Sports
Wednesday, Feb. 5, 1986
University Daily Kansan
13
Craig Sands/KANSAN
Randy Eccker, Colorado's assistant basketball coach, demonstrates how to get inside position. The Buffaloes practiced last night at Allen Field House. Kansas and Colorado will tip-on tonight at 7:35 p.m.
Tar Heels overtake Georgia Tech in OT
United Press International
ATLANTA — The North Carolina Tar Heels, which have made a habit of late-game poise to maintain their top ranking, provided another clutch performance last night.
North Carolina trailed No. 2 Georgia Tech by 13 points with less than 12 minutes left. However, the Tar Heels used a 9-0 spurt to tie the score and force overtime play.
In the extra period, Joe Wolf converted four free throws in the final minute to lift the No. 1 Tar Heels to a 78-77 triumph over the Yellow Jackets.
"We just had a tremendous second half," North Carolina head coach Dean Smith said. "We did the things we had to do to catch up and win.
"Things looked bad for us at one time when we were 13 points down. But we never faltered. We never thought of the rankings, at least I know I didn't, and I'll bet Tech didn't either."
The Tar Heels, 23-1 overall and 2-1 in the Atlantic Coast Con
ference, trailed 59-46 with 11:56 left in regulation. Wolf, a 6-foot-10 forward, scored six points in the 9-0 spurt.
North Carolina tied the score 70-70 on a turnaround jumper by Brad Daugherty with 55 seconds left and neither team was able to score again before overtime.
Daugherty, a 7-foot senior who had 22 points, got the first basket of overtime. Wolf, who had 14 points, sank two free throws with 46 seconds remaining to give the Tar Heels a 76-72 edge and contributed two more points with 11 seconds left to give North Carolina a 3-point lead.
Georgia Tech, 17-3 and 6-2, dominated play in the first half, building a 42-32 lead with freshman Tom Hammonds getting 12 points. With Mark Price hitting from the outside in the opening minutes of the second half, the Yellow Jackets, who lost to North Carolina 85-77 on Jan. 25, maintained their lead until the Tar Heels began their stretch run.
Four freshmen to start for Buffs
By Matt Tidwell
Colorado will scrap its usual starting line-up in favor of four freshmen and one sophomore against Kansas tonight at Allen Field House, Buffalo head coach Tom Apke said yesterday.
Sports writer
only one regular starter, freshman
Matt Bullard, will remain in Apke's
Colorado
Men's Basketball
8-11 (Big 8, 0-6)
7:35 tonight
(106 km)
at Lawrence
new line-up. The benched starters include Randy Downs and Mike Rei
Downs is perhaps the biggest sur prise of the four benched players. Although he's been slumping, Downs is still the Buffalooes' leading scorer, averaging 13.7 points and 6.7 rebounds each game. In the Jayhawks' last meeting against Colorado
"We're hoping this new line-up can get some things going for us," Apke said. "Randy hasn't been playing well lately, and Scott (Wilke, a 6-foot-9-inch freshman center) will start the game."
Downs scored 16 points and grabbed five rebounds.
Apke said Kansas had a well-balanced team and it could take more than a revised line-up to beat the Jayhawks, especially at Allen Field House.
"Randy's always seemed to play well against me," Dreiling said. "He's got some quickness and he's been around awhile. He's real experienced."
Kansas center Greg Dreiling was scheduled to draw Downs defensively.
"When you add all that up it becomes really scary for us to have to play our young kids in that kind of environment." Apke said.
Colorado is 8-11 overall and 0-6 in the Big Eight, Kansas, which is tied
for the Big Eight lead with Oklahoma, is 20-3 and 5-1 respectively.
A Jayhawk victory will break the all-time Kansas winning streak at the field house. Kansas is looking for its 29th consecutive win. Tomorrow night's game will be the first for the Jayhawks at home since their 71-69 win over Louisville on Jan. 25.
Kansas won last Saturday 64-50 over Kansas State in Manhattan. The Jayhawks got their 20th win earlier than any other Kansas team since 1970-71.
Colorado arrived in Lawrence yesterday afternoon and had a chance last night to practice in Allen Field House.
"I don't know that getting a chance to practice here is such a big deal," Apke said. "When you do it that way you usually can't practice as long and you can't control the practices as well."
