The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 84, No. 14, Ed. 1 Friday, January 17, 1997 Page: 12 of 16
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Halfway through their season,
the women's basketball team has
lived up to the high expectations
placed on it. With a win over the
University of Tulsa Golden Hurri-
cane on Saturday, the Owls are off to
their best conference start ever with
a 3-0 record
Playing a schedule that has in-
cluded five games against teams that
participated in NCAA postseason
play last year, the Owls have earned
a 7 5 record.
"We have had a couple of losses
we thought we wouldn't have at this
point in the season. Hut we have
earned a 5-5 non-conference record
against some pretty good teams,"
Head Coach Cristy McKinney said
"The win over Arkansas wasgood
they are still ranked in the top 25
— as well as the win over Purdue.
Hopefully, playing the tough non-
conference teams has helped us to
our conference start"
However, the Owls still seem to
Manmat m
_ .uri
mhi*'ww■ ■^
Senior center Debbie Williams shoots the ball over a Houston Flight AAU player earlier this year. The team hopes to
continue their rampage through the. WAC with the leadership o1 players such as Williams.
Injuries continue to
season
George Dethlefsen
V'iill It i i/i i
{)n Monday, night. the men* bas-
ketball team had ihe opportunity to
show Atnerlca what they could do
on national television. A win versus
tin.1 University of Tulsa would have
given the Owls fheii first Western
Athletic Conference victory and
would have given ■ F.SI'N viewers
across the nation a favorable image.
Instead, the game served as an
excellent sedative for late night
-.ports junkies and probably gave
MTV's "l.ove Lines" a small ratings
boost. Watching thegame wasabout
as fun as going to a Harlem
Globetrotters' game and rooting for
the opposing Washington Generals
The combination of Tulsa's tena-
cious defense and Rice's 23 percent
shooting from the field respited in a
<>.r>-33 romp over the Owls. It is not
often that a~ school's football team
scores more points against a foe
than their basketball team does, but
that was the case here ('Rice beaf
lulsa 41' 14 this season in football)
By overplaying the passing lanes
and denying the pass to the wing.
Kite could not get into any type ol
offense and was forced into 27 turn-
overs. Rice jumped out to an early 8-
-1 lead, but could only manage 5*
more points the entire half, falling to
a 24-13 deficit in the first half.
Things would get worse for the
team in the second half, as Tulsa
ben e.ti ted fro in the play of All-Amen
can guard Shea Seals' 20 points to
pull away from Rice.
The Owls entered the season with
high expectations, returning a solid
nucleus from last year's team, as
well as adding the talents of junior
guard Bobby Crawford and junior
.forward Jarvis Sanni. Rice was anx-
iously awaiting its first year of WAC
basketball and was also harboring
hopes of postseason play.
But for the t bird consecutive year,
injuries have decimated the Owls.
Two weeks before the season was
set to begin, star guard Crawford
went down with a broken ankle. Jun-
ior forward Jesse Cravens, who sat
,out all of last year with back prob-
lems, saw his basketball career come
to an end after a second slipped disk
in his back sidelined him, Soplio
more point guard Chad Michael is
also out for the entire season with
back problems. Sophrtmore forward
T.J Armstrong and senior cenlei
be trying to find themselves on the
court. At some times they show
flashes of brilliance, at others they
have trouble getting good shots off
on offense. •
One constant that has helped the
team so far is the deep bench.,De-
pending on the game's tempo and
individualperforinances, McKinney
is able to tailor the lineup to suit the
game.
The Owls have gone with seven
different starting lineups this sea-
son, and all but one team member
have started a game this season.
In every game so far this season
except for the contest against the
University of Michigan, the Owl
bench has out scored their oppo-
nents. In a 108-42 win over Texas
Southern University, the Owls set a
school record for bench scoring with
54 points.
Sophomore forward Angelica
Smith led the Owl substitutes with
2.r> points and 13 rebounds in the
lopsided win. She ylso earned WAC
Mountain Division Player of the
Week honors for the performance.
It was the first time an Owl had been
honored with this award since 1992.
Freshman Maria Brumfield and
senior Jessica Garcia have emerged
as the "go-to" players on the team.
Offthe bench, Garcia is the team's
third leading scorer. She dropped in
20 points — including a school
record 6-for-10 from beyond the
three-point line — in a 76-62 loss to
No. 11-ranked Texas Tech Univer-
sity. Garcia has been bouncing be-
tween point and shooting guards
since backup point guSrd Sara
Uidwig sustained a season-ending
ankle injury early in the,season.
Brumfield scorched Southern
Methodist University for 26 points
and is averaging 13 points a contest.
Her tenacious play and slashing
moves to the basket have made her
a crowd favorite.
Other than the injury to Ludwig,
the Owls have been relatively
S££ WOMEN, PAGE 13
Year in sports reviewed
Nineteen ninety-six was filled
with poignant sports moments that
sparked a vast array 'of emotions in
all of us. Perhaps the most powerful
instances caj«c in the Atlanta Olym-
pics, where Muhammad Ali, Michael
Johnson and Kerri Strug created
enduring sports memories for ev-
eryone. With the arrival of the new
year, most newspapers engage in a
sort of memory-jogging by recalling
and rehashing such bits of time and
making us say, "Oh yeah, I remem-
ber that!"
