Sports
University Daily Kansan / Tuesday, February 3, 1987
11
UNLV back at top; 'Hawks climb two in new Top 20 Poll
The Associated Press
Nevada-Las Vegas, which had been No.1 for six weeks earlier in the season, returned to the top of The Associated Press' college basketball poll yesterday after a two-week hiatus.
The Runnin' Rebels, 21-1, received 48 first-place votes and 1.243 points from the nationwide panel of sportwriters and broadcasters, easily jumped to fourth place in Hawaii, which jumped from fourth to seventh to first-place votes and 1.181 points.
Kansas, 15.5, moved in to the poll from No. 20 to No. 18 above St. John's and Auburn. Kansas was just recently added to the Ton Twent last week
North Carolina, which had returned to the No. 1 spot for one week, was knocked from the perch after suffering a 60-58 defeat at Notre Dame. The Tar Heels, 18-2, received four first place votes and 1,148 points and will play the next two weeks without senior scoring leader Kenny Smith, who underwent arthroscopic knee surgery last weekend. Smith scored a career-high 41 points in his last game before the surgery, a 108-99 victory last Wednesday over then-No. 14 Clemson.
The Top Twenty By the Associated Press
1. Nev.-Las Vegas 21-1
2. Indiana 17-2
3. North Carolina 18-2
4. Iowa 19-2
5. DePaul 18-1
6. Temple 20-2
7. Purdue 16-3
8. Oklahoma 17-3
9. Alabama 16-3
10. Georgetown 15-3
11. Syracuse 17-3
12. Clemson 19-2
13. Pittsburgh 17-4
14. Illinois 15-5
15. TCU 18-3
16. Duke 16-4
17. Providence 16-3
18. Kansas 15-5
19. St. John's 14-4
20. Auburn 12-6
Nevada-Las Vegas broke the 100-point mark in each of its three victories last week. The Runnin' Rebels won two Pacific Coast Athletic Association games, 106-58 over Fresno State and 114-103 over Cal-Irvine, before beating then-No. 18 Auburn on the road. 104-85.
Indiana, 17-2, registered two big Ten Conference victories last week. The Hoosiers beat then-No. 12 Illinois 69-66 and then-No. 4 Purdue 88-77.
Iowa, the only team other than Nevada-Las Vegas and North Carolina to be ranked No. 1, this year, with 999 points and one first-pick vote. The Hawkeyes, 19-2, lost at Michigan State Saturday, 100-92.
DePaul, the only Division I team besides Nevada-Las Vegas to have just one loss, jumped from eighth to fifth with 93 points, six more than Temple, which moved one spot from last week.
The Blue Demons, 18,1, beat Weber State and La Salle last week while Temple, 20,2, earned Atlantic 10 Conferences over Rutgers and Duquesne.
Purdue, Oklahoma, Alabama and Getorgetown completed the Top Ten. Purdue is 16-3, with its losses at the hands of North Carolina, Iowa and the Hoosiers. The Boilermakers received 858 points, 27 more than the Celtics, won nine games last week over Colorado, Iowa State and North Carolina State.
Alabama, 16-3, remained ninth with 665 points after splitting two overtime conference games — a 90-80 loss to Florida and an 83-74 decision over Georgia — while the Hoyas, 15-3, improved one place with 626 points after losing to Providence and beating Syracuse.
Syracuse, 17-3, leads the Second Ten with 556 points followed by Clemmon, Pittsburgh, Illinois, Texas Christi- ness, Dallas, Kansas, Santa Clar- son, John's and Auburn
Last week's Second Ten was Georgetown, Illinois, Duke, Clemson, St. John's, Texas Christian, Pittsburgh, Auburn, Florida and Kansas.
Providence enters the Top Twenty for the first time this season after posting two Big East Conference victories over ranked teams.
Dougherty gives KU lift off of bench
Bv DAVID BOYCE
One minute, two minutes, three minutes have ticked off the clock at the beginning of a women's basketball game, and one key player for the Jayhawk team remains on the bench.
