Monday. February 28,1977 University Daily Kansan KU rallies to advance in playoffs BY COURTNEY THOMPSON Associate Sports Editor For much of Saturday's first round game of the Big Eight post-season tournament, Kansas and Nebraska looked like they preferred to forget about the whole thing. The Jajwahys finally won, 61-88 but when the last minute was seemed that Amarillis would go right. Throughout the first half and for about the first 13 minutes of the second half, both teams played shaggyly and monotonously. Neither could a good lead and the game Kansas also was charged with 14 personal injury in the first half compared with seven for The 8.700 fans in Allen Field House seemed bored by the lackluster play and low scoring as KU shot only 38 per cent from the field. THE FIRST ROUND win for KU put the Jayhawks in the semi-final round Thursday night at 9:06 in Kansas City's Kemper Arena. Kansas State, which defeated Iowa State, 97-62, Saturday, will face KU. Missouri and Oklahoma, the other first-round winners, will meet each other Thursday night at 7:06. Until an apparent last-ditch fights caught on it looked like the Jayhawks' season had ended. With 7:10 left to play the Hawks got its win, but the team scored to put KU within one point, 49-48. The tempo of the game increased as both teams exchanged points and the KU defense improved. With 4:33 left to play and a 56-54 lead, the Cornhuskers went into a four-third lead. BUT KANSAS was having troubles as Nobles fouled out with 2:25 to go. Brian Banks of Nebraba missed the first shot of a one and one situation and Douglas made a reverse layup to put KU ahead with 1:55 remaining. Nebraska kept the ball until Herb Nobles deflected a pass fromNU's high scorer Bob Siegel with 2:50 left. KU got the ball and Ken Koenigs hit two free throws to the game, 56-56, after being fouled by Curt Hedberg. Milt Gibson, who started the game for KU in place of the injured Hasan Houston, was foiled by Banks and he made the free throw to give KU the lead, 59-56. Gibson, who averages 37 per cent from the free throw line, hit 50 per cent Saturday. Couch Ted Owens said Gibson was getting more confidence in shooting. 'His shot was a big one for us today. And so were Ken's. And Brad's—his was OWENs referred to two free throws made in back-to-back after being in front of fully folded NTU's. Banks had just made a 21-foot shot with 22 seconds left to put Nebraska within one point. Then Sanders was foiled sending him to Alabama, where shots accounting for the final margin. THE CORNIHSKERS killed the ball in from the base under the KU basket. But Banks let it roll, and roll and roll until the ball rolled Nebraska for a five-second violation. The 'Huskers' idea was to save time on the clock and still get the ball as far downcast as possible without the clock running. The ball bounds within the required five seconds. Owens said he had expected NU to go to the delay early. For Nebraska good strategy was needed and although it was attempted -it back "THEY PLAYED for us to make mistakes," he said. "So I thought they might do it anymore. But we didn't make them." We defensive mistakes when they were ahead." Nebraska coach Cochi Cipriano lamented the failure of a usually reliable tactic. "We had the same game plan as always against Kansas--don't give them second shots and play good defense. Usually the defense is effective against KU with their big men, but we lost the ball and that hurt." "Oriano said it was a simple case of "It wasn't a fun way to end the season." Cipriano said it was a simple case of missed shots. "We could have won," he said. "We didn't handle the ball well when we were ahead. Our tip-ins missed, KU's went in. Our free throws missed, KU's went in. "I wasn't a fun way to end the season," BUT FOR KU it wasn't actually that hard. It made accuracy from the free throw line that accuracy from the difference-NU shot 64 per cent. "Although we got good open shots in the second half we couldn't get them in," Owens said. "But I told them to keep putting them up and we plugged away anyway." Owens commented on the attendance, KU's lowest of the season, saying "It wasn't bad considering all the confusion about tickets, the weather and television—I didn't really want that. But their noise level sure was good." Sanders provides Owens' relief By ERIC MARTINCICH