By Andrew Strnad
Staff writer
Unlike March Madness in college basketball,
where upsets dominate the NCAA tournament,
volleyball’s NCAA tournament historically
doesn’t have many Cinderella stories.
This year’s tournament is no different, as 15 of
the 16 seeded teams have advanced to the regional
finals to be played this weekend at four different
sites. But there is one Cinderella: unseeded
Pepperdine. Friday, Cinderella gets to play
Nebraska.
NU (30-1), the top seed in the Pacific Region
will play host to the Waves (19-10) Friday night at
the NU Coliseum at 7:30.
No. 2 seed Wisconsin (29-4) will play No. 3
seed UC-Santa Barbara (28-5) at 5 p.m.
Pepperdine found its
Nebraska y§a way to Lincoln thanks to a
Dannoriiino ' five-game victory, the
reppera me Waves’ first ever tourney
win, over No. 4 Michigan
State in the first round.
The Waves beat North Carolina in the second
round and will make their first appearance in the
Sweet Sixteen,
“I’m not too surprised,” Volleyball Magazine
editor Jon Hastings said. “They’ve got some good
recruits coming next year, but the team they have
this year is pretty good.”
NU Coach Terry Pettit, who often says he is
never surprised, wasn’t shocked to learn that
Pepperdine would make its first-ever appearance
in Lincoln.
“Obviously Pepperdine is pretty good,” Pettit
said. “If we want to keep playing, we’d like to get
better.”
As the lone unseeded team remaining, the
Waves represent the last team left from the West
Coast Conference in the tournament
Along with Nebraska, Texas is the only
remaining Big 12 school in the tournament winch
surprised Hastings.
“Colorado losing to Illinois was a mild upset in
our minds,” Hastings said. “We had them ranked
pretty high all year.”
Texas, which finished second to NU in the Big
12, will face Stanford in the Mountain Regional
semifinals which are hosted by Big West
Conference Champion Long Beach State.
The top-ranked 49ers will play the mini, who
swept the Buffaloes in die second round.
Like the Big 12, the Western Athletic
Conference and the Big 10 Conference each sent
six teams to the tournament with three remaining
indie Big 10 and two in the WAC.
Penn State, top seed in the Central Region, will
play host to Louisville, while WAC champion
Brigham Young will play Pacific.
The East Region, which has Florida as the top
seed, will have the Gators playing No. 4 seed
Southern California.
Florida’s Southeastern Conference rival
Arkansas will play Hawaii in the other regional
semifinal.
Hastings said LBSU would win the tourna
ment before it started and is sticking with his pick.
“Even though they drew a tough region with
Stanford in it they’re still the team to beat,”
Hastings said.
The tournament resumes play Thursday night,
with NU playing on Friday. Only 300 general
admission tickets remain for the Friday/Saturday
session.
NU fans rush for flights,
tickets to Holiday Bowl
f
By Shannon Heffelfinger
Senior staff writer
The Nebraska football team’s 9-3
season has eliminated it from a bowl
game with national championship impli
cations for only the second time since
1994, but Cornhusker fans haven’t
proven apathetic about NU’s postseason
situation.
Fans are scrambling to find airline
flights to San Diego and cheap tickets to
the Culligan Holiday Bowl, and the sup
ply for both is dwindling. The Dec. 30
game officially extended invitations to
the 1 lth-ranked Comhuskers and 7th -
ranked Arizona (11-1) Sunday.
And Holiday Bowl officials are
expecting this year’s crowd to eclipse the
attendance record of 61,892, a mark that
was set in 1987 when Heisman Trophy
winner Barry Sanders and Oklahoma
State beat Wyoming.
44XT r_ 1 ,1 . .1 • < . »
yvg icci mai mis maicnup is one Ol
the best in Holiday Bowl history, and
that is certainly indicated by the amount
of tickets being purchased,” Holiday
Bowl President Weldon Donaldson said.
The Nebraska ticket office reported
selling between 1,500 and 1,800 tickets
by Monday afternoon, and about 4,000
tickets remain. The Holiday Bowl allot
ted both NU and Arizona 11,500 tickets.