Kansas guard Lisa Dougherty, right, maneuvers around Iowa State's Tracy Horvath. Dougherty, Leavenworth junior, plays a key role for the Jayhawks by coming off the bench to provide an offensive lift.
Staff writer
She sits there eagerly awaiting her turn to enter the game, which usually does not occur until five minutes into the game.
Kansas guard Lisa Dougherty's primary role is to come off the bench and provide some offense for the Javahaws.
"I add an extra spark and keep things running," said Dougherty, Leavenworth junior.
Dougherty has started three games this year, a number that has declined from 12 starts a season ago.
Jayhawk coach Marian Washington said some players did better coming off the bench, and Dougherty was a player who fit that role.
"She sees the flow of the game and she does a nice job with it." Washington said. "She gives us very important minutes."
Washington said Dougherty never complained about anything.
"I would like to start." Dougherty said. "There is not a player who wouldn't. But I have adjusted to it and I'm playing time. I cannot complain."
"She knows how to handle her role." Washington said. "You don't see too many players like that.
Even though Dougherty is not starting, she still averages just over 24 minutes a game, which ranks her third on the team.
"Lisa is a hard worker. She
Washington said there was not that many players around the country who had her sort of work habits. "She is a great role model. Players should take time and watch how she handles herself."
"She is what a student athlete is all about," Washington said. "Her social life sometimes suffers because her two priorities now are academics and basketball. Her priorities are in order."
exemplified what a student athlete was suppose to be. even Dougherty sometimes had trouble with class after a disappointing loss.
Although Washington said she
"After a loss, you are always thinking about what you could have done differently to help the team." Dougherty said. "But you try not to let it interfere with classwork too much. The main reason I am here is to get an education — if a game bothers me too much I will not get good grades."
Dougherty, though, has not spent too much time in class worrying about her on-the-court
Washington said there was not enough that could be said about Dougherty.
practices hard and plays hard everyday."
performances.
She is averaging 10.5 points a game and is shooting 43 percent from the field.
"she sometimes struggles with her shot, but she always comes back. When she does, she is dynamic," Washington said. "The last few games she has been doing really well."
Juniors are class act of Big Eight this year
In Dougherty's last game she scored nine points against Colorado, but Kansas was best. The game was Wednesday in a 79-64 victory over Iowa State.
Washington said Dougherty was a player who listened and followed through on decisions.
Leonard retires from baseball after 12 years
United Press International
Dennis Leonard, who made a dramatic comeback from a series of knee operations and pitched for the Kansas City Royals last season, yesterday announced his retirement from baseball.
Leonard said he and Royals General Manager John Schuerehk came to a mutual agreement last week during contract negotiations that Leonard should retire, ending a 12-year major-league career.
"I've indicated that I want to play baseball and to a degree I do."
"Dignity, that's a good word or it," he said. "I can't say I was at the top of my game last year, but rather than leaving in the middle of the season when someone says you can't play. I can leave now feeling that I could pitch this year and next year."
The 35-year-old right-hander, second on the Royals' all-time victory list, returned last season after three years of rehabilitating a ruptured patellar tendon in his left knee. The injury required four operations and three years of strenuous rehabilitation.
diately successful. Leonard started off 4-3 with a league-best 1.73 ERA. The Royals scored only four runs in his three losses. Leonard, however, had problems after that and finished the year 8-13 with a 4.44 ERA.
His return to the game was imme
"Personally I didn't feel great about going 8-13 but I did something a lot of people didn't think I could do," Leonard said.
Schaerhoiz and Leonard will discuss the possibility of Leonard remaining with the Royals' organization as a minor-league pitching instructor.
Manning leads the conference with 27 blocked shots a game and a 61.7 field goal percentage. Grant leads in rebounds with a 9.5 average.
Only seniors Tim McCalister and Cedric Hunter have been able to break the juniors' statistical stran-
staff writer
"Last year when the season started I got off to such a good start. But as the season went along and I didn't pitch as well as I had planned to, I had more of a chance to think about where I went hunting and I did a lot of walking and a lot of thinking. I had time to weigh a lot of things."
