Sports
University Daily Kansan / Tuesday, April 28, 1987
11
Dreiling striving for starting role in NBA
KANSAN file photo
Greg Dreiling is learning to adjust to his new role as back-up center for the Indiana Pacers. Dreiling, who plays behind starting center Steve Stipanovich, says his primary role is to step in if a teammate is in foul trouble or is hurt.
Pacers' position frustrates ex-'Hawk
By JOHN BUZBEE
Staff writer
Greg Dreiling has been sitting on the Indiana Pacers' bench much of the season, and he's hot to get off of it.
"It's intensified the fires in me," he said from Atlanta on Friday. "I'm working harder than ever."
The Pacers headed into the first round of the NBA playoffs led by 6-foot-8 rookie forward Chuck Person. They've lost their first two games in a best of five series with Atlanta. Dreiling, the 7-1 center who helped propel the Jayhawks into the Final Four last year, has been lost in the shadows.
"It's a big change," he said. "The media attention dies down immediately."
Dreiling was in the spotlight last spring. The Jayhawks were one of the best teams in the country, and he towered above his teammates. The media couldn't get enough of Dreiling, sophomore Danny Manning and seniors Calvin Thompson and Ron Kellog.
"I wished, at times, when I had all those interviews I could toss a few the other way," he said.
He doesn't have many interviews any more, except for stories about what it's like to sit on the bench. So what's it like to sit on the bench?
He tries to encourage his teammates who are playing. He tells them ways to improve their games from the coach. He makes plans.
"In a way, it's not bad," he said.
"It gives me some time to do some thinking."
Dreiling is thinking about being one of the best centers in the country. He's thinking about practicing this summer, about working on his lateral movement. He's going to do whatever he has to.
"I want to be regarded as one of the best centers," he said, "and that's something that's going to be driving me in the off-season."
Dreiling didn't always show that drive during his early years at Kansas. He also didn't sit on the bench much. This season, he only played in about a fourth of the Pacers games.
"I'm going to use it to my advantage," he said. "Every minute I sit on the bench the desire to work hard increases."
His longest playing time this
season was 15 minutes against Chicago. He scored a career-high eight points against Detroit. His primary role is to step in if a teammate is in foul trouble or is hurt, he said.
"You're getting paid to do your job," he said, "and whether you're playing or not, you have to stay
ready."
Dreiling plays behind starting center Steve Stipanovich, who starred on the championship Missouri teams of the early '80s. The Pacers have another Big Eight Conference stand-out, former Oklahoma Sooner Wayman Tisdale.
"When you put on the same uniform," Dreiling said, "you realize it's all in the past."
That past included bitter confrontations between Kansas and Oklahoma as the up-and-coming Jayhawks challenged the champ.
See DREILING, p. 12, col. 1
Astros end skid beat Mets by 10
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Jim Deshaies pitched a four-hitter for seven innings and drove in two runs, and Glenn Davis and Billy Hatcher hit a home run as the Houston Astros routed the New York Mets 11-1 last night.
National League
Houston ended a three-game losing streak and sent the Mets to their third straight loss in the first meeting this season between last year's National League division winners.
The Astros rattled Dive Cone, 0-2, who was making his first major-league start. Cone gave up 10 runs in five innings, allowing seven hits, walking six and throwing two wild pitches in the third, and Mets Manager Davey Johnson was ejected for arguing the first call.
Deshiesa, 20, allowed only a first-inning home run to Keith Hernandez and went on to strike out seven and walk five. Aurelio Lopez and Julio Solano each worked a scoreless inning to finish the game.
Expos 6. Phillies 4
PHILADELPHIA — Neal Heaton allowed five hits in eight innings and Andres Galarravar drove in three
runs as the Montreal Expos defeated the Philadelphia Phillies 6-4 last night, snapping a three-game losing streak.
Tim Burke relieved Heaton, 3-1,
who struck out six and walked one,
when he was hit on the right leg by a
line drive hit by leadoff batter Juan
Samuel in the ninth. Milt Thompson
followed with a single and Mike
touched in a three-run homer with
one out, getting the Philies within
two runs.
After Lance Parrish singled, Randy St. Clair relieved Burke and got the last two outs for his third save.
Giants 7. Braves 3
ATLANTA — Pitcher Kelly Downs singled in the tie-breaking run in the seventh inning and Chili Davis hit a two-run single and a homer as the San Francisco Giants downed the Atlanta Braves 7-3 yesterday.
Downs, in his second season, collected the first game-winning RBI of his career when he scored Matt Williams from second and baked a 11-tie.
Williams started the two-out rally with a single and Robby Thompson followed with a walk before Down's hit. After Will Clark walked to the bases, Davis delivered his two run single, ousting Rick Mahler, 2-2.
Kansas signs guard from Midland Juco
Staff writer
Bv ROB KNAPP
The Kansas Jayhawks, weathering what has so far been a slow signing period, have signed junior college guard Lincoln Minor to a national letter of intent, Kansas coach Larry Brown announced yesterday.
Minor, a 6-foot-3, 170 pound guard from Midland Junior College in Midland, Texas, should be one of the top candidates to fill the point guard position left open by the departure of Cedric Hunter.
"We're thrilled to have him," Brown said. "He has great quickness and is a product of a tremendously successful program at Midland."
Minor averaged 16.1 points and 4.1 rebounds a game last season as Midland finished 32-4 and came within a game of winning the National Junior College Athletic Association championship.
The year before, Minor was a starter when Midland went 33-1 and
This year, he hit 51.8 percent of his field goal attempts and 76.8 percent
of his free throws and was named to his all-conference and all-region teams.
