Championship
^_-_. : .;9R
Lane Hickenbottom/DN
I THE NEBRASKA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TEAM made the
NCAA tourney and will play Kentucky in the first round. If
the Huskers win, they'll most likely get UCLA in the sec
ond round.
Loss to KU
denies NU
Nebraska women face off
with Kentucky in NCAAs
ByAdamKunker
Senior staff writer
The verdict is in - and so is the Nebraska women’s
basketball team.
With Sunday’s announcement of the Women’s
-;---;———;- NCAA Tournament
P'ayers, the
’ Comhuskers netted
(11) Nebraska_ their second straight
(6) Kentucky__ trip to the tourney as
_ a No. 11 seed and
(14) WjswnarhGreenBay wilI face off with
(3) UCLA_— No. 6 seed
-—- Kentucky in the first
round of the West Regional on March 13.
“We’re very relieved and very excited,” NU Coach
Paul Sanderford said, following the selection show on
ESPN. “We’re just happy to be going to the tourna
ment.”
And they’ll be going a long way from home, too.
The first and second rounds will be played at Pauley
Pavilion in Los Angeles.
But the locale isn’t a big concern for Nebraska. In
fact, most of the players are looking forward to a trip
to sunny southern California.
“We’re excited,” NU guard Amanda Went said.
“I’ve never been down there before, so I’m looking
forward to it. Everybody is just very glad to be going.”
Sanderford also said that playing in Los Angeles
was probably the best site for teams in the West
Region, considering the alternatives: the hostile
atmosphere at No. 1 seed Louisiana Tech’s home court
in Ruston, La., or Fort Collins, Colo., where second
seeded Colorado State is undefeated.
“We’d rather be in L.A. than Ruston, La.,” he said.
The location isn t a big
' :v: ; ; ->< , x ; thing, but it’s a good place to
% '■ ' play.”
Playing against UK is also
another welcome challenge for
the Husker squad.
After Sanderford’s 15 sea
sons at the helm of the
Western Kentucky
women’s basket
ball team, he
said he had
gained a solid base of knowledge about the Wildcats.
“There’s a little familiarity there with Kentucky’s
program,” Sanderford said. “We played them last year
in the Cable Vision Classic. We’re looking forward to
playing them again.”
In last year’s Cable Vision Classic at the Bob
Devaney Sports Center, the Huskers beat UK 68-59 in
the championship game.
For his coaching career, Sanderford is 6-3 in
games with the Wildcats.
“The coaches know some things about
(Kentucky),” Went said. “As players, we don’t really
know a whole lot about them, but we’ll just start prep
ping for them on Monday, and then we’ll start learning
more about them.”
The Wildcats (20-10 overall, 9-8 in the
Southeastern Conference) closed out their season
winning five of their last six games, including two
SEC Tournament games over Mississippi and
Louisiana State. UK was beaten in a semifinal game
with Georgia.
Leading the ottense tor the Wildcats are guards
Tiffany Wait, Laura Meadows and Erica Jackson. Wait
is averaging 14.1 points per game, while Jackson is
putting up 11.3 ppg and dishing out 4.1 assists a con
test with 57 steals.
Meadows and forward Shantia Owens are the
rebounding leaders, with 6.1 and 6.7 boards per game,
respectively. Meadows is also posting a game average
of 12 points.
UK’s worst loss of the season was the 98-60 drub
bing at the hands of No. 2 Tennessee.
If the Huskers get past Kentucky, they will most
likely get another shot at UCLA, a No. 3 seed in the
tournament, and a team that beat Nebraska 85-67 back
on Nov. 27 in the Hawaii Rainbow Wahine Classic.
The Bruins have to get past 13th-seeded
Wisconsin-Green Bay.
“UCLA is a very good basketball team,” Went
said. “But we’d like another chance with them to show
them that we can play with them.”
A No. 11 seed, Sanderford and Went said, was
about right where the team projected itself, and right
about where it wanted to be.