Apkie said the Buffaloes had to arrive a day early to all of their conference stops because of poor travel accessibility from Boulder.
Probable Starters
Colorado
NOTES — Manning is averaging 21.0 points in Big Eight play and 16.1 on the season... Kansas has taken the last four games from the Buffs. Colorado last won 89-85 on Feb. 29, 1984, in Boulder... Dreiling has made 25 of his last 32 shots from the floor.
F 50 Scott Bullard (6-1u)
F 23 Ken Cunenberg (6-3)
C 54 Scott Wilke (9-6)
G 33 David Kuoeman (6-4)
G 21 Jeff Pénix (6-0)
Kansas
F 25 Danny Manning (6-11)
F 44 Ron Kellogg (6-5)
C 30 Greg Drelling (7-1)
G 35 Gus Thinpinson (6-5)
G 22 Gedric Hunter (6-0)
Gentry to see other side of Colorado
By Matt Tidwell Sports writer
When the Colorado men's basketball team takes the court tonight for pre-game warm ups, don't be surprised if a few of the Buffaloes stop
Alvin Gentry
by the Kansas bench to shake hands with Jayhawk assistant coach Alvin Gentry
For much of the past eight years.
Gentry and the Buffaloes are very familiar with each other.
Gentry has been sitting on the other side of Allen Field House as an assistant coach for Colorado.
"I don't think it'll have any special significance for me," Gentry said. "I look at it as just another conference game that we have to win."
Gentry was hired this season to replace Bob Hill, who took an assistant coaching job with the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association.
"I'll be real strange watching the kids you recruited play against you," Gentry said. "But that's strange for anybody who changes jobs and stays in the same conference."
Gentry said he would dismiss any sentimental feelings for his old team tonight. His job is the same no matter who lines up against the Jahwacs.
Gentry's new team is quite different from his old one. The Jayhawks have a winning program while Colorado fans have had to sit through losing seasons three of the last four years.
"I think the people at Colorado do a good job," Gentry said. "The team is just really young. If people are patient with them I think they'll turn the corner."
Gentry said his old boss, Colorado coach Tom Apkie, and Kansas coach Larry Brown were similar. In Brown's case, superior talent has meant the difference between a good team and a mediocre one.
"I think they're both very good coaches on the floor," he said. "They both do a great job teaching players. I think Coach Brown has had a lot
more talent to work with.
"A player like Danny (Manning) can make a huge difference on a team, and Coach Brown has benefited by having great players like that."
Gentry said he had made a smooth transition into the Jayhawk system because Brown had helped him fit in by giving him some major responsibilities.
"I think Coach Brown tries to make it so that you’re involved with all aspects of the game," he said. "I really respect him for that."
Gentry was a high school all-stater in Shelby, N.C., and later played for Bob Cremins, now the Georgia Tech coach, at Appalachian State University.
Track athlete puts new life into jumping
Sports writer
By Jim Suhr Sports writer
Branstrom competing again for 'Hawks despite injuries and doctor's warnings
A severe spinal injury and a concussion might force most athletes to quit.
But for KU high jumper and decathlon competitor Craig Branstrom, it only presented another challenge — a challenge Branstrom is willing to risk his life for.
Doctors have warned Branstrom that after two shocks to his spinal system, one more could result in permanent paralysis or death. A spinal injury in 1984 left Branstrom temporarily paralyzed.
He said his experiences, however,
had made him more of a competitor,
and dying while doing something he
loved was worth the risk.
Branstrom, unable to move any part of his body or even talk, lay on the concrete for 45 minutes as paramedics attended to what they thought was a broken neck. His eyes welled up from the rain because he was unable to blink. The voices of the curious spectators who gathered around him seemed muffled.
Craig Branstrom
At that moment, Branstrom said,
he thought as if he were alive but felt
dead.
BRANSTROM PROFILE
Branstrom's troubles began as a freshman on a rainy and overcast afternoon April 7, 1984. While attempting a high jump at the Kansas State Invitational, Branstrom landed incorrectly or the unusually soft pits and struck the pavement. The impact bruised his spinal column and severed a nerve.
Family: parents, Marv and Alice Branstrom.