By ROB KNAPP
Manning, Chievous, Grayer. This is only part of the role call for Big Eight Conference basketball's outstanding junior class.
glehold. Oklahoma's McCalister leads the steals category with an average of 2.5 a game, and Kansas'Hunter has 6.7 assists a game for the lead in that category.
5 Scott leads three offensive categories. He is first in three-point basketballs and three-point shooting percentage with 2.8 baskets and a 56.4 percent average. He also leads in free throw percentage hitting 37.2 percent of his foul shots.
Call it class domination or at least a class act, but juniors lead the conference in seven of nine overall statistical categories.
Other juniors among the top 10 conference scorers are Kansas State's Mitch Richmond in fifth place, Richmond's teammate William Scott in ninth and Oklahoma's Harvey Grant in 10th.
Leonard said, "But after giving it a lot of thought — I’ve had three years really to reflect on what I wanted to do — I’ve come to this decision.
In the latest Big Eight scoring statistics, eight of the top 12 overall scoring averages belong to juniors. Missouri's Derrick Chievous tops the conference with a 24.4 point-a-game average.
Leonard said retiring now would allow him to leave as a player "on my own terms."
iowa State's Jeff Grayer holds second place with 22.6 points a game, and Kansas forward Danny Manning stepped into third with a 20.6 average.
"We just couldn't stop him," Iowa State coach Johnny Orr said after Manning scored 23 points against his team. "He just makes everyone else look better."
Manning himself is a player opponents must pay attention to. Besides ranking high in scoring and leading in field goal percentage and blocked shots, Manning is second in rebounding and 10th in steals.
"Derrick is a great player and you don't even know how he does it," Manning said after the Jayhawks game with Missouri. "He's not the best of them, kind of stupid, but he's always there. You always have to be conscious of him."
Another junior, K-State center Norris Coleman, would probably be near the top of several categories had he been available for the Wildcats' first 11 games.
Chievous, in addition to leading all scorers, is third in field goal percentage, fourth in rebounds and fourth in free throw percentage.
Coleman averaged 22.9 points and 10.0 rebounds in his first seven games back, figures that would leave him second in scoring and first in rebounding, but a player must appear in 60 percent of his team's games to be eligible for Big Eight statistics.
KU coach turns faltering program around
Staff writer
By DIANE FILIPOWSKI
Kansas diving coach Barry Suster- ka often jokingly tells his divers that diving is his life.
He's not joking, though. He's serious.
Two years ago, Susterka was the head diving coach at the University of Wyoming. In his seven years, he changed its its faltering division to Western Athletic Conference powerhouse and national contender.
But Susterka's position was only a part-time job. He also worked part-time for the highway department and construction companies.
"I knew I had what it took to be a diving coach and I knew that it was what I wanted to do." Suskera said. "I waited for a new job to open up because I wanted to develop another program like I had at Womping."
At Wyoming, diving was not Susterak's life because his coaching position never developed into a full-time job, like he hooded it would.
"I knew I would get the support I needed to build another team like I did at Wyoming, because I was coming into a program that wanted a good diving program." Susterka
For three years, Suskera looked for that perfect opportunity. His son played a year and a half ago when he was playing the coaching position at Kansas.
said
The year before Susterka came to Kansas, the women's swim team had lost its first Big Eight Conference title in 10 years to Nebraska. Kansas was outscored in the diving portion of the meet by almost 90 points, which cost them the victory.
Almost two seasons later, diving at Kansas is no longer the sore spot that it was in the men's and women's swimming program.
All seven members of the diving team will compete in March at the Big Eight Conference Championships at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. Four of its members have qualified for the National Collegiate
Athletic Association Zone Diving Championships at Fayetteville, Ark. in March.
The top four finishers at the zone meet will qualify for the NCAA Diving Championships. The NCAA is one of the most important goal for Kansas diving.
One of Suskera's immediate goals is to let divers across the country know that Kansas has a diving program. And many people already know
Kansas recruits high school All- America divers because they have an ability to dive.
Susterka said the quality of the swim team and its success on the national level attracted him to Kansas.
"I feel like I have one of the better full-time coaching jobs in the country," Susterka said. "I get total support of what our program needs.
