SportsTuesday
Knight's
image
real draw
And you
thought
sports was
about teach
ing integrity
and sports
manship
with some
grand hope
of teaching
Brian
Christooherson
y uuiig
pie how to
become a winner off the court
through their athletic experi
ences.
Nobody told you that at
some point, sports becomes
more about the money and less
about the game. Nobody told
you that integrity' really doesn’t
mean a rat ’s backside if you’re
neither a winner nor a money
maker.
James Dickey is neither. Of
the most recent times. Dickey is
a loser, and to most people he is
a boring, agin^nan with the
classified ads now in his hand.
Dickey used to be the bas
ketball coach at Texas Tech, but
he's suffered four straight losing
seasons in Lubbock.
Despite the losing, Dickey
might still
- .. have a job if he
After all, were Bobby
Dickey Knight.
wasn’t a re^e^beur
money Bobby.
maker. He .Bobbys a
, , loser, too.
aoesn t Almost stupid
have that to say* il
VninUt seems, for The
Kmgm General has
personality won his three
that seems n a 11 ° n a 1
c h a m p i -
tO picker onships com
interest Pared t0
. , . Dickev’s none,
wnmn but bis last
people. title with
- Indiana was in
1987.
Things changed. Bobby
began to lose, and winning no
longer covered up the dark side
of Knight. Bobby’s late Indiana
teams would qualify for the Big
Dance, maybe sometimes just
off of name only, but they were
an easy bracket pick. One and
done.
With the increased losing,
Bobby's past was pushed into
th^ spotlight. He was relieved of
his coaching duties at Indiana
one year ago for such “minor”
incidents as choking players
and throwing vases at secre
taries.
Now, it appears he has
James Dickey’s job.
The rumor mill started the
week of the Big 12 Conference
tournament, and on Thursday
of the tournament, even before
Tech took the floor for its first
round contest, radio shows
were already taking calls from
Big 12 fans about what life in
the conference would be like
with Coach Knight.
You half expected the silver
haired Knight to walk onto the
Kemper Arena floor in his red
sweatshirt, tap Dickey on the
shoulder and say. “What are
you doing, son? Haven't you
heard who’s general of these
parts now?"
“I was ready to box out for
my seat. That’s for sure," Dickey
joked after his team's Big 12
tournament loss to Oklahoma
State.
But Dickey was closer to
tears than laughter. Not that
you need to cry for him -
Dickey knew he would be fine,
and he will be. There will be
other jobs for him. He even
seemed to realize that his firing
was fair, with the team strug
gling in recent years.
He’ll be fine despite the fact
that Tech’s athletic director,
Gerald Myers, had basically
sold him out, telling Dickey for
weeks that his job was safe,
then meeting behind his back
with the legend Knight.
Despite such treatment,
there stood Dickey, a man who
would be fired the next day, gra
ciously answering every ques
tion about the situation follow
ing his team’s first-round Big 12
loss.
Then some reporter gath
ered the courage and asked
Dickey if he thought that
Knight would bring more fans
into their new 15,000-seat
Please see KNIGHT on 9
Holes loom as spring practice opens
BY JEFF SHELDON
Forgive Nebraska football Coach Frank Solich if
he looks a bit rushed during the next three weeks.
Solich heads into his fourth spring at the helm of
the Big Red with a limited amount of time to find the
needed answers to several personnel questions on
both sides of the ball.
"You only have 15 practices, and you want to
make sure you are taking advantage of every oppor
tunity you have on the football field,” Solich said.
“Fifteen practices is not a lot of practices to make
yourself better as an individual and make yourself
better as a team.”
Because of time constraints, Solich explained
that the coaches try to instill a sense of urgency in the
players. He was encouraged by what he saw' on open
ing day.
“I wras real pleased with the attitude and the effort
out here today,” Solich said. "(The players) w'ere get
ting places on the football field good, and we re off to
a good start. We’ll see how it goes as we get into it a lit
tle more.”
Husker Defensive Coordinator Craig Bohl was
also pleased by his squad’s first-day efforts.
“It’s always difficult on the first day, but I was real
ly encouraged by the enthusiasm,” he said. “We had
guys flying around, and even though we were not in
pads, it w as pretty impressive.”
Perhaps the biggest news coming into spring
camp for the Huskers is who will not be participating.
Nebraska will be without two Millard natives dur
ing spring workouts. Starting quarterback Eric
Crouch will miss his second consecutive spring ses
sion while recovering from shoulder surgery', and
Judd Davies, projected to be the successor to Willie
Miller at the fullback spot, is out of action indefinite
ly with a back injury'.
In addition. Nebraska must replace seven offen
sive and five defensive starters from last seasons 10
2 squad.
Solich said that with so many holes to fill, exam
ining every' player was a must.
“What we need to do is make sure we do get an
evaluation on every' player that is out here.” he said.
“Everyone that is out here is running our offense and
our defense. They are all getting reps on our system,
so that is how you can evaluate who’s one, wtio’s two
and who’s three on the depth chart.”
With only a limited time to make an impression
with the coaching staff, Solich know's that the
younger players will go all out to climb the NU depth
chart.
"This is an important time of the year for these
guvs,” he said. “You’re only allowed to have three total
Please see SPRING on 9
Nebraska quar
terback Jamal
Lord runs
through drills in
the Huskers'first
spring practice
on Monday at
Memorial
Stadium. Lord
will be handling
the first team
quarterback
duties this
spring while Eric
Crouch recovers
from shoulder
surgery.
