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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 20, 1998)
The Battalion Sports ulesday • January 20, 1998 Cyclones hold off Aggies for 68-52 victory |i By Philip W. Peter W Staff Writer Confidence is what lets a big-time player ake big-time plays under pressure. So when e Texas A&M University Women’s Basketball am applied the pressure to Iowa State Univer- y Sa i urday, Cyclone forward Jayme Olsen con tent ly stepped up and sank two clutch three- linters to lead ISU to a 68-52 victory in front of )87 fans at G. Rollie White Coliseum. I Traili ng by 14 points at halftime, the Aggies came 4 in the second half with all they had, cutting the id to as little as five. A&M sophomore forward issy Shaipe provided a spark for the Aggies with $htpoints, four rebounds and a block in the first nelninotes of the second half, finishing with 18 lints and 12 boards for the game. But every time e momentum began to swing in the Aggies’ di- :tion, Olsen was there to silence the crowd. “We executed on offense. We boxed out on de- ise. We made a few key stops and everything irted going in a positive direction,” Sharpe said, nd then they hit those big couple of threes, and >eemed like we kind of lost our focus.” Ma intaining focus was never a problem for Iowa ite. Helped by A&M’s 25-percent shooting in the sthuli. ISU took the lead seven minutes into the me and kept the Aggies down for the duration. “Good teams really drop the hammer,” Olsen said. Olsen ought to know, as she was the one drop ping hammers all day. She finished with 26 points and 12 rebounds for the game and went 3-for-4 from behind the three-point line, including a shot- clock buzzer-beater with 9:23 remaining to make the score 50-42. “They were scrapping and hitting the shots and getting the ball to the right people. We calmed it down and made smart decisions with the ball,” Olsen said. “It’s a lot easier to hit shots when you’re wide open.” “Jayme Olsen is a very confident player,” A&M Coach Candi Harvey said. “She believes in her ability. She wants the ball in her hands when the game is on the line. “She is shocked when she misses. She expects to make it every time she shoots.” The Cyclones improved to 15-2 overall and 4- 0 in the Big 12 Conference while handing A&M its sixth consecutive loss, dropping the Aggies to 4-10 overall and 0-4 in conference play. “There’s no getting around the fact that the confidence is shaky right now,” Harvey said. “We’ve just got to believe that we can shoot the ball better than we did. We got good looks all day long. I thought our execution was good, espe cially in the second half. Those are shots that need to fall for us. When we shoot them with more confidence, they will.” RYAN ROGERS/The Battalion A&M junior guard Kim Tarkington goes for the shot in the second half of A&M’s loss to ISU Saturday.. Iggie Basketball Teams have not-so-happy holidays RYAN ROGERS/The Battalion ishman guard Michael Schmidt and the rest the Aggies are a combined 0-11 in Big 12 play. By Jeff Webb Staff Writer The holiday season is a time of giving, and Big 12 opponents of Texas A&M basketball found out how generous Aggies can be during the break. Both the Men’s and Women’s Basketball Teams regis tered only one win each over the unkind break. The men have floundered to a 6-9 overall record and have dropped all five of their Big 12 Conference games this season. On Dec. 19, the losing began with a heartbreaking 83-81 loss on the home court of Arizona State University. The Aggies then registered their lone victory, a blowout 105-60 win over Maryland-Eastern Shore. After a loss at Washington State, the team began their Big 12 Conference schedule by losing 100-65 to Oklahoma State in College Station. That foretold of a long, hard conference road ahead. The Aggies then lost at Baylor and to Oklahoma at home to bring their conference mark to 0-3. Coach Tony Barone and his players then faced the third-ranked Kansas Jayhawks in front of a packed G. Rollie White-House. The 6,548 fans provided deafening support, but could not will the Aggies to overcome tine odds as the Ags went down valiantly in an 18- point defeat. Saturday, the Aggies continued their hapless ways by losing to Iowa State in Ames, with out key frontcourt member Calvin Davis, who missed the game with back trouble. The Women’s Basketball Team fared no bet ter over the break, notching a 1-6 record over the holidays. The Northern Lights Invitational held in Anchorage, Alaska, began their schedule. The Aggies opened with a win over the hometown Alaska-Anchorage squad only to find their semi final prize was a date with first-ranked Ten nessee. The Aggies dropped that game along with the consolation game versus Mississippi before heading into conference play. The team lost an eight-point game to Okla homa in Norman and from there the games just got uglier. They lost a home contest against Ok lahoma State and then traveled to Lincoln, Neb., for a game with the No. 21 Cornhuskers. The Ag gies fell 88-74 and came back home to lose one 68-52 to Iowa State. While the semester break was not kind to the Texas A&M basketball program, the support of returning students at home games figures to be instrumental in turning around the dismal con ference records of both teams. What we missed but did not forget Compiled by Jeremy Furtick Sports Editor The 1997-98 holiday break had its share of big stories in the world of sports, especially in Texas. There was a whirlwind of emotions caused by the tear-jerking, the awe-inspiring and the simply excit ing things that transpired while we relaxed at home. This is a small compilation of the news-making events The Battalion was not around to cover. Reggie Brown’s near-fatal injury In a Dec. 21 game between the Detroit Lions and New York Jets in Pontiac, Mich., former Texas A&M standout and current Lions line backer Reggie Brown suffered a severe injury to the upper portion of his cervical spine, rendering him unconscious and severely limiting his breathing. Team doctors stabilized Brown on the field, administering CPR until the ambulance arrived. Doctors later said the actions and care of the team physicians probably saved Brown’s life. Switzer pulls the trigger on himself Following the Cowboys’ first losing season and first trip home before the playoffs since 1990, Dallas head coach Barry Switzer resigned. Spec ulation had been high that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones would have re lieved Switzer of his responsibilities regardless. Former A&M quarterback and quarterbacks coach Gary Kubiak, who is currently preparing for the Super Bowl as the Denver Broncos offen sive coordinator, and former San Francisco 49ers head coach and two- time Super Bowl champion George Seifert reportedly top Jones’ list of candidates to become the Cowboys’ fourth field general. Cotton Bowl woes continue for Aggies In a game in which no one really gave the Aggies a chance, A&M showed its pride, battling UCLA down to the wire before falling to the fifth-ranked Bruins 29-23. Aggie junior linebacker Dat Nguyen played masterfully, earning defensive MVP honors. Nguyen set the all-time Cotton Bowl record for tackles with 20 while also intercepting a pass and combining with Brandon Jennings en route to an 83-yard return for the Aggies’ first touchdown. This would mark the fourth consecutive Cotton Bowl loss for A&M and would drop its 1997 record to 9-4, still a good season for R.C. Slocum’s 20th- ranked team, which was projected to finish third in the Big 12 South. Television deals equal big bucks for the NFL CBS shocked the sports broadcasting world with its agreement to pay the NFL $4 billion over eight years for the rights to televise AFC games, making NBC the only network without an NFL deal. After losing its AFC renewal deal, NBC also lost in its bid to win the rights to Monday Night Football, which will be retained by ABC for the next eight years. The FOX Network kept its NFC deal with an eight-year, $4.4 billion contract. FOX also retained the services of Emmy Award winning broadcaster John Madden, who was being offered a spot on the Monday Night Football crew. ESPN outbid its cable-channel challenger TNT to win the rights to eight full seasons of Sunday night games. The two networks previous ly had split the 16-game schedule. 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