MONDAY, MARCH 24, 2003
SPORTS
"I like Bugs Bunny."
Keith Langford when asked his favorite Disney character
2B • THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, MARCH 24, 2003
Doyle Murphy
dmurphy@kansan.com
Inside Sports later scoring system criticized
Wow, this is going to be a great Final Four.
West games should be in Final Four
you've got perennial powerhouse Arizona playing an up-and-coming Notre Dame squad. On the other side, a match-up between Duke and Kansas, the cornerstones of college basketball, is sure to be worth at least 10 replays per year on ESPN Classic.
Surely, you're joking. There's no way the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee could have put four legitimate contenders in the same bracket.
Simply amazing. What great games.
What great story lines. What great ...
Wait a minute. What? That's not the
Final Four field? Those four teams are
just trying to make it out of the West
regional?
Three of those teams finished the season ranked in the top 10 of the Associated Press Top 25 — No. 2 Arizona, No. 6 Kansas and No. 7 Duke — and Notre Dame was No. 22. They had 105 victories between them and only 25 losses.
Kansas coach Roy Williams seems to know a lot about basketball. Maybe he can make sense of all this.
This really is March Madness.
And what's that? Notre Dame is a fifth seed and knocked off Illinois? Man, I bet that ruined a few brackets. Weren't the Illini everyone's dark-horse pick for the championship?
"The whole West Region is just mind-boggling." Williams said on Selection Sunday. "Duke won their conference tournament, Illinois won their conference tournament and they're seeded lower and Florida got a two seed. I'm confused."
All right, maybe not.
Well, maybe all of the regions are just as strong as the West.
Nope. The East's top four have won only 98 games between them, and the South recorded a whopping 86 triumphs, 19 fewer than the West.
Aw, but then there is the Midwest regional.
The four survivors totaled 107 victories. Selection committee vindication except that a disproportionate number of those games —31— comes from one team, Kentucky, and most of Butler's victories came in the Horizon League—a respectable mid-major conference but not exactly on par with the ACC, Big 12 or Pac-10.
Still, it'll be a great Final Four, even if it is being played in the Sweet 16.
Murphy is a Baldwin City senior in journalism.
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Figure skating thought its judging woes were behind it. Not even close.
Though officials have tried to move beyond the scandals and improprieties, judging will be in the spotlight at the World Figure Skating Championships starting today.
starting today.
Critics are bashing the interim scoring system, saying its anonymity creates more credibility problems. They're not sure about the radical, computer-based system that's being developed, either, wondering if it's being rushed into use.
And the referee who blew the whistle on the Salt Lake City pairs scandal left a powerful committee because he doesn't like what's happening to the judging process.
A year after the biggest judging scandal in Olympic history, skating is still trying to clean up the mess.
"We don't have the time to keep playing around," said Robin Wagner, coach of Olympic gold medalist Sarah Hughes. "Our sport is at an important turning point."
The International Skating Union tried at its June congress to find ways to prevent cheating and make the sport more accountable.
The first step was approving development of a high-tech points system that would do away with the century-old 6.0 scoring scale.
For use in the interim, delegates approved a Canadian proposal that uses the 6.0 scoring system but keeps marks anonymous.
A computer randomly decides before
the event which scores to count; at worlds, nine of the 14 judges' marks will be used. All of the marks are posted, but no one — not skaters, fans or even the judges themselves — know which counted or who gave them.
Even the Canadians have said there should be a more public display of marks. And they came up with the idea.
But the U.S. Figure Skating Association opposes the interim system, saying it has led to "an environment of mistrust."
"I don't believe anyone is happy with this interim system," said Ron Pfenning, the referee of the pairs event in Salt Lake City. "There is no accountability, the athletes and public have no idea what the marks mean. It's very confusing.
Pfenning is so concerned the judging process has been circumvented that he resigned from the ISU's powerful technical committee.
In December, the ISU unilaterally issued a communique prohibiting the release of individual judges' marks at the post-event meeting. But Pfenning said that prevents the referees from accurately evaluating the judgments and the job they did.
It was, after all, during a post-event discussion of marks at the 2002 Games that Marie-Reine Le Gougne said she'd been pressured to vote for the Russians over the Canadians.
Pfenning filed a formal protest this month, and ISU president Ottavio Cinquanta responded by removing him as referee of the women's event at worlds. Pfenning then resigned from the technical committee
The ISU council is supposed to vote at worlds whether to use the new points system in the Grand Prix events next season. It's been tested this year but never actually determined results.
This project is Cinquanta's baby, and he made sure the entire congress voted on it while other reform proposals were left to the figure skating delegates.
Delegates assumed the congress would have to vote again in 2004 before the new system could be used at a world championships or Olympics, but now they're not so sure.
The vote "explicitly authorizes the council to decide when the new system can be implemented at the major ISU events," the ISU said in a statement.
There are still plenty of people who don't like the idea of an X Games-like points system for a sport that combines art and athleticism.
Under the proposal, every element has a set points value. Skaters would be graded on their execution of the elements, and would also get additional marks for things such as performance and choreography.
All of the marks would be added together for one final score.
