4B
Wednesday, February 5, 1997
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
KSU basketball on losing streak
The Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The athletic wheel of fortune has come full circle for Kansas State, where football used to be a laughingstock and basketball was king.
Now, as Wildcat fans bask in the afterglow of a gridiron resurrection and their first-ever New Year's Day game, the basketball team stands winless in the Big 12.
The Wildcats (7-11 overall, 0-8 Big 12) will drag a ninegame losing streak to Oklahoma State tonight. The Cowboys are expected to extend the streak to 10.
Tom Asbury's young team is winless since slipping past Arkansas-Pine Bluff 69-63 in late December. Never before had any Kansas State team lost eight consecutive conference games.
The danger of going through the Big 12 without a single victory grows more menacing with every loss.
"Obviously, we haven't performed like we anticipated," Asbury said.
"Even though we're a young team, we didn't expect to be where we are now."
Like the program he leads, Abbury is unaccustomed to such misery. As head coach at Pepperdine, he was 125-59 and took the Waves to three NCAA tournaments and three West Coast Conference regular-season championships.
The Wildcats' season has been marred by poor shooting. Going into their game tonight, the Wildcats are hitting just .386 from the floor compared to their opponents' shooting average of 409.
Until an 85-63 blowout loss at Missouri last weekend, the Wildcats had been competitive in almost all of their Big 12 losses.
On Jan. 4, they came within three points of being the first team to beat No.1 Kansas.
Olympian hopes to medal in two other events
Swede favored to win slalom title
The Associated Press
SESTRIERE, Italy — Sweden's Pernilla Wiberg is favored to win the gold medal in today's slalom at the world skiing championships. What she really wants is at least a bronze in the downhill or super-G.
"I have as a goal for these world championships to take a medal in super-G or
downhill," said Wiberg, the two-time Olympic and three-time world champion. I have Olympic and world medals in all the other disciplines, and it would be nice to complete things," she said.
The 26-year-old is a clear favorite to take the World Cup overall title this year and her first World Cup slalom crown.
“This year all four disciplines have been really good for me,” Wiberg said. “That's the difference from the other years. ... I want to do well in all four disciplines because Alpine skiing is all four.”
She has won 19 World Cup races during her career, including six this season — three in slalom, two in super-G and one combined.
She also has six other top-three finishes, including two in super-G and one in the downhill.
That's quite a change from just more than a year ago when she was unhappy with the sport and seldom winning.
"I had a conversation with myself then ... and decided just to be happy skiing and enjoy it," she said. "Since then it's been different."
Armed with that new attitude, she won two golds in the slalom and combined a few months later at the 1996 world championships in Spain. Now, several factors favor her as she tries to defend her title in today's slalom.
Another slalom contender, Italy's Deborah Compagnoni, said, "The course is very long, but more than that it's very icy.
That also favors Wiburg.
On that kind of course, Wiberg ... is very powerful, the woman to beat.
All four slalom races at these championships will be at night, a move by world ski officials to give the sport a larger television presence.
Wiburg's teammate, Titti Rodling, said. "We're used to training in Sweden at night because of the long winters. Here (in Sestriere) the lights are so good, it's better than daylight."
Claudia Riegler, an Austrian who skis for New Zealand, and Austria's Elf Eider are the other favorites. Riegler, 20, has won three times this season, and Eder is the defending World Cup slalom champion.
Dennis Rodman-style basketball comes to China
BELIING (AP) — The American players wouldn't budge from the sidelines. They cursed and glowered as Chinese officials tried coaxing them back on court.
Unprintable swear words flew. One official threatened legal action. Others yelled. The reporter for China's government news agency said it was among the worst basketball games he had seen.
But the Americans, angry that former Los Angeles Lakers guard Mike McGee was pulled from the game, staved put.
"We're together. We stick together," McGee, now playing for the Beijing
Lions, yelled at officials, waving his huge hands like windmills. "You Chinese boys all stick together. Don't you?"
NBA-style basketball has come to China. The result is a little slice of America with a dash of culture clash thrown in
For extra American flavor, they
With eight teams with names like the Storm and the Wildcats, the Chinese New Basketball Alliance hopes to make money attracting crowds, TV ratings and sponsors with fast, entertaining, slam-dunking games not usually seen in China.
imported ex-NBA and U.S. college players to play with Chinese teammates. Cheerleaders, corporate sponsors, blushing teen fans and made-for-TV showmanship complete the recipe.
It's not to everyone's taste. Chinese authorities in Shanghai were horrified by plans to dress the cheerleaders in bikinis. In Beijing, some officials apparently worry the American players, four to a team, might teach Chinese teammates bad habits.
"Foreign players and coaches absolutely are not allowed to bring this
sport's dirty and unhealthy competitive practices into domestic competition," Xinhua, the government news agency, warned after the Lions' stormy Jan. 14 match against the Guangzhou Rams.
However, the mostly Chinese crowds love the action. The league, which started last year, claims an average attendance of 80 percent capacity, with tickets sold out in provincial cities that lack other forms of popular entertainment.
"The Americans are great," said Chen Haitou, a 30-year-old Lions supporter.
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