Minor did not play point guard in Midland's three-guard offense, but his 140 assists and 97 steals in 35 games this year attest to his ballhandling skills.
Minor considered Ohio State. Auburn and the University of Miami, Fla., before signing with the Jay-hawks.
Minor's teammate, Daron "Mookie" Blaylock, is among the recruits who have visited Kansas but are still undecided. Blaylock, who led Midland with a 19-6 point scoring average, visited KU last weekend and has also made a recruiting visit to Oklahoma.
He is the second player Kansas has signed this spring. Joe Young, a 6-foot 7 forward from Dodge City Compton, moved to the Jayhawks two weeks ago.
The current signing period ends May 15.
Kings name Russell as new head coach
The Associated Press
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Bill Russell, five times the NBA's most valuable player and a player-coach of the world champion Boston Celtics during the 1960s, was named head coach yesterday of the Sacramento Kings.
Kings managing general partner Gregg Lukenbill and president Joe Axelson said Russell signed a seventy-year contract to serve an unspecified number of years and eventually succeed him as general manager and president.
Jerry Reynolds, who succeeded Phil Johnson as interim head coach after Johnson was dismissed during the all-star break, will return to his previous post as assistant coach next year under Russell.
Russell, 53, who in 1980 was selected as the greatest player in the history of the NBA by the Professional Basketball Writers' Association of America, has not coached left the Seattle SuperSonics in 1977.
He said he was attracted to the post because the Kings offered a long-term contract that would give him the time needed to build a championship team, and because it was just 90
miles from the San Francisco Bay area, where he played high school and college ball, and where his father still lives.
"I've been offered some jobs before, but they were always on the East Coast," said Russell, whose current home is Seattle.
Russell, who has been a television commentator for the past decade, said he decided about two years ago that he wanted to return to coaching, but only under the right circumstances.
An Olympic gold medal winner and a member of the All-American team at the University of San Francisco, Russell played for the Celtics from 1956-65, then served as player-coach from 1966 to 1969. He played on 11 world championship Celtic teams, including two as player-coach.
Although Russell said he expected it would take several years to build the Kings, 29-53 this past season, into champions, he predicted that "without too much of a change, ought to be able to get close to .500."
He said he thought the Kings have five players "that are really good" on their roster, but that their greatest star was defense — Russell's specialty.
Track team worries about loss of 6 seniors
Seattle, Oakland win
SEATTLE — John Christensen drove home Phil Bradley with the winning run in the bottom of the
American League
With one out in the eighth, Bradley walked, stole his league-leading 10th base of the season, and scored on Christensen's single to center and broke a 2 tie.
The Associated Press
eighth inning as the Seattle Mariners defeated the Detroit Tigers 5-2 last night.
Following an intentional walk to Alvin Davis, Christensen scored on a single by John Moses. Davis came home on a bloop single over the head of Tiger first baseman Darrell Evans.
Denise Buchanan, an All-American in the shot put, is one of six seniors leaving the women's track team this year. Buchanan has led the Jawahres in total points earned in a season for the past four years.
OAKLAND, Calif. — Curt Young pitched a six-hitter and Jose Canseco had four hits last night, leading the Oakland Athletics to a 5-2 victory over the Boston Red Sox
Boston's hits included the 2,000th of Don Baylor's career, a single in the seventh inning.
Athletics 5, Boston 2
By DIANE FILIPOWSKI
How do you replace a group of six seniors who have been team leaders and scored more than half of their team's points in four years?
Cliff Rovello, assistant women's track coach, had to think about the question for a moment.
"I don't think you ever replace people like that, he said."
The Kansas women's track team will try to replace this group of seniors that has been a mainstay in the program as it nears the end of this year's track season.
Kansas will lose Denise Buchanan,
weights; Julie Hall, multi-event;
Jaci Metzger, multi-event and
jumps; Charla Rosenberry, sprints
and hurdles; Rosie Wadman, multi-event and jumps; and Mia Wickliffe,
sprints.
'They were not just talented athletes that you hoped would come through They were athletes that you knew would come through everytime.'
— Cliff Rovelto
Carla Coffey, women's track coach, said she didn't like to think of this year's recruits as replacing these seniors, but said she had to continue building the foundation of the team.
Assistant women's track coach
"It will be different," Coffey said, "but we have to find quality athletes that will rebuild the program and are losing 75 percent of our strength."
Coffey, who came to Kansas in 1960, said this group was her first
recruiting class at KU. The arrival of these athetles also marked a turn around in the program.
"The year before they came",
Coffey said, "we had slipped to fifth
in the outdoor conference meet. Since
we have never fallen below the top half."
The Jayhawks finished third at this year's Big Eight Indoor Conference Championships.
But, Rovelto said, without the six athletes. Kansas probably would have been consistently seventh or eighth at the conference championships.
But team members and the coaches said they would not miss the points.
Denise Buchanan, an All-American in the shot put who has had the team's top individual point totals for four years, said she knew that she could probably be replaced.
"They can always find someone to score the points." Buchanan said.
"They were not just talented athletes that you hoped would come through," Rovello said. "They were athletes that you knew would come through everytime."
people "
Rovello said he would not only remember the records this group set or the points it scored, but how it worked toward these accomplishments.
"I will remember overcoming the obstacles and the work that was involved," Rovertel said. "I'll remember the disappointing times we had and when we had to work together to overcome them."
Ann O'Connor, a junior and the team's only returning All-American,
See SENIORS. n. 12. col. 3