Sports Writer For relief, Ted Owens Kansas coach ruled it S.A.N.E.D.R.S. It was reserve guard Brad Sanders' two free throws with 16 seconds left that iced KU's 61-58 win over the Nebraska Cornhuskers Saturday afternoon. "I knew the game was ours after I made these two shots," Sanders said. "Now we get to go to Kansas City for another chance." THIS WAS not Sanders' first time to come through in the clutch. His shot against St. Louis forced the game into overtime, and KU eventually won in double overtime, 84-73. "I didn't worry about it. I just con- tended on the makesups he," he said. "And I'm not too concerned." Sanders, who played slightly more than 10 minutes a game this season, said he didn't see much of it. "I could've been the goat or the hero in both cases," Sanders said. "I've been lucky." Owens said he was impressed with Sanders. a Leavenworth sophomore. "Brad's free throws were the best," he said. "I cannot remember Brad Sonders playing in a game where he didn't help us." I know they take fine shots, not better. It was KU's total free throw shooting,not Guard Brad Sanders just Sanders', that impressed Joe Cipriano, the Cornhusker coach. "FREE THROWS were the key to the game," he said, "the hit theirs, we missed it." Kansas hit on 11-of-13 from the line for an 6.4 per minute hit, 8.5 per minute on connection 14 of 14-22. The "Huskers took 17 of those shots in the first half, when the 'Hawks were whistled for 14 fouls. Ken Koenigs found himself on the bench much of that time with four. "the referees called it close the first half," Koenigs said. "I was disappointed in my first half performance. I feel I hurt the team when I'm on the bench. Koenigs said the 'Huskers didn't go at him as he thought they might. "I knew I had to be very careful in the second half." "I was surprised they didn't take advantage of the situation," he said. ★★ KOENIGS SCORED nine of his 11 points in the second half. The KU-KState game will be played at 9:05 p.m. Thursday in Kemper Arena, Kansas City, Mo., after the Oklahoma-Missouri game. By beating the Cornhuskers, KU advances to the semifinal round of the post-season tournament. There they will meet Kansas State for the fourth time this season. Jack Hartman, K-State coach, was quoted by the Associated Press on playing KU for the fourth time. He said, "Two's enough," and he added, "I think all the coaches feel that way."
PGPFFTRPP
Johnson6-149-127510
Nobles5-149-127510
Miller3-149-127510
Douglas8-219-129223
Elliott9-219-129223
Von Mource0-40-4311
Watson0-40-4311
Makekid1-10-4512
Maackie1-10-4512
Rayburne0-40-4312
Gibbs-0.411-13311
| | PO | PZ | R | RF | Pf | | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | | Norval | 5.0 | 4.2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | | Siegel | 7.13 | 6.4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | | Steigel | 8.13 | 6.4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | | Banks | 4.4 | 1.6 | 4 | 0 | 0 | | Banks | 4.4 | 1.6 | 4 | 0 | 0 | | Heßberg | 4.8 | 1.8 | 4 | 0 | 0 | | Heßberg | 8.47 | 14.49 | 1 | 15 | 1 | **R**MANNA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 32 - 41 Attendance. 0.777 Nobles helps Douglas steal the ball from NU's Siegel Women gymnasts win; men finish second Karen Mundy took second to teammate Pegem Peery in the all-around competition at the Wichita State University Invitational women's gymnastics meet but fell short of winning. She will collegiate Athletics for Women Region Six meet March 10-12 in Lincoln, Neb. Mundy and Murphy paced the KU women's team to a 114.44-104.58 victory over second place Washburn University. Emporia Kansas State College was third with 98.08, Wichita State fourth with 93.19, and Kansas State College fifth with 92.04. KU's men's gymnastics team took two in a triangular with Oklahoma and Texas Saturday, after the Jayhawks' top three all-arounders swept the top three places in the NCA Tour. Oklahoma won the Saturday meet, scoring 215.50. KU was second at 190.10, and Texas was third at 172.85. The Jayhawks' 190.10 was .05 below their season high. MIKE HYNES won the all-around competition at Fort Hays with 44.70, Jody Summers was second with 43.70, and Ford Culbertson was third with a career-high 40.20. KU's fourth all-arround performer, Chris Cohen, was sixth. Jon Nunley's third on the still rings and sewn Williams third