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g A THE GAMECOCKu Monday, January 27,2003 GAME SCHEDULE WOMEN’S TENNIS vs. College of Charleston, 5 p.m. Wednesday MEN’S BASKETBALL at Tennessee, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday m\TTA PT TTQ WOMEN’S BASKETBALL vs. Florida, 7 p.m. Thursday UU1N 1/\U I UO MEN’S AND WOMEN’S SWIMMING at Georgia, 4 p.m. Friday Story ideas? Questions? Comments? E-mail us at gamecocksports@hotmail.com Swashbuckled! PHOTO BY PATRICK SCHNEIDER/THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER Oakland's Doug Jolley (88) Is brought down by a host of Tampa Bay defenders In the second half of the Buccaneers’ 48-21 victory in Super Bowl XXXVII. The Buccaneers’ defense showed who Is the best In the league, knocking off the Raiders’ top-ranked offense. Gannon throws 5 interceptions; Dexter Jackson named MVP BY DAVE GOLDBERG THE ASSOCIATED PRESS SAN DIEGO — Just defense, baby! The Tampa Bay Buccaneers didn’t need much more — for most of the game, anyway. i/uauu uuix vji uuexi auu xixa Bucs won the Super Bowl on Sunday, routing the Oakland Raiders 48-21 in the first matchup of the NFL’s best offense against its best defense. The Tampa Bay defense won by a mile, shutting down the Raiders for three quarters and holding on as they made a belated comeback attempt. Super Bowl MVP Dexter Jackson had two interceptions, as did Dwight Smith, who re turned both of his picks for touch downs, including a 50-yarder to finish off the scoring with 2 sec onds left in the game. Derrick Brooks also returned an inter ception for a touchdown. Simeon Rice had two of the Bucs’ five sacks as Tampa romped to a 20-3 halftime lead then scored two quick third-quar ter touchdowns. That rendered futile a late comeback by the Raiders that in cluded a touchdown on a blocked punt and 48-yard TD pass from league MVP Rich Gannon to Jerry Rice. The Tampa Bay offense did its part, too, led by Michael Pittman, who ran for 124 yards on 29 car ries. Mike Alstott had a 2-yard TD run and Brad Johnson added two TD passes to Keenan McCardell, the second an 11-yarder after an 89-yard drive that ate up almost eight minutes of the third quarter. Just 43 seconds later, Smith grabbed the ball away from Jerry Rice and took it to the end zone to make it 34-3. Oakland owner A1 Davis’ slo gan “Just win, baby!” wasn’t go ing to work this time. How good was the Tampa Bay defense? Oakland had just 62 total yards in the first half, second-lowest to tal in Super Bowl history. And the five interceptions of Gannon were the most he had in any game this season. He finished 24-of-44 for 272 yards and two touch downs. Oakland 21 Tampa Bay 40 (15-4) Credit the win also to the 39 year-old Gruden, who left Oakland a year ago for Tampa Bay in what seemed at the time far too much in draft picks and cash — $8 million to be exact. But Gruden’s knowledge of his old team worked out perfectly. “Every play they’ve run, we’ve run in practice,” Tampa Bay safe ty John Lynch said. The Bucs took advantage of their knowledge, with Warren Sapp, Lynch and the interior de fense pushing up the middle con stantly against backup center Adam Treu to put pressure on Gannon and shut down the run. This was a victory for one of the NFL’s longtime sad sacks. Between 1983 and 1996, the Bucs were the NFL’s worst fran chise, going without a winning season and losing 10 or more games in 13 of those 14 years. Even a year ago, they were a laughingstock after the Glazer family that owns the franchise fired coach Tony Dungy and went after big-name coaches like Bill Parcells and Steve Mariucci be fore landing Gruden. But if this was a glorious day for the Bucs, it was the opposite for the Raiders, who have three Super Bowl victories but hadn’t been back to pro football’s show case game in 19 years. Jerry Rice, who has a recep tion in every game he’s played since 1