Finding flights to San Diego presents
a greater challenge to fans than nabbing
game tickets. Laura Stueck, a travel
agent at Lincoln Travel, said fans have
purchased tickets ranging from $500 to
$900. But Laura Tanksley, an agent at
Omni Travel, said the supply of flights
costing less than $1,000 is rapidly
declining. Many Husker fans traveling
to San Diego bought plane tickets before
NU’s final conference game, a 16-14
victory over Colorado.
“A few weeks ago you could get a
ticket for $200,” Tanksley said. “Now
the only fares left, for the most part, are
first class seats that could cost you up to
ROft”
Tanksley said some fans have
inquired about flying to Los Angeles
International Airport, renting a car and
driving to San Diego, but that strategy
saves little money, if any at all . The prob
lem, Tanksley said, is not flying into San
Diego. t
“The problem with that is that to fly
out of Lincoln, Omaha or Kansas City
into California, you will most probably
have to get a connecting flight from
Phoenix, Salt Lake City or Denver, and
those connecting flight tickets have been
hard to come by,” Tanksley.
Marti Paquette, Nebraska Alumni
Association Travel Coordinator, recom
mends complete travel, lodging and
ticket packages as a way to avoid outra
geously high airfares. The NAA began
Holiday Bowl
JonFrank/DN
66
A few weeks ago you
could get a ticket for
$200. Now the only
fares left, for the most
part, are first class
seats that could cost
you up to $1800!9
Laura Tanksley
Omni Travel agent
offering five package options, ranging in
cost from $300 to $ 1,115, two days after
the Colorado game. The most expensive
package, the Deluxe Air, costs $1,115
and includes a four-day stay at the
Wyndham Emerald Plaza Hotel as well
as transportation and some meals.
The most popular package offered by
the NAA, the Ticket Combo, includes
passes to both the game and the Husker
Huddle pep rally beforehand. Paquette
estimated 500 Ticket Combos have been
sold.
The NAA requested 750 tickets from
Holiday Bowl officials and have sold
around 600.
Paquette said the high interest in the
second-tier bowl has been pleasantly
surprising.
“Nebraska has gone to a Florida
bowl game so many times that it didn’t
appear to be really exciting to the fans
uavcmig iasi year, even rnougn it was a
national championship bowl game,”
Paquette said.
“We’ve been surprised and delighted
in the interest,” she said, “but had we
been in Miami again, I don’t know that it
would have been as high.”
Fans wishing to purchase travel and
ticket packages can contact the NAA at
(402)472-2841.
For tickets only, fans can call the NU
ticket office at (800) 824-4733 or (402)
472-3111. A small number of limited
view seats are sold out at the San Diego
box office.
By Christopher Heine
Staff writer
The Nebraska women’s basketball team is out to
break a bad habit before it becomes a serious problem
at home tonight against Troy State.
The Comhuskers have started sluggishly in their
last two games against Drake and Creighton. They
trailed both teams by more than 10 points well into
the second half before coming back to win each con
test
After Monday’s practice, the Huskers sounded
intent on playing well early against'the 0-6 Trojans.
Husker guard Nicole Kubik knows her team can’t
get into the routine of starting slowly. Kubik said NU
was fortunate to be playing teams that have yet to
» establish a lot of confidence, and therefore couldn’t
NU hopes for better start vs. Troy State
threaten NU late in the game.
“We just have to come out and play right at the
beginning of the game,” she said. “We can’t get down
10,15 points against a good team and expect to come
back and win. Creighton, I think, got a little scared
towards the end.”
Forward Naciska Gilmore said the Huskers have
had a hard time keeping mentally focused during their
current stretch of six games'in 15 days.
“I think all the games have something to do with
how we’ve been startings” Gilmore said. “We are not
coming out mentally focused enough, and that’s
something we need to start doing.”
Kubik said NU won’t take the winless Trojans
lightly in the 7:05 p.m. game. She said the Huskers
liave talked about starting fast against TSU.
* “We talked about it at the end of practice” Kubik
said. “We said, ‘Let’s go out and jump on them early.’”