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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 27, 1996)
begin to dor agri- t major, :en some edtodri- ? already ?d speed iple com- out get- s for dri- mph on fay 6,” said, also no- d more pie dri- g under speed t. Some 's it’s to forget n drive . now.” said the IP pro- •'ey sites ■ermine a includ- The Battalion Tuesday February 27, 1 996 Sports Page 7 a ‘strict- vent,” he a gentle a while, 1 gentle, s not go- in that M presi- am Liv- ce presi- raduate cheon in . Bowen jssed the r ersities bate sup- ntained ig- ggestion involved forces to nents in it. If the ties join y might pact on ear the met and ng is al- vay witi id. McCur- “a price ot being d, "I am further on was n’s re- cally in- Lincoln idez, D- i immi- xm’s ac- e those e presi- go far lowed a i his top His po- Cuban- 3 House hoping ash just Florida dential accused he illu- make a ton has •m it. nowing ;o Clin- is, bris- swiftly mts be- ned his sports GLANCE Kentucky new No. 1 in college hoops The top 25 teams in The Associ ated Press' college basketball poll, with records through Feb. 25, total points based on 25 points for a first-place vote through one point fora 25th-place vote, and previous ranking: 1. Kentucky 24-1 1,648 2 2. UMass 26-1 1,563 1 3. Kansas 23-2 1,496 5 4. Conneclicut 25-2 1.469 3 5. Purdue 23-4 1.327 7 6. Vlllanova 23-4 1,272 4 7. Cincinnati 21-3 1.265 6 8. Georgetown 23-5 1,185 11 9. TxTech 24-1 1,174 9 10. Utah 22-5 949 8 11. Arizona 21-5 944 13 12. F J ennSt. 19-4 881 14 13. WakeForest .18-5 869 10 14. Memphis 20-5 719 19 15. Syracuse 20-7 682 1 5 16. Va.Tech 20-4 644 12 17. UCLA 19-7 530 16 18. GaTech 18-10 450 23 19. NCarolina 19-8 381 17 20. Iowa 19-7 357 18 21. Louisville 19-8 349 21 22. Wis.GB 24-2 289 25 23. lowaSt. 19-7 245 22 24. GW 18-5 232 — 25. Stanford 17-7 111 24 Other receiving votes: Mississip pi St. 95, Boston College 86. New Mexico 32. Coll, of Charleston 28, E. Michigan 24. Fresno St. 24, Duke 21. Marquette 21, Texas 16, Tulane 16, Bradley 11. Arkansas 8, Tulsa 7, Georgia 6, Davidson 5, Ark.-Little Rock 4, Illinois 4, Drexel 3. Temple 3, California 2, Coppin St. 1. Michi gan 1, Montana 1. Reid suspended for two games after elbow NEW YORK (AP) — j.R. Reid of the New York Knicks was suspended for two games without pay and fined $10,000 by the NBA Monday for fla grantly elbowing Phoenix's A.C. Green in the mouth during a game. Reid's elbow knocked out two of Green's teeth in Sunday's game. The fine and suspension were the stiffest penalty in NBA history for throwing an elbow. Reid will miss Monday's game against the Los Angeles Lakers and Wednesday's game at Sacramento. Although he lost two teeth, Green may play Monday night against the Utah Jazz and continue his league-leading streak of consec utive games. A Suns spokesman said doctors hoped to outfit Green with a mask that would allow him to play against the Jazz. He has played in 784 straight games dating back to 1986, tops among active players and third all-time. Randy Smith played in 906 straight, and John Kerr appeared in 844. X-rays showed there was no frac ture of Green's jaw bone, but the sockets that held Green's lost teeth in place were cracked by the blow, lengthening the period before they can be replaced. Former All-American Lothridge dies at 54 GAINESVILLE, Ga. (AP) — Billy Lothridge, a Georgia Tech quarter back and kicker from 1961-63 and runner-up to Roger Staubach for the 1963 Heisman Trophy, has died of a heart attack. He was 54. Lothridge, an All-America selec tion in 1963 who later played for Dallas and Atlanta in the NFL, died Friday at his home in Pensacola, Fla., were he was a telemarketing executive. He was a punter and safety for the Falcons, but had to give up his defensive back duties because he was playing with only one kidney. "Billy was as great and natural an athlete as I've ever seen," said Taz Anderson, who also played at Georgia Tech and in the NFL. SCORES ROUNDUP NBA Indiana 122, Boston 119, OT Utah 110, Phoenix 87 Los Angeles 114, New York 96 Detroit 93, Sacramento 78 UPCOMING EVENTS Aggie Baseball The A&M Baseball will travel to Huntsville to take on the Sam Hous ton State Bearkats today at 2:00 p.m. Women's Basketball The Lady Aggies host the Texas Christian University Lady Frogs Wednesday night at G. Rollie White Coliseum. TCU nips Ags in heartbreaker, 91-89 Jeff Jacobs' 1 2-foot jumper doomed A&M Evan Zimmerman, The Battalion Texas A&M junior forward Gary Nottingham splices between two Texas Christian Horned Frogs during Monday night's gamb at G. Rollie White Coliseum. By Tom Day The Battalion It may have been a different evening, but it was the same old sto ry for the A&M Men’s Basketball Team Wednesday night at G. Rollie White Coliseum. In another down-to-the-wire affair, Texas Christian guard Jeff Jacobs hit a baseline jump shot with 3.1 seconds remaining to send the Homed Frogs to a 91-89 victory over the Aggies. A&M’s