"Everyone gathered around me and stared at me," he said. "I thought I was at my own funeral and they were looking at my casket for the last time."
Branstrom, who said his injuries had not affected the height he could jump, is back this year. He said he thought it would be a successful season.
Class and Major: junior in psychology.
Hometown: Half Moon Bay, Calif.
Age: 21
In his first competition of the year last Saturday, Branstrom defied the doctors and placed second in the high jump at the Missouri Invitational. He jumped 6-feet-8.
Background: One of six Jayhawk team captains. Tied for fourth at the 1984 Big Eight Indoor Championship with a leap of 6-9 $ _{1/2} $ in the high jump. Set KU freshman decathlon record. Named all-league in football, basketball and track in high school.
After a week at Lawrence Memorial Hospital, Branstrom slowly began to regain feeling in his body.
The recovery wasn't easy on Branstrom. He was forced to redshift the rest of the season. He said the time he spent away from the track made him feel hateful and question his faith in God.
And compete he did. Branstrom
"I wondered at first why God would do something like this to people," he said. "But now I understand it was the will of God to confront me with such a situation, it's made me a stronger Christian."
During the next summer, a weakened Branstrom underwent physical therapy near his home in Half Moon Bay, Calif., to rebuild his body. He was determined to compete again.
returned for his sophomore season to the dismay of his doctors, who felt he wasn't ready to compete. Subsequently, they pulled him out of several meets during that season, but they didn't pull him out of one.
In that meet, Branstrom received a severe concussion after he polevaulted past the landing-pits and struck the cement again. It was then, he said, that the doctors warned him of the life-threatening consequences of another accident.
Doctors once again stepped in and forced Branstrom to miss most of the remainder of the season.
Rick Attig, his jump coach, said Branstrom was determined to be a winner.
"He's a very intense competitor." he said. "Sometimes he can get too competitive, even to the point where
"If I had to give up track and field, I would be miserable," he said. "My mother and father said they would rather see me die doing something I loved rather than be miserable."
Branstrom said the side effects of the injury now caused lower back pains and hesitation when he jumped, but his experiences had made him a better competitor.
"Whenever I consider cutting corners in practice or anywhere else, I think about how a paraplegic would trade places with me any day," he said. "Coach (Steve) Kueffer always told me that I don't have to run, I get to run. I'm thankful."
he gets down on himself when he doesn't do things right."
A determined Branstrom said he would never give in.
Splish Splash
Chris Wright, Lincoln senior, practices for a dual swim meet this weekend against Nebraska. Wright, a middle-distance freestyle swimmer, was preparing for the meet with the rest of the women's swim team yesterday at Robin son Natalorium.
Mary Burger/KANSAN
Sports Briefs
Valesente suspends four football players
Four KU football players have been suspended from the team indefinitely, head coach Bob Valesente said yesterday.
The players suspended are defensive end Amonte Holloman, defensive back Kevin Harkless, tight end Jeff Anderson and offensive lineman Wes Hendricks. Both Anderson and Hendricks were red-shirted last season
In a prepared statement, Valesente said the players were suspended for "failing to live up to the academic and football program standards."
The statement declined to comment on what prompted the suspensions, but it said they would remain suspended until the incidences for which they were suspended could be reviewed properly.
junior varsity wins
The statement said the players involved would retain their scholarships.
Rodney Hull and Jerry Johnson each scored 21 points in leading the Kansas junior varsity basketball team to a 76-72 win over Cloud
County last night at Concordia.
Kansas lea 36-35 at halftime and improved its record to 11-4.
The single elimination tournament will begin at 9 a.m. Saturday on the main basketball courts in Robinson.
Tournev entries due
Entries for the co-recreational basketball tournament are due at 5 p.m. tomorrow in 208 Robinson Center.
Registrations for the racquetball singles tournament also are due by 5 p.m. tomorrow in 208 Robinson.
The racquetball tournament will begin at 1:30 p.m. Sunday at the Robinson ract球 court.
3 Bears take honors
Running back Walter Payton was named the National Football Conference offensive player, linebacker Mike Singleton was the defensive player and Mike Ditka was the coach of the year.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Super Bowl players and coaches dominate the list of award winners for the 16th annual 101 Banquet honoring top performers in professional football.
From staff and wire reports