. “We’re going to find the
best person, but sometimes the best
hasn’t (won a national title) before. I
don’t think Darrell Royal had been
in the top 10 before he got here, but
he was the best person at that time.”
Whether or not a coach is cur
rently involved in preparations for a
bowl game will also not be a factor,
the athletic director said. The bowl
season ends as late as Jan. 2, too late
to begin interviewing any given,
coach, and a bowl-bound coach who
will not talk to Texas over the next
week or so could be crossed off the
list of 30, Dodds said.
“I think the coaches that want
this job will talk to us regardless of a
bowl,” Dodds said. “We just can’t
wait until after the bowls.”
As for perks, the new coach
could be paid as much as Mackovic’s
estimated $600,000 per year, Dodds
said. If the right person is found, he
said, the university “could do what it
takes to get him here.”
The new coach will also have full
authority over a new coaching staff,
with the power to keep or dismiss
any and all of Mackovic’s assistants,
all of whom are only under contract
until Aug. 31,1998.
“This is a job looked at very pos
itively by a lot of coaches,” Dodds
said. “Most of the people we’re
going to look at will have die maturi
ty and background to know who
Texas is.”
Examine yourself regularly
and see your dermatologist.
..
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fAAD * www.aad.org j
***At°V
Tulsa Mows Huskers away
in second half of first loss
LOSS from: page 7 _
points in the first half and finished with
a career-high 11 points in his first col
lege road game. True freshman guard
Todd Smith and center Brant Harriman
. also saw action in their first game away
from the Bob Devaney Sports Carter.
“The freshmen came in and played
well,” Hamilton said. “(Johnson)
stepped it up. He came in and played a
big role.”'
Johnson saw time behind forward
Andy Markowski, who got into foul
trouble early after recording three fouls
in the first 14 minutes of the game.
Nebraska Coach Danny Nee said
the game gave some of the younger
players a good indication of the diffi
culty of playing in the Big 12
Conference.
“This type of gone is like playing
at Kansas State or Texas Tech,” Nee
said. “It’s tough, but we need these type
of games to be able to compete in the
Big 12.”
The Huskos were led in points by
guard Tyronn Lue, who scored 18. But
Lue, Nebraska’s leading scorer this
season, struggled at times, making five
of 16 shots from the floor including one
of eight from 3-point range.
“If he doesn’t get his 20 for the
game, it’s going to be hard on us,”
Hamilton said
Cookie Belcher added 11 points
before fouling out with 2:58 remaining
in die game as the Huskers shot a sea
son-low 33.8 percent from the floor.
Tulsa, on the other hand, shot 50 per
cent from the floor and was 10 of 16
from beyond 3-point range.
“I thought all the Tulsa players
played well tonight,” Nee said “We got
outplayed and out-husded in the sec
ond half.”
' The Golden Hurricane, who have
qualified for die NCAA Toiffnament in
each of the past three seasons, also
made 16 of 28 shots from the floor in
the second half.
“They just hit the shots,” Hamilton
said, “and we didn’t hit the shots we
were supposed to hit”
Nebraska will return to action Dec.
10, when the Huskers travel to Omaha
to face Creighton at 7:05 p.m. in the
Civic Auditorium.
Hamilton said he expected the
Huskers to rebound from their first loss
and learn from the game.
“Its just a reality check,” Hamilton
said. “We just have to come back and
practice hard ”