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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 10, 1979)
the sports THE BATTALION Page 11 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10, 1979 spiral •■y says th,. i: Aggies beat Bears in SWC opener 11 1 Kenned^; wounded a i; onunittee -d the consp, years fromn. layoff slows Ags n 77-64 victory believe the w , erfect, hut| By DAVID BOGGAN le — that \i Battalion Sports Editor here is a song that folks in Waco miounce wi|| P arti al to called That Old Baylor an nominat e ' ® ut Monday night in G. Rollie nlnfirableo he Coliseum that young Aggie 1 the Camp h ^ ne prevailed as the Texas M basketball team defeated down from (]■ 77-64. f it. There ,e d by sophomore forwards Ver- Smith (18 points, 11 rebounds) na, Connallvs Ryun Wri gbt (12 points, 16 re- is with Chiii n d s ) an d freshman center Rudy ms and that °d s (13 points, 12 rebounds), the i ranked Aggies held off a second ’ comeback by the Bears to win ir 1979 Southwest Conference ner. •I’m hoping we were just a little 1 P jrusty,” Texas A&M coach Shelby * / ' // *rcalf said of his team, which had played a game since winning the mont Classic on Dec. 30. T’ve O /7 J us play better but I haven’t seen OCf/Wi 0 lay harder.” '' he Aggies had to play hard with 'rank Lawlh Bears challenging their national ords ‘pair ai king midway through the second ..■With 6:24 left on the clock, ' at lor’s Wendell Mays hit a short \\eeks at» oun d j U mp er and brought the .rs to within one point, 58-57. ncc enii as then hit three straight 1° m 3 ”"* 5 anc ^ llev cr let the Bears get K l) lte ' ;e again. The victory brought as A&M s season record to 12-2 >1, patients 1 le the Bears dropped to 1-1 in ge muscler SWC and 7-5 for the year, of their pai Baylor played well,’ Metcalf /e the tensioriU ‘They played smart and they itude, ifyoutt their composure. (Baylor lan’t give it bman Terry) Teagle is a combi- alkingabou ion of Arkansas’ big three last health care X He can shoot like (Ron) Bre- uch a frontier^’handle the ball like (Marvin) erization walph and jump like (Sidney) said. ncrief. They just kept picking .y at us.” eagle picked away for 16 points Mays led the Bruins with 18 1 ■~T £ Vits. Obviously absent from doi s lineup was the nation’s ■■ fdrleading scorer, Vinnie , r -l y.ason. Johnson was in New York | | I jinding his mother’s funeral. Vinnie is the type of guy who can le out and destroy you, Metcalf me to w ears®The way the game turned out, itvle to whicln it was fortunate for us that Vinnie wasn’t here, obviously.” Aggie players agreed that the 10-day layoff had a negative effect on their game. “We came off kind of cold,” said junior Tyrone Ladson, who came off the bench and scored 17 points for the Aggies. “We didn’t apply much defensive pressure. Our man-to- man looked sluggish so we had to go back into our zone. “The people didn’t see our best performance tonight. The layoff de- finately affected us.” The game was witnessed by 6,191 people, the largest paid crowd in Texas A&M history. “We missed a lot of our shots,” Smith said of the Aggies who shot 42.1 percent from the floor while Baylor shot 44.3 percent. “And we gave them too many second shots on their offensive end. I’m sure the layoff had a lot to do with it. Once we get our rhythm down we ought to be all right.” The Aggies should have no prob lem establishing a rhythm now that conference play has begun. Met calf’s men will travel to Hofheinz Pavilion tonight to play Houston and they will play SMU Saturday in Dallas. The Cougars will feature return ing starters Ken Ciolli and Kenny Williams from last year’s SWC tour nament championship team. Hous ton is 0-2 in conference play, having lost to Arkansas and Texas. The Ag gies have a score to settle with the Coogs after losing twice to Guy Lewis’s team last year. “We have been waiting for this game,” Ladson said. “I played with Kenny Williams and Cecile Rose (who was a senior at Houston in 1978) over the summer and they were always talking s---. We re ready for them.” SMU freshman Billy Allen, son of Mustang coach Sonny Allen, leads the Ponies along with returning starters Reggie Franklin and Phil Hale. SMU was defeated in its con ference opener by Rice Monday night. Baylor scares home team without Johnson in lineup Battalion photo by Lee Roy Leschper Jr. Texas A&M’s Tyrone Ladson takes a long shot during Monday night’s game against Baylor. The Aggies play Hous ton tonight at 7:30 in Hofheinz Pavilion. By MARK PATTERSON Battalion Staff Playing without their ace, Vinnie Johnson, the Baylor Bears fell to the steamrolling Texas Aggies 77-64 Monday night. Johnson was still in New York attending his mother’s funeral and was out of the line-up for the second straight game. And when asked if his absence meant the difference in Monday’s game Coach Jim Haller and the Baylor team were split in their opinions. “Without Vinnie in the line-up the Aggies were able to spread out their zone defense against us,” Hal ler said after the game. “In all