“We were talking about it on the bus on the way
home from the Big 12 Tournament,” Wept
said. “We decided we’d probably be
about a 10-seed or right there, so we’re
not concerned. We’re happy.”
■^1
NCAA bid
By Adam Klinker
Senior staff writer
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The old Kansas
magic was back Friday night at Kemper
Arena. And that was bad news for the
mm Nebraska
Kansas 77 mep’s basket
Nebraska 53 ba"S" st0_
ried KU bas
ketball prowess that seems to rev up come
tournament time made yet another appear
ance at the Big 12 Conference Tournament.
It showed up just in time to catch the
Jayhawks (21-9 overall) in their third con
test with NU. And with the Cornhuskers
owning victories in the previous two meet
ings, it was just in time to prevent a third
NU win.
And it was just the thing the Huskers
(19-12) didn’t need in their struggle to get
inside the bubble of an NCAA Tournament
bid. NU missed its bid Sunday.
The magic was there. The shooting was
on. A decidedly pro-KU crowd of 17,100
showed up. And the Jayhawks won 77-53.
And just like that, the Huskers were
once again stymied by the Kansas monolith
that so often emerges from the conference
^tournament.
But following the roller coaster
Jayhawk season, the tourney win against
Nebraska was especially sweet for the KU
coaches and players.
“Nebraska played better than us the last
two times,” KU Coach Roy Williams said.
“We played better than them tonight. This
was the first game that we played against
Nebraska that we played well.”And for as
i j>>#;/? <?f ■• ■
well as the Jayhawks played
and Williams lauded their
prowess, Husker Coach Danny
Nee was equally unhappy with
NU.
In a comparison of the numbers,
NU shot 40 percent from the field (20
50) while KU connected on 29 of their 55
shots for a 52.7 percent mark. It was the
first time in 15 games that a Husker oppo
nent had shot over 50 percent.
Additionally, and in contrast to the pre
vious night’s performance in the win
against Texas Tech, the Huskers were con
siderably set back by poor free-throw
shooting and turnovers.
Nebraska made just 11 of 24 foul shots
(.458) and gave the ball away 27 times, a
tourney record, allowing Kansas to score 37
points off Husker miscues.
we were jusi disappointed tnat we
couldn’t come in here and play better
against Kansas,” Nee said. “Against KU,
you can’t turn the ball over like we did.”
In the first half, in spite of hot shooting
by Kansas guards Jeff Boschee and Ryan
Robertson, Nebraska hung tight with the
Jayhawks, keeping the KU lead within
reach and going into halftime down by just
6 points, at 37-31.
KU put the screws down hard on
Nebraska center Venson Hamilton in the
first, holding the Big 12 player of the year
to just 4 points on 2-8 shooting from the
floor. Hamilton was also shut out at the
charity stripe in the first half, going 0-5.
Nee said that stat probably had the
biggest effect on the Hiisker big man.
“We were getting him the ball and he
was getting shots, but he was missing his
free throws, and that hurts him psychology
cally,”
Nee said. “Every time you miss a free
throw, it’s like a coffin - you can feel that
dirt coming down on you.”
Said Hamilton: “Once I missed my first
one, I tried to steer everything,” he said. “I
just couldn’t get into a rhythm.”
With Hamilton pressured underneath
by KU’s 7-footer, Eric Chenowith, and
Nebraska guard Cookie Belcher struggling,
the Huskers looked to forward Larry
Florence for a relief effort. Florence provid
ed admirably in the first half, scoring 12
points and snatching two steals.
But the second half proved to be anoth
er story for Nebraska.
Robertson and Boschee, already a com
bined 5-9 from the 3-point arc, continued to
provide the spark for the Jayhawk offense
and got some help from Chenowith and
guard Kenny Gregory, who seemed to be
doing it on both ends of the floor.
KU immediately went to work on build
ing their lead, lighting out on a 33-9 run that
spanned 14 minutes, and during which they
scored 14 unanswered points. In that span,
the Huskers turned over the ball on five
straight possessions and got off just two
shots.
The Huskers were just 8-23 (.348) with
Please see KU on 1/