Crouch injured\ Lord spring starter again
BY DAVID DIEHL
The feeling Eric Crouch has
this time of year is one he's reluc
tantly getting used to.
Crouch, who will be starting
for the second-straight year
under center for NU in the fall, is
again taking in spring practice
from the sidelines, relegated
there as a result of shoulder sur
gery for the second-straight off
season.
"It's something you don’t ever
want to get used to," Crouch said,
“but sometimes life doesn't
always go the way you planned.
You just have to adapt to it, and
that’s what I’ve done.”
Crouch said he may suit up in
pads by the end of this week and
run some non-contact drills. He
won't be doing any throwing,
however, until at least May 1.
quarterback , ,
spring Breakdown
The senior-to-be from
Millard North said his health
wouldn’t be in question come
fall. Even with the recovering
shoulder, he will be penciled in
as NU's top quarterback come
Aug. 25 and Nebraska’s first
game.
Quarterbacks Coach Turner
Gill said while Crouch may be
missing some growing time this
spring, his absence would help
both the quarterback and his
team this fall.
"The priority is to get Eric
healthy as possible for our foot
ball team,” Gill said. "So yes, we’d
like to have him out here, but we
know the best situation is get him
healthy.”
Keeping backup Jammal
Lord healthy will also be a priori
tv. Gill said, as he will be sporting
the non-contact green jersey
during scrimmages and other
contact situations. Lord tore a
posterior cruciate ligament in his
knee during last year's spring ses
sions.
Barring further injury.
Crouch will head a quarterback
corps that is the only position on
the offense not going through a
transition of starters. Both
Crouch and Lord return as NU's
top-two quarterbacks, provid
ing, if nothing else, a little sense
of stability at one position where
others, namely the receiver and
offensive line spots, may not see
it.
That's good because Crouch
provided NU with 2,072 yards of
“If I just be myself and be a leader out there a
lot of those things will fall into place,"
Eric Crouch
NU quarterback
total offense in 2000 - about 40
percent of the Cornhuskers' out
put. Considering that departed
running backs Dan Alexander,
Correll Buckhalter and fullback
Willie Miller accounted for 2,129
yards of their own, Crouch may
need to pick up that slack and
rush for more than the 971 yards
he did in 2000 if NU wants to win
its 15th NCAA rushing title.
With that, Gill said NU was
not forcing its entire game plan
on Crouch, who could become
the first player since at least 1946
to lead NU four straight years in
total offense.
"It’s not going to change any
thing we do in our offense quar
terback-wise.” Gill said. “At the
University of Nebraska, there’s
already enough pressure as it is,
so I constantly tell them not to
put any more pressure on them
than there is already there. I want
him to play within our offense,
and everything else will take care
of itself.”
Crouch, Nebraska’s all-time
Please see CROUCH on 9
■The first two rounds of the NCAA
Tournament leaves KU as the only team
left to wave the conference flag.
BY DIRK CHATELA1N
.And then, depressinglv. there was one.
.After a weekend full of first-round upsets
in the NCAA tournament, the Big 12 will turn
to its traditional power to save the conference
from postseason embarrassment.
Kansas, 26-6 on the season, is the lone Big
12 school to advance into the second week
end of the tournament. The Jayhawks, who
handily defeated Cal-State Northridge and
Syracuse, are the fourth seed in the Midwest
Region and will tangle with top-seeded
Illinois on Friday night in San Antonio.
“We are ecstatic at the way we played,”
said Kansas Coach Roy Williams, speaking of
the 87-58 win over Syracuse. “We played really
well, and they didn't make shots.”
While KU appears to be playing its best
basketball, its conference rivals made an
attempt to single-handedly ruin every office
pool from here to Minneapolis - the site of the
2001 Final Four.
Among the casualties was second-seeded
Iowa State. The Cyclones, coming off of a Big
12 tournament loss to Baylor, fell victim to
lS^-seeded Hampton 58-57 in Boise on
Thursday.
ISU held a double-digit lead for part of the
second half before stumbling down the
stretch with missed free throws and turnovers.
Cyclone All-American jamaal Tinsley
missed a lay-up at the buzzer, securing
un me rnoio
After two rounds, the Kansas Jayhawks are the only Big 12 team left in the NCAA Tournament. The Jayhawks next
face top-seeded Illinois in the Sweet 16.
Hamptons improbable comeback.
From a seeding standpoint, the upset was
the largest in the NCAA tournament since
1997.
Thursday night was simply a sign of things
to come for the conference that received six
bids, the second highest number of any
league.
On Friday, 11 ^-seeded Temple blew out
sixth-seeded Texas and 13th-seeded Indiana
State, shocking Big 12 tournament champion
Oklahoma.
“When you get here, you better play well.”
Sooners Coach Kelvin Sampson said.
Please see JAYHAWK on 9
Midweek
matchup
big one
■The Nebraska baseball team
faces perennial Midwest
power Wichita State today.
BY VINCE KUPPIG
The statement came as a defi
nite shock.
“It’s one of the biggest games
this season,” Nebraska designat
ed flitter Matt Hopper said about
today’s matchup with Wichita
State.
Shocking because Hopper
was affixing the “biggest game"
tag to a team with a 10-8 record,
not to mention a midweek game,
usually a chance to rest some
starters.
But Wichita State isn’t your
normal 10-8 team, and NU’s
game against the Shockers sure
isn’t your normal midweek game.
Despite a small slip from
national prominence, the
Shockers are still one of the pre
mier college baseball programs in
Please see BASEBALL on 9
Jayhawks lone Big 12 team standing |