fair ness to this team, without Vinnie on the floor we don’t have a penetrat ing guard, someone who will take the ball to the basket. ” Johnson is the third leading scorer in the nation, carrying a 27.2 point average. He is also leading the Bears in minutes played and assists. But when asked if his absence hurt the team his teammates greeted the question with bitterness. “We have a team without Vinnie Johnson,” forward Chuck Stanley snarled. “We re sick of hearing all that s— about Vinnie Johnson. Ever since he left that’s all we’ve been hearing about. “We showed we could win with out him Saturday against Rice (a 64-52 Baylor victory). And we played pretty good tonight without him.” Jim Vaszauskas was called upon to step in and take Johnson’s position against the Aggies. He added nine points to the Baylor cause, but after the game admitted Johnson s ab sence affected the team’s play. “Vinnie is a stabilizer to our of fense, Vaszauskas explained. “When we get shaky out there we look for him. We don’t have to worry as much about turning the ball over when he has it. “But we run a better passing game without him in there. He’s such a good one-on-one player that our passing game is hurt with him. Without him in the line-up we have to work more to move the ball. “All we wanted to do is prove to ourselves that we could win without him. We did Saturday, and we came pretty close tonight. The Bears were in the game until late in the contest. With six minutes and twenty seconds left in the game the Bears pulled to within one, Ladies defeat Baylor The Aggie Ladies won the first game of the Texas A&M Classic Monday night by defeating Baylor 62-48. The victory ended a three-game losing streak and brought the Ag gies’ season record to 15-6. "The hustling of our front guards helped a lot tonight,’’ said Aggie coach Wanda Bender whose team d whether si otten as mi rvin was not would have i if it had bee: aid. in, a ratM eddish brown glasses, was er lawyer hen she am a waiting re] ACGMES ARE ON UotH- WED. THE HOAD SMU • AO AIN ANY BODY GOT ANYTHIMC- FO# OWL SCR.fiac.HE5 ? HAS/E A GOOD TRIP. 'LL HAVE EVERYONE BACK HELP W/N THE ARKANSAS GAME/ rexf-' it beast oil ventured ght just accej| lid the PolisbAP' ssociation isit the area •o City and hop’s Confeti )ii led with .7^ ■bel, pastor ,5K£ 7~S4Li. Jhurch, and® ecretary-treaip , in extendinjT COUGARS WW AGAIN / had lost twice to University of Nevada-Las Vegas and once to Houston before Monday' night’s victory. The Aggies led 31-29 at halftime but outscored the Bears 31-19 in the second half to win the game. “Our shooting wasn t as good as it needs to be for our big games. We missed a lot of shots that we Ought not miss. The Aggies shot 35 percent from the floor and 40 percent from the free throw line while the Bears hit 42 percent of their field goals and 67 percent of their free throws. Pat Werner led the Aggies with 13 points while Von Bunn and Lisa Hughes each scored 12. Peggy' Pope Top 20 1. Michigan St. (9-l)(33) 605 2. Notre Dame (6-1) (3) 529 3. Illinois (14-0) (3) 513 4. No. Car. (10-1) (2) 457 5. LSU (10-0) (1) 454 6. UCLA (9-2) 386 7. Duke (9-2) 343 8. No. Car. St. (11-2) 303 9. Indiana St. (11-0) 269 10. Arkansas (9-0) 228 11. Marquette (10-1) 151 12. Texas A&M (12-2) 121 13. Louisville (10-3) 99 14. Kansas (8-3) 98 15. Temple (11-0) 79 16. Georgetown (10-2) 66 17. Long Beach St. (8-2) 50 18. Syracuse (9-2) 44 19. Southern Calif. (9-3) 34 20. Michigan (7-3) 29 pulled down eight rebounds for the Ladies. “Our program has a long way to go to get where it needs to be,” Be nder said. “We need to get a better performance out of our post players, for one thing. If we can get our post-to-post feed working the way it should work, that combination will be hard to stop.” Eastern Oklahoma and McLen nan Community College will play in the second game of the Classic Thursday night. The Aggies will play McLennan at 6:30 on Friday night and Eastern Oklahoma at 8:30 on Saturday night. Admission to each session of the Classic will be $1 for adults and 50 cents for studentsi without an athletic pass. ★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★ O o < m < M 58-57. But after a Texas A&M time out the Aggies pulled away for the win. “After the time out A&M went back to their zone defense and shut us down,” Haller said. “At the start of the second half they came out in a man-to-man and we were able to catch up. But Shelby (Metcalf) is a smart coach and he had them go back to the zone. And without Vinnie we couldn’t penetrate it. “Ladson was the key to the game for the Aggies. Our defensive plan was to drop off of Dave Goff and give some help inside. We were willing to give Goff the shots if he would take them. “But Ladson came in and started hitting from the outside. We had to go out and cover him and we lost our help underneath. With their power up front we couldn’t control the boards. At the half Vernon Smith and Rynn Wright had more rebounds than our entire team. 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