TUESDAY, MARCH 12, 2013
Y KANSAN
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
just some games, but playing in its going to lead The Hoosiers like a national guard in Yogi Jordan Hulls, an player in Victor big men in the men they are onutch with the orier upset in the ect Indiana to georgia Dome.
ed by Paige Lytle
PAGE 7
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SOCIATED PRESS Wichita State title game.
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DOG SLEDDING
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Volunteers hang a banner above the burled arch, which serves as the finish line for the 1,000-mile iditarod Trail Dog Race in Nome, Alaska, on Monday. The race began March 3 in Willow, Alaska, and some race watchers predict a Tuesday finish.
Iditarod veterans battle for lead in race's final stretch
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NOME, Alaska — Alaska's famous 1,000-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race has come down to a furiously contested match among veterans, with one seasoned musher grabbing the lead back from another throughout the day Monday.
Sled positioning trackers showed 2004 Iditarod winner Mitch Seavey 12 miles ahead of four-time champion Jeff King and last year's runner-up Aliy Zirkle by evening as they headed to the
checkpoint at Elim, 123 miles from the finish line in Nome, a frontier town on Alaska's wind-punneled coast. Others were closing in, including Ray Redington Ir.
the grandson of race co-founder Joe Redington Sr.
"The way things are looking right now, it could be one of those close ones."
Close behind Redington was Nome favorite Aaron Burmeister, racing toward his hometown. All were within striking distance of each other.
If Burmeister were to win the iditarod, one local official said, it could be pandemonium. The "place would come unglued," said Richard Beneville, the vice president of the Nome Chamber of Commerce.
Even though Seavey's son, Dallas Seavey, won after beating Zirkle by an hour last year, leaders in this year's Iditarod have been leapfrogging each other. That led race spokeswoman Erin McLarnon to call this year's race of the tightest in years.
Monday from Seavey, leaving the Kovuk checkpoint first.
Front-runners began traveling north along the frozen Bering Sea Coast on Sunday as they jockeyed for the front of the line.
King snatched the lead earlier
King left Koyuk just six minutes after arriving, then camped out for a while 8 miles from the checkpoint. His team began moving again late morning.
"You must be having fun," a local said in an Iditarod.com video as the 57-year-old veteran prepared to leave Koyuk.
"Does it show?" King said.
Seavey fed his team as King headed out.
Seavey had been leading since Sunday and beat King to Kovuk
ERIN MCLARNON
Race spokeswomar
by 34 minutes.
The 53-year-old musher rested his team then left three hours and two minutes after King.
"Only one thing to do," Seavey said in
an lditarod.com video. "I can't make speed without resting."
The race began March 2 with 66 teams at a ceremonial start in Anchorage. The competitive start began the following day in Willow and has since changed leaders several times. Those at the front of the field included four-time champions Lance Mackey and Martin Buser, who were running in 16th and 17th place, respectively, on Monday.
Mushers have taken mandatory 24-hour and 8-hour layovers. They also must take a second eight-hour layover at the checkpoint at White Mountain, 77 miles from Nome.
Five mushers have scratched. A sixth, Canadian Gerry Willomitzer, with drawn Sunday after losing a dog that was later found.
The first musher to reach Nome will win $50,400 and a new 2013 Dodge Ram pickup truck. The rest of the $600,000 purse will be split
As teams push toward Nome, the town of 3,700 was bustling with anticipation.
among the next 29 mushers to cross the finish line.
Volunteers in the old gold rush town erected the famed buried arch on Front Street, a block off the sea, on Sunday. Monday morning, volunteers put up the finish banner that hangs above the arch.
Inside the city's small convention center, which doubles as race headquarters, banners with each musher's name were being hung from the rafters by volunteers working with Alaska Missions including Shannon Scoggins, 22, of Stephenville, Texas.
Her group will spend the rest of the week caring for the canine participants at dog lots on the outskirts of town.
"I'll be a once-in-a-lifetime chance," she said. "We're excited about that."
In Nome, race spokeswoman Erin McLarnon said the race was shaping up to have an exciting finish with so many front-runners clustered together.
But will it match the 1978 mad dash down Front Street that left Dick Mackey as the winner with one second to spare over Rick Swenson, who went on to become the Iditarod's only five-time champion?