Shaun 1'go have both missed time
this season with injuries as well. As
if these problems weren't bad
enough, almost every player on the
team suffered from the tin during a
six-game road swing in December.
Rice started the season with two
convincing home victories over
Houston Baptist University and the
Colorado School of Mines. In these
two games, the Owls looked unstop-
.pable, knocking down three-point-
ers and dominating the paint.
From there, the team traveled to
Tallahassee, Fla., where the Florida
State University Seminoles crushed
the Owls 79-54 to hand Rice their
first loss of the season.
Then the flu bug hit. What re-
mained of the once healthy team
lost their next two games to
Princeton University and St. Bon-
aventure University but was able to
even out their record at 3-3 with a
win in the consolation game of the
First Bank Classic versus Prairie
View A&M University.
After taking two weeks off for
finals, the Owls lost in a hard-fought
overtime battle to the University of
North Texas, 64-62. T.J. Atkins of
UNT won the gaw\with a buzzer-
beater to send the Owls fiorne for
Christmas with a 3-4 record,
Dec." 28 marked the return of
Crawford to the lineup. Although
Crawford was nowhere near 100
percent healthy, he scored 27 points
m only 28minutes to lead Rice to ^
V8 v.) win over Southern.
After ending their six game road
trip, the team returned b> Autry
Court to defeat the United States
Naval Academy 69-52, Igo lead the
war with i f
to a 5-4 winning record.
In their next game, the OwlS
SEE MiN. PAGE 13
I figured, why should the Thresher
be any different? So, with much fan-
fare, 1 have assembled a somewhat
unconventional collection of the past
year's defining highlights for the
sake of forever burning them into
the psyches of fans everywhere:
Studliest Athlete — Tiger
Woods
You know you are good when
you leave college as a sophomore to
play a sport and no one objects, ex
perts start using phrases like "rede-
fining The game".and "potentially
best ever" when referring to you,
ami people actually start watchuig
golf because of you, He won his
third amateur crown and then, in
eight pro tournaments against the
PC,As best, won two titles and had
five top-10 finishes. This guy will
amaze for years to come.
Hardest Choke — Greg
Norman
The Shark nets this distinction
for his exploits in the Masters. It
downright hurt to watch his six-
stroke lead disappear like a codfish
in a feeding frenzy in the final round.
1 haven't witnessed a faltering like
that since my tennis-playing days in
high school. I feel your pain, Greg.
Gutsiest Call — John _
Mackovic
Now, I am no University of Texas
fan. but I went absolutely nuts when
they ran a roll out f)*gpon fou#h and
ijiches from their own 28-yard line,
leading by three with 2:38 remain-
versus lauded powerhouse Ne
braskadl was dumbfounded b^ the
stupidity of such a call until it wi'nt
for 61 yards. Then I realized that
sometimes a lack of common sense
can be compensated for by adequate
anatomical representation "south of
the border."
Biggest Jerk — Roberto
Alomar.
Robbie wins the no-class award
of the decade for his spitting inci-
dent. You must really be a bad egg
to bring up someone's deceased
child in an argument over a simple
call in a baseball game and then to
disrespect the person so harshly
without remorse. Have Some de-
cency, for God's sake.
Best Actor —- Karl Malone
I'm not an S/E, so it blows my
mind how a 256-pound powe/ for-
ward can be brushed by a 185-pound
point guard and go flying 20 feet into
the seats or how air molecules can
cause a personal foul. Somehow, the
Mailman creates such situations and
wins the hearts and minds of cod-
dling rets everywhere. He should
win more Academy Awards, than
Jerry Maguire for his tremendous
performance this past year.
Coolest Advertisement* —
Nike
Those Lombardi commercials
with Jerry Stiller are awesome, as
are the stop-action Jordan" dunk and
the Tiger Woods spot. The Swoosh
ad producers are geniuses. Year af
ter year, they crank out gems and
make me damn proud to be an owner
of their products.
Most Dedicated Fan — Mel
Kanoke
No. he didn't snag a playable fly
ball at Yankee stadium while skip
ping school. Instead, he earned this
distinction by "feeling the power" at
all but 11 of the Packers' games in
hallowed Lambeau over his lengthy
lifetime. I wonder how many append-
ages he has lost to frostbite?
Ugliest New Uniforms —
Baltimore Ravens
A flying "B"? How hard was that
to come up with? Then, they accom-
pany this logo with a hideous purple
nnd-black ensemble.JLcould not even
watch the Ravens-Jaguars game be
cause the colors were giving me a
.headache. When are people going
to realize that letters cannot talTe ty
the air or wear cowboy hats and that
certain colors just don't mix?
Worst Shaft —■ Rice not
making a bowl game
The low of my sports year was
not getting to watch the Owls wreak
havotyn a bowl game after such an
awesome season.
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Beard, M. Margaret & Rao, Vivek. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 84, No. 14, Ed. 1 Friday, January 17, 1997, newspaper, January 17, 1997; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth246556/m1/12/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.