"One of the unique things about figure skating is there is the artistic factor," Hughes said.
That's why the new system needs more testing.
"This is all in such a state of flux. The change has just been tremendous," USFSA president Phyllis Howard said. "I think people have to step back a little bit, and give it all a chance to work."
Royals beat Arizona in close game
The Associated Press
SURPRISE, Ariz. — Mike Sweeney hit his sixth home run in 15 at-bats and Mike Tucker homered twice as the Kansas City Royals took an 11-run lead and held on to beat an Arizona Diamondbacks' split squad 12-11 yesterday.
Arizona's Elmer Dessens gave up five homers in the first two innings, with Mendy Lopez, Mike DiFelice and Tucker hitting consecutive home runs in the second.
Tucker and Sweeney both had four RBIs, each doubling in a five-run third inning.
Since going hitless in his first five atbats, Sweeney is batting.563 (27-for-48)
with seven homers, four doubles and 20 RBIs. He has hit safely in 17 of his past 18 games.
"I'm where I want to be at this point in spring training," Sweeney said. "But I feel like there's still a little room for improvement. We still have more than a week to go and I want to peak for opening day."
ingway. Sweeney, a three-time All-Star, hit 340 last season, the second in the AL to Boston's Manny Ramirez (349).
The Royals led 11-0 after three innings. After Arizona closed, rookie reliever Mike MacDougal pitched a perfect ninth for his second save.
first four starts, covering 14 innings. Dessens allowed 10 runs and nine hits in 22-3 innings, his ERA rising to 5.09.
Dessens, the Diamondbacks' No. 3 starter behind Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling, had not allowed a run in his
Winner Jeremy Affeldt gave up five runs and six hits in 5 1-3 innings, allowing a fourth-inning homer to Luis Gonzalez.
Sean Lowe, the fourth Royals' pitcher, faced six batters in the eighth and allowed four runs without getting an out.
Notes:
The 11,517 attendance was the largest for a Royals' home spring-training game. The Royals optioned RHPs Jeremy Hill, Brad Voyles and Kyle Snyder and OF Aaron Guiel to Triple-A Omaha and C Mike Tonis to Double-A Wichita.
I'm not one to complain, but I'm under five feet of snow in Colorado, Denver airport has
图
go play a game of Horse's Ass with her?
We're in Wilmington, N.C., right now and we're playing some Ultimate Frisbee and doing a good job at it, so be proud of us.
Marian Washington does not make as much money as Roy Williams, and if you doubt her athletic ability or dedication, why don't you
Ha ha, Missouri beat KU. Suck it, KU. Who sucks now? Oh yeah, KU sucks. KU sucks!
canceled two of my flights, and on top of that. CBS isn't carrying any of the KU games out here.
it's just about halftime during the Arizona State-KU game, and I have never been so proud of our boys. You guys rock.
it's just about halftime during the Arizona State-KU game, and I have never been so proud of our boys. You guys rock.
I went to Mizzou to visit my brother, had a KU sticker on my windshield and got flipped off. Asshole.
it's just about halftime during the Arizona State-KU game, and I have never been so proud of our boys. You guys rock.
What are you more concerned with?
POLL
kansan.com
The war in Iraq
The NCAA basketball tournament
Log on to www.kansan.com to cast your vote
LAST WEEK'S POLL RESULTS
Where will the Kansas men's basketball team finish in the Big 12 tournament?
- First—378 votes for 57 percent
- Second—163 votes for 25 percent
- Third—51 votes for 8 percent
- Fourth or lower—69 votes for 10 percent
659 votes were cast
TODAY
Kansas Athletics Calendar
Women's golf, Betsy Rawls Longhorn Classic, all day, Austin, Texas Men's golf, Stevinson Ranch Invitational, all day, Stevinson Ranch Golf Club, Stevinson, Calif.
TOMORROW
Baseball vs. Baker, at 6 p.m., Hoglund Ballpark
Softball vs. Oklahoma City, 2 p.m. and 4 p.m., Kansas softball stadium Women's golf, Betsy Rawls Longhorn Classic; all day, Austin, Texas Men's golf, Stevinson Ranch Invitational, all day, Stevinson Ranch Golf Club, Stevinson, Calif.
WEDNESDAY
THURSDAY
Women's golf, Betsy Rawls Longhorn Classic, all day, Austin, Texas
FRIDAY
Men's basketball vs. Duke, NCAA Sweet Sixteen, 8:57 p.m., Anaheim, Calif. Track, Emporia State Twilight, all day, Emporia
Baseball vs. Oklahoma State, 6 p.m.
Hogland Ballpark
Tennis at Texas Tech, 1 p.m., Lubbock,
Texas
SATURDAY
Baseball vs. Oklahoma State, 2 p.m.
Hooldin Ballpark
Softball at Iowa State, 2 p.m., Ames,
Iowa
Tennis at Baylor, noon, Waco, Texas
Rowing, Dual with Texas, all day, Austin,
Texas
SUNDAY
Baseball vs. Oklahoma State, 1 p.m., Hoglund Ballpark Softball at Iowa State, 1 p.m., Ames, Iowa
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