in long in horse vaulting KU track team takes Big Eight Indoor title Sports Writer Bv ROR RAINS Indoor Champions KU track team "Everywhere we go, people want to know, who we are. So we tell them, 'We are the Jayhawks, the mighty, mighty Jayhawks. .!!" LINOIN, Neb. — It's a good thing the national track team has made it to won championships in two own competitions. All it has to do is run, jump and throw. And Saturday it did that better than anybody else as it rolled to its eight Big Eight Indoor title in 12 years. After the championship was safely theirs, the Jayhawks celebrated by singing a chorus of "Mighty, Mighty Jayhawks," as middle of the Nebraska Sports Center, rises. The Jayhawks won six individual events and one relay, setting two school records and qualifying two more individuals for the NCAA championships. The sprinkling of the sell-out crowd of 5,138 who stuck around for the awards presentation weren't particularly impressed with the Jayhawks singers per- BUT THEY had to be impressed with the Jayhawks performance on the track. Swimmers win AIAW regional The three-day meet in Lincoln, Neb., held Thursday, Friday and Saturday involved schools from seven Midwestern states and 19 teams. Four Big Eight schools were represented. Nebraska was first at 511 with 214 and Iowa State seventh with 118. Coach Gary Kempel said the team's original intent wasn't to win the meet, but to qualify certain events for the AIAW national next month. But the Jayhawks were able to qualify only one of those events. The KU women's swim team changed his mind midway through the AIAW regional meet and decided to win. That was a sound decision as Kansas finished first with 344 points. KU never trailed in the two-day meet,but The Jayhawks placed first in the 400 medley and 800 freestyle relay, 400 IM (Cathy Call) and 100 freestyle (Debbie Bunker). But both the 400 and 800 relay teams failed to meet the AIAW qualifying times. LAUER PROPST, the only KU qualifier, useable like the *nationalists* it couldn't quite break away either. Oklahoma trailed the 'Hawks by 10 to 15 points through most of the meet, finishing 15 points behind. 76-61. A rapidly improving Nebraska squad finished third with 43 points. Missouri edged out Kansas State, 27-24, to take fourth, and Oklahoma State, 18-16, to finish eighth. State eight and Oklahoma State seven. IT WAS A big improvement over last year, when through a series of errors, the team was down by 25 points. Kempf said he wanted to arrange a special qualifying session with Missouri by Wednesday to try to qualify the two relay teams. "The team was really up for the meet what happened last year," head coach Bob A forewarning of what was in store for Saturday came in the second running event—the 60-yard dash. KU, which qualified 13 of its entries in Friday night's preliminaries, had three entries in the 60. The other three were from Okiahahoma. Kevin Newell, Cliff Willey and Dave Blutcher were the Kansas entries. Among the Oklahoma entries was John Garrison, the defending champ. What's more, Wiley finished third and Blutter fourth, to give KU 11 points. The scoring was on a 6-4-3-2-1 basis. Newell, running in the lane next to Garrison, said, "When we had gone about 45 yards and he hadn't caught me, that's when he and it. That's where he caught me we'd say." Timmons, aware of Oklahoma's strength in the distance events, said, "It was terribly important that we start out well. That was a big event for us." THE 'Hawks did start out well. In the only final Friday night, the long jump, freshman Jay Reardon took second and senior Mike Wilk finished third. Oklahoma's Mike Pleasant won, but KU led in points, seven to six. Wagner broke the school record and Jim Poldbearade the won play with a throw of 57-9. Jay Wagner won a school record of 10:4 to win the 600, and Wiley Won the record-breaking time of 29.73 seconds. The trend continued Saturday. Out of the first five events, Kansas entries won three. qualified for the NCAA meet in the preliminaries, running a 1:09.79. WAGNER SAID he wanted to get the qualifying out of the way (he needed a 1:10.3) in the preliminaries. He also wanted his time to bother Nebraska freshman Scott Poehling, who had run the fastest 600 in the conference before the meet. In the finals, Wagner ran what Timmons called a beautiful race. He took the lead