Race watchers are predicting a Tuesday afternoon finish in Nome, but off any record-setting pace. McLarnon said it usually takes mushers about 18 hours to reach Front Street after they hit White Mountain, a checkpoint 77 miles from the finish and where they have to take a mandatory eight-hour layover.
"You know, it very well could be," McLarnon said. "The way the things are looking right now, it could be one of those close ones."
NCAA
ASSOCIATED PRESS
lowa State forward Halley Christofferson (5) has her shot blocked by Baylor center Brittney Griner (42) in the first half of their NCAA college basketball championship game in the big 12 Conference tournament, Monday, March 11, 2013, in Dallas.
Baylor wins third Big 12 championship in a row
ASSOCIATED PRESS
DALLAS — Brittney Griner and top-ranked Baylor can now turn their attention to again winning the biggest prize.
Grimer scored 31 points and the defending national champion Lady Bears won their third consecutive Big 12 tournament championship, rolling past No. 23 Iowa State 75-47 Monday night.
In a matchup of the Big 12's top two seeds, the Lady Bears (32-1) and their 6-foot-8 senior star easily earned another trophy in their dominating run through the Big 12.
Griner, already a two-time All-American, had 23 points by half-time, outscoring Iowa State by 10 points on her own.
Odyssey Sims added 20 points for Bayley, including three 3-pointers in the first 4 minutes after halftime.
Anna Prins had 20 points and Nikki Moody 12 for the Cyclones (23-8) in their first Big 12 title game since 2007.
Iowa State got off to a good start with Prins making a 3-pointer on its opening attempt before another long-range shot by Hallie Christofferson for a 6-5 lead. But
the Cyclones then went more than 8 minutes without scoring, a span in which they missed six shots and had eight turnovers while Baylor scored 19 points in a row for a double-digit lead that only got bigger.
Baylor had the lead for good on Griner's putback after she grabbed the rebound of her only missed shot of the first half. Griner was 11 of 12 from the field before halftime.
The Lady Bears were up 41-13 at the break, holding Iowa State to the fewest points ever in a single half of a Big 12 tournament championship game.
Along with the last three Big 12 tournament titles, the Lady Bears have gone undefeated through the league the last two regular seasons for a 49-game conference winning streak. Their fifth Big 12 tournament title — all coming in a stretch that began in 2005, the year of their first national title — broke a tie with Oklahoma for the most in the league.
Baylor will surely be the No.1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament and will play its first games in two weeks on the Waco campus, where the Lady Bears have won a nation-best 55 games in a row.
They have won 30 straight overall since losing against Stanford at a tournament in Hawaii a week into the season.
Griner finished 14 of 17 shooting and had as many field goals as Iowa State's entire team when she came out of the game for good with 4:12 left.
When Griner got near the Baylor bench, she shared a long hug with coach Kim Mulkey while getting a large ovation from the crowd with the game being played only about 100 miles from the Baylor campus.
Priss was coming off a career- high 32 points Sunday in the Cyclones' 79-60 semifinal victory over Oklahoma.
Baylor had a much tougher semifinal match, holding on for a 77-69 victory over Oklahoma State, which was within three in the final minute after the Lady Bears had 18 of their season-high 24 turnovers after halftime. While they never trailed, it was their only game against a Big 12 opponent this season decided by less than 10 points.
BASEBALL
The championship game was more like the kind of games Baylor has had in its Big 12 run: A lopsided score.
Suiter named Big 12 Player of the Week
Kansas sophomore outfielder Michael Suiter was named the Phillips 66 Big 12 Player of the Week after leading the Jayhawks to their first four-game sweep since 2011.
Suiter, named conference player of the week for the first time, went 8-for-14 with seven stolen bases, five runs and two RBI in last week's series against Niagara. Suiter reached base at a .625 clip while maintaining a 10-game hitting streak.
Suiter is the first Jayhawk to earn Big
Kansas will play Jackson State at 3 p.m. Wednesday before starting conference play against TCU on Friday at 6:30 p.m. in Fort Worth, Texas.
12 Player of the Week honors since Jason Brunansky earned the distinction on April 9, 2011.
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