Susterka said if he needed new boards or more money for scholarships or recruiting, swimming coach Gary Kempf and members of the athletic department did everything they could to accommodate him.
Lori Spurney, Prarie Education junior and high school All-America honorable mention diver, said Kansas "I was the best in Suskea" took over the program.
"We are not just the Kansas swimming team, but the Kansas swimming and diving team." Spurney
said. "We even have our own T-shirts that say 'Kansas Diving Team,' and makes us feel important to the team."
Spurney did not place at the Big Eight Conference Diving Championships her freshman year, but placed fourth in the 1-meter and sixth in the 3-meter competition her sophomore team won for the NCAA Zone Championships.
The divers now have their own workout schedule and weight program. Spurney said. Having their own equipment makes them feel like a team, she said.
"Barry loves his career and he has made coaching Kansas" program his
The Kansas divers may be Suserkta's athletes, but he said they also wear jerseys.
"I get so nervous when my divers compete," Sustreas said, "I want them to win."
Julie Pierce, Walnut Creek, Calif., freshman and high school All-American, said Susterka treated his divers trials and was a source of motivation.
"He wants you to win, and because he has that confidence in you, it helps you put that confidence on the board," Pierce said. "I respect him so much that I want to do well for him."
See DIVE, p. 12, col. 1
After years of quiet winning, America's Cup runneth over
Not any more. Skipper Dennis Conner and his Stars & Strikes are on a self-proclaimed mission to return the America's Cup, the jewel of the yachting world, to the United States.
Remember not so many years ago when the only cups of much significance in American sports belonged to baseball players.
The script is old by now. Conner lost the cup in 1983 to Australia II, ending a 123-year winning streak. The United States had defended the cup 24 times since 1851 against the British and Australians. And then those nasty Aussies built a yacht with a winged keel and took
So the media herded down to the Indian Ocean with Conner and his
Mark Siebert
Sports editor
the prize away.
millions to bring this silver thing home. What drama, what competition, what a great chance to gloat
Photographs and stories are splattered all over the sports pages, at times even getting on the front page. ESPN is even providing live coverage from Fremantle of the best-of-seven series for late-night viewers.
Not that yachting isn't an important enough sport to get excited about, but there are a few other cups we don't work ourselves into a frenzy over.
Canadian hockey teams have practically owned the Stanley Cup, the National Hockey League's championship. U.S. teams don't even get to compete for the Grey Cup, the championship of the Canadian Football League. We've won the national championship and World Cup, the global championship of soccer. And the U.S. hasn't won tennis' Davis Cup since 1982, but you don't see anybody breaking into a rash in a win it back.
If nothing else, all this hype over
We can't dominate the world in those other sports, so let's brag about our yachting crews. We are some samples of writing from the wire services covering the race: "..victory was so easy that the American boat's crew members acted as if they were on a pleasure cruise rather than on a chapter in yachting history. They joked and took snapshots of each other with them. Coordinator gave Tactician Tom Whiden a chance to steer the boat," or "The next meeting was an unpleasant one for the seemingly defenseless defenders of the cut."
the America's Cup has heightened awareness of nautical terms: skiff, luff zipper, tack, gybed, spinmaker, leeward, and keel.
Imagine a radio announcer making this call: "It's叫Ko-a-burra III coming on portside, Stars and Strips on starboard, Stars & Stripes pops its spinnaker, oh my, Conner tacks his skiff around the buoy, heee's, leading by 1:41." Or something like that.
The ballyhooing won't be over when the race ends. Prepare for the victory parties, interviews and film clips of victorious Americans celebrating in Australian pubs or at the San Diego Yacht Club.
Conner's home club.
We can probably expect the congratulatory telephone call from President Reagan or a trip to the White House to have the president praise the crew for being brave and courageous Americans.
Sportscasters and writers will talk about the great history of the cup, those great yachts such as the Chelsea Cup, the Bowl, Courageous and Freedom.
Things could be worse. What if we had to defend an America's Cup in synchronized swimming against the Russians? What a sporting and media event that would be.