final home game of the 1995- 96 season and its Southwest Confer ence home finale fairly typified the year for the Aggies. In a game in which A&M set several season marks, a conference record and individual ca reer highs, the Aggies were still left to ponder what went wrong. “I really don’t have any answers,” A&M Head Men’s Basketball Coach Tony Barone said following the game. “I think these kids played their hearts out.” Despite setting a conference record with 34 team assists and scoring a sea son-high 89 points, A&M was involved in another tight contest, the eighth game in its last nine to be decided in the last minute. A late A&M rally set up the game’s dramatic ending. TCU had taken its largest lead of the game since a 16-11 first-half advantage when another Ja cobs jumper gave the Frogs an 89-84 lead with 2:13 remaining. But the Aggies were not quite ready to let their record-setting evening on offense go to waste. After a TCU miss, A&M swingman Tracey Anderson’s jump shot brought the Aggies to with in three with 59 seconds left. A player-control foul on TCU’s Den nis Davis gave the ball back to A&M with 29.1 ticks on the clock. Following a timeout, A&M worked the ball back to Anderson who calmly sank a three- pointer to knot the game at 89. Although it could be argued Ander son was fouled on the play, no whistle was blown, and Jacobs eventually worked his magic for TCU. A&M guard Derrick Hart’s last-ditch three- point attempt rimmed in-and-out at the buzzer and the Homed Frogs went away victorious. In a game featuring the SWC’s top scoring defense (66.5 points per game) in A&M and the league’s highest scor ing team in TCU (84.6 points per game), Barone said the Aggies’ hot shooting led them to play TCU’s up tempo game. A&M shot 58.7 percent from the field. “I thought we were getting a lot of good shots, and because of that, I don’t think you could pull back,” Barone said. “We felt we could continue to play the type of tempo they had. “That was in their favor, but to shoot 58 percent and lose the game is strange I guess.” A&M (11-14, 3-10 SWC) got a career- high 17 points from freshman center Brad Strieker and a career-best and school record-tying 15 assists from Kyle Kessel. TCU (14-14, 5-8 SWC) was led by guard Anthony Burks’ 23 points and center Byron Waits’ 20-point effort. The Aggies were able to limit TCU’s season scoring leader Damion Walker to 20 points. “We just tried to front him and con test his shots,” Quesada said. “That’s the way we played them in Fort Worth on Jan. 31) and it worked pretty good.” Although TCU shot an impressive 52 percent from the field, the game was decided at the charity stripe. The Frogs cashed in on l9-of-25 free-throw attempts, while A&M could only con vert on 8-of-16. The Aggies were also outrebounded 38-29. After TCU jumped out to a five- point advantage five minutes into the contest, A&M responded with a 17-4 explosion fueled by three-pointers from See Loss, Page 8 Quesada Final-minute defeats becoming unwanted norm for Aggies By Philip Leone The Battalion Monday night’s contest with Texas Christian University was supposed to be Texas A&M’s last Southwest Conference hurrah at G. Rollie White Coliseum. The Aggies were supposed to break a four-game losing streak and end the season on a positive note. But TCU guard Jeff Jacobs stepped in to ruin all that. After A&M’s Tracy Anderson nailed a three-pointer to tie the game at 89 with 18 seconds left, Ja cobs brought the ball upcourt for the Horned Frogs trying to locate an open man. When nothing panned out for TCU, Jacobs drib bled to the left baseline and put up a turnaround 12-foot prayer just over Anderson’s outstretched hand with four seconds left. Jacob’s shot went down to the collective groan of the Aggie crowd and proved to be the margin of victory for TCU after Derrick Hart’s desperation three- pointer rimmed-out for the Aggies. Before covering Jacobs on his win ning shot, Anderson came down hard to the floor after his late three-point er and banged his elbow. However, Texas A&M Head Men’s Basketball Coach Tony Barone refused to let this serve as an excuse for Jacobs hitting the winning basket. "He could have been healthy and 7-foot tall and the shot was going to go in." — Tony Barone Head Basketball Coach “He (Anderson) could have been healthy and 7-foot tall and the shot was going to go in,” Barone said. “It was a great shot. It was a tough, fadeaway shot that just went down.” There was also much controversy on whether or not Anderson was fouled by TCU’s Anthony Burks during his three-pointer with 18 seconds remaining. The officials did not make the call despite contact af ter the shot with both players falling to the floor. The foul would have given Anderson a chance to put the Aggies up by a point. After the game, Barone was adamant about what he thought was a missed call. “He got fouled — no question about it,” Barone said. “Absolutely no question about it, he got fouled on that three.” The heartbreaking, last-second 91-89 Aggie defeat left sophomore forward Dario Quesada searching for answers after the game. “I don’t know what to say,” Que sada said. “I mean this is like the eighth time this has happened to us. It makes you look back on every little play. Like you could’ve gotten this rebound, or you could’ve made See A&M, Page 8 Evan Zimmerman, The Battalion Texas A&M freshman center Brad Strieker takes a forearm to the face during Monday's loss to Texas Christian. A great coach remembered ... A legend in Texas high school football coaching retired last week, and nobody but me and few other guys who played un der him bothered to notice. Of course, Coach Wayne Spruill isn’t exactly a household name, and he’s a legend only because I choose to think of him as such. Coach Spruill was my receivers coach in high school and one of the best men I’ve ever been around. Not only was he effective in reaching and motivating kids on the football field, he was also passionate about taking care of his business in the classroom as a health and biology teacher. He was a credit to the high school coaching profession— a profession not highly regarded by many. When I asked some of the folks around the newsroom what they thought about their high school’s coaches, the responses mostly centered around this image: a whistle-twirling, beer-bel lied, semi-fascist who wears his shorts and socks way too high and didn’t have a clue about how to teach effectively in the classroom. To a certain extent, I can see a certain amount of validity in that image because I had a few coaches who fit that mold very well. I can still recall the exact words of my junior- varsity baseball coach, who opened tryouts with this enlightened attempt to get rid of the “had ap ples”: “Men, if you’re a loser you know you’re a loser, so just get your butt off my field right now. Go home and smoke cigarettes or lay on the couch and eat Twinkles or something. I don’t want you punks getting in the way.” I had another coach who actual ly gave me the keys to his truck during history class so I could go pick up his new set of golf clubs at a local pro shop. That I was sup posed to be taking his semester exam and only had a learner’s per mit didn’t bother him in the least. But Coach Spruill was different. Sure, he was from the “old school” of coaching and worked our tails off beyond belief every chance he got. During my playing days, I know for a fact that no group of high school receivers came close to working as hard as we did. We ran so much that most of we receivers were near tears by the time practice ended every day. But the more we played for him, the more we noticed how much he cared for us as young men, not just as football players. He showed up at the hospital on a number of occasions when a player on the team had to have surgery to on a banged up knee or shoulder or something. Every Thursday night during the season, he gave each receiver a call at home just to see if everything was going all right in schoolwork and personal life. My senior year, he gave each gradu ating receiver a S20 bill. I could go on. See Leone, Page 8 Gretzky confirms trade from Los Angeles near □ The all-time leading scorer is expected to be dealt to St. Louis. WINNIPEG, Manitoba (AP) — Wayne Gretzky says a trade is near. But first, hockey’s all-time scoring leader has a meeting Tuesday with the owners of the Los Angeles Kings. Gretzky, the subject of trade rumors for weeks, said Monday he expects to be moved well be fore the NHL’s March 20 trade deadline. “This probably won’t drag on until March 20,” Gretzky said at practice before the Kings’ game in Winnipeg. “That’s just too long a time for everyone — my self, my teammates, my family, Larry (Robinson, the coach). “It’s just unfair for everyone. So I imagine something’s going to happen in the next little bit here.” Gretzky can become a free agent after this season, and the Kings risk losing him without com pensation if they don’t sign him. ESPN reported a deal might be wrapped up as early as Tuesday and Gretzky would be in a Blues uniform for their next game Thursday night at Vancouver. “What I do know is that I have a meeting in California to morrow (Tuesday) with the own ers,” he said. “There’s no guar antees in this game, but I can guarantee you that I’m not going to be traded until I can at least meet with the owners.” There are rumors Los Angeles is ready to offer a 10-year con tract to Gretzky, who played Monday night against the Jets. Kings president Bob Sander- man said the team’s ownership has not made a decision whether to trade the 35-year- old superstar. “That is absolutely true,” he said Sunday from Denver. “Our first priority is to sign him.” To get the Great One, the Blues were poised to give the Kings rookies Craig Johnson and Patrice Tardif, 19-year-old prospect Roman Vopat and their See Gretzky, Page 8 a'a'a'a'a’a’aa a ? zi t- & * it-