after the first lap and held it the rest of the race while fishing a full second ahead of Peollim. "I was going easy into the corner hoping that he'd try to think he could pass," Wagner said, and then I'd move on him. "You're not going to come back a second time." KU RESTED on its early lead as Oklahoma charged back. UO picked up seven points in the mile run, with Stan Finfishing second and Randy Wilson third. They got six more out of the 1,000 as Wilson took first. And when Vernon broke the Big Eight record in the two-mile, the gap was cut to 53-45. Within 15 seconds, KU had matched that 12 point splurge by the Sooners. First, Steve Rainbow hit 74% to win the high jump, and then Tad Scales won a vault with Jim Johnson of OU to take the pole vault, after neither could go higher than 16-6%. TIMMONS WASN'T worried, but he felt that those totals went up on the tireboard. "I couldn't figure out what events weren't in it, yet." Tennysons said. "I didn't know where I was." Wagner, after running his record-breaking 600, came back to anchor the Jayhawks' mile relay team to victory. Running a 47.2 split, Wagner caught Poochling in the middle of the final lap and then to give KU the meet's final event. The other qualifier for the NCA ... besides Wagner was sophomore Terry McCann. The third qualifier was Bob Prince in the 801 but was timed in 1:51.14, a second under the qualifying time. The unit of Stan Whitaker, Newell, Blutcher and Wagner's time of 515 DIE BRUCE (1960). Hynes led the KU squad with 47.45 in the all-around, although Summers wasn't far behind with a career-high 47.20. Oklahoma's Bart Conner, an Olympic competitor for the United States last year, won the all-around with 55.70. Jay Wagner is congratulated by Wiley (left) and Blutcher after anchoring the record-breaking mile relay team SUMMER ALSO had a career-high score in vaulting with an 8.8. Burt Nunley's 8.0 on the still rings was a career-high, but Bob Wesel's 7.45 on the horizontal bar. "The team felt good because they weren't that much outclassed," KU coach Bob Cox said. "We don't have a team like Oklahoma with an Olympic gymnast it feels good when you're not outclassed. We're not really that much better than us. But Conner is a good gymnast." 1 In the women's meet, Murphy won the all-air competition with 30.95, followed closely by Mundy's 30.85, Mundy's 30.95 was to qualify her for regional competition. MURPHY ALSO took first in vaulting with 8.2, and Mundy tied for first on the uneven parallel bars with 7.9, took second on the balance beam with 8.33 and placed third on floor exercise with 7.96. Rene Villie took third in vaulting for KU with 7.95. "I thought it was a good meet," KU coach Ken Snow said. "Fortunately, we had a good day on beam, and no one could reach us after that. No other team had a super day, and we did what we had to do and came through with it." The men's gymnastics team will close its dual season this Saturday when Colorado comes to KU for a 2.p.m. meet in Robinson Gymnastium. Lockwood said he expected to be close because the two teams had been scoring about the same season. The women's tennis team opened its spring season on the road this weekend, and the team was already on track. Kansas scored 15 (of a possible 18) SMSU, 11. Stenberg College, 7 and Tulsa. 2. After losing to Missouri Southern 10, Saturday on a snow-covered field, the Jayhawks came back to defeat Arkansas, 2- 1, yesteday in a mudbath. Mary Stauffer, who played at the No. 4 position last fall, was undefeated at her new No. 3 position. Carrie Fotopoulos (No. 2) and Caroline Mulligan defeated in singles play and KU's No. 2 doubles team of Cook and Tracy Spellman was 3-0. KU now has several weeks to catch its breath before returning to competition. The team's next match is March 31 when they play in the 'Texas Invitational' in Austin, Tex. Women netters start off season with three wins Bad weather and injuries combined to zombie this weekend. Club as it split two zombies this weekend. Club splits games KU was forced to play most of its game in Fayetteville one man short when injuries to George Bures and Roger Ebert left them with only 10 men. KU's skills were scored by freshman Joe Anthony and player-coach Berrick Mullin. The junior variety squad tied Kansas at St. Louis at tatsburg 8-4 Saturday in a game simulated by the team.