SportsWednesday
Kansas
By John Gaskins
Staff writer
LAWRENCE, Kan. - She’s not quite Joe
Namath, but Nicole Kubik wasn’t afraid to make a
major prediction before the Nebraska women’s
basketball team faced No. 21 Kansas Tuesday.
“I told fee team before the game, T guarantee
we are going to win tonight,”’ Kubik said. “In the
practices leading up to this game, I was just feel
ing it It was time for us to beat Kansas at Kansas.”
Thankfully, for her own sake, Kubik was right.
With one of their most complete team efforts
of die season, the Comhuskers pulled off an 81 -69
upset ending a whole lot of frustration for a team
facing a 0-2 start in the Big 12 Conference slate.
With the win, NU broke several bad habits,
including a two-game losing streak, a 12-game
winless drought at KU and Coach Paul
Sanderford’s winless record against ranked teams
on the road.
And possibly, at least for a game, it ended
questions concerning the Huskers’ capability to be
the upper-tier Big 12 power they were expected to
be before a shaky 6-6 start.
“We’re like a volcano ready to explode,” said
guard Melody Peterson, a transfer from Stanford
who sparked Nebraska with 10 points, eight
rebounds and five assists. “Through all our losses,
the tension just kept building up and building up.
We finally got over die hump tonight.”
NU, 7-6 overall and 1-1 in the conference, also
got over its rebounding problems against a Kansas
team that was averaging nine boards more than its
opponent this season.
After getting pounded on the glass in a 72-68
loss to Texas Saturday, Nebraska responded by '
outrebounding the Jayhawks 48-33 Tuesday,
including a 21.-11 edge in offensive rebounds. ;
The result pleased Sanderford.
“After Texas, we made a commitment to do a
better job on rebounding,” he said. “Your shooting
can just be gone on some nights, but if you can
rebound and guard, you’ll win the game.”
Not that NU’s shooting hurt it either. The
Huskers had their best night of the season from
both the free throw line (28-32,88 percent) and 3
point line (7-16,44 percent). Five players, led by
Kubik’s 17 points, scored in double figures.
One of those players was Peterson, who
helped Nebraska break away from a 34-32 lead at
halftime and provided a key stretch of plays that
put away the Jayhawks (10-4, 1-1) for good in
front of a crowd of 1,750 at Phog Allen
HUSKERS 81 “
JAYHAWKS69
Fieldhouse.
When KU All-American forward Lynn Pride
broke out of her shell with five points in a 30-sec
and span to cut the Huskers’ lead to 60-53 with
8:13 to go, Peterson hit a 3-pointer, then stole the
inbounds pass, which led to Kubik hitting a pair of
free throws for a 65-53 lead.
It was a team effort that helped put Nebraska
in the right frame of mind for its test against No. 8
[owa State Saturday in Ames, Iowa, Kubik said.
“Team-wise, it was the best game of the year,”
Kubik said. “I don’t have a lot of time here any
more, and there’s no time left to not be confident.
We’ll go to the Iowa State game like we came into
the Kansas game.
— MEN’S BASKETBALL —
Hot ISU to test NU in
V
Big 12 home opener
By Jason Merrihew
Staff writer
There is no relief in sight for the Nebraska
men’s basketball team.
NU will encounter a very hot Iowa State
team. ISU is riding into Lincoln on a ten-game
winning streak. The last time the Cyclones, 13-2
overall, 1-0 in the Big 12 Conference, lost was
Nov. 28 to top-ranked Cincinnati.
Tonight’s game, at 7:05 in the Bob Devaney
Sports Center, will be the first road game for
Iowa State since Nov. 19. ISU has tied the school
record of 10 straight wins this season in the com
fort of Hilton Coliseum in Ames, Iowa.
Missouri was the latest victim of the
Cyclones, losing 85-81 to ISU.
“Iowa State is coming in here with a 13-2
record. They are a very good team,” NU guard
Cary Cochran said.
The Cyclones have shown significant
improvement from last year’s squad.
“Their big improvement from last year to this
year is their outside shooting,” NU Head Coach
Danny Nee said.
ISU’s perimeter attack is led by senior
Michael Nurse, junior Jamaal Tinsley and junior
Kantrail Horton.
“Tinsley is a quick penetrator,” Cochran said.
“He can penetrate to the lane and hit Marcus
Fizer or kick it out to Horton.”
Iowa State’s marquee player is the junior
Fizer.
“He is very explosive,” Nee said. “I don’t
I mink you will see many
players coming into
Devaney this year better
than Marcus Fizer.”
Unlike tonight’s foe, the
HuskerS find themselves
licking their wounds after
Kansas State thrashed them
Saturday night in
Manhattan, 97-79.
Tli a 1 acc marine tVi a
Cochran fourth straight year NU has
lost the conference opener.
In order for Nebraska to snap Iowa State’s
winning streak, coach Danny Nee feels his team
needs to play better defensively.
“Our perimeter defense is very soft,” Nee
said.
“We’re having a difficult time putting pres
sure on the ball. That is why so many guards are
lighting us up.”
Tonight’s game will feature the last two Big
12 rookies of the week.
Tinsley, a junior college transfer from Mount
San Jacinto Community College in California,
was named this week’s Big 12 rookie of the week.
Nebraska center Kimani Friend was last
week’s Big 12 rookie of the week.
— SPORTS OPINION —
KSU’s Morrison just another
in-state player that got away
flfiannew nsnson
Last Saturday night in
Manhattan, Kan., a guard
named Galen Morrison
exploded for. 27 points while
leading his team to victory in
die season’s first conference
game.
Morrison is a Nebraska
guy, an All-Stater from Omaha
Central. His college uniform,
however, is purple, not red.
Morrison is K-State’s exciting
new point guard. He’s also just
another in a long line of
Nebraska prepsters that Danny
Nee let get away.
Maybe painting Morrison
as an escapee is the wrong
imagery (although, with the
2000 Nebrasketball
Trainwreck barreling down the
tracks, maybe it isn’t).
Morrison and others like him
didn’t spurn Nee in favor of
greener pastures. They were
not recruited to play for the
Huskers. At all.
Quick, name the Husker
scholarship players who hail
fiomthe Big Red State. Having
some trouble? That’s because
there are none. All right, there
is one, but former walk-on
Ross Bucicendahl of Battle
Creek has a scholarship right
now because the roster is so
dun.
Obviously, then, there are
reasons for this. Nee has point
ed time and time again to a lack
of high school talent in the
state. He is partially correct.
Nebraska is not a recruiting
hotbed by any stretch of the
imagination. But to say that die
state does not produce basket
ball players capable of playing
and excelling at the Division I
level is simply untrue.
Hie proof is in the names.
Guys like Alton Mason, Shawn
Redhage, Morrison, Will.
Perkins and Mike Preston
weren’t blue-c^ip prospects,
but they are all solid starters for
major colleges, and great finds
for the coaches who got them.
Rpdhage (12 points per
game) and Mason (six) both
start for NGAA Tournament
hopeful Arizona State, while
Perkins (eight points, seven
Please see HANS&N on 15
ERIK COOK, AN All-American senior diver, finished seventh at the All-American Diving
Invitational on the three-meter springboard last Thursday, his first competition since recov
ering from a back injury.
Back injuries don’t stop
Cook from top showing
Dir f f /
Steffi writer <r
Erik Cook knows a little bit about getting
himself outof die doldrums and turning bleak
ness into success.
Cook, an All-American senior diver for
Nebraska, was downandout only a few weeks
ago.
His days weren’t being spent working on
perfecting bis dives. Instead, Cook spent the
first part of his season in the South Stadium
working with a specialist to fix another ail
ment in his back.
For die second time in three years he was
sidelined.
This time it was a strained muscle. Two
, years agoifwas afsernia that forced him into a
“ I watched myselj jail
farther and farther
behind...”
Erik Cook
Nebraska diver
redshirt season and back operations.
“I watched myself fall farther and farther
behind die other guys, and I knew that when I
got back I was going to work even harder to
catch up,” Cook said.
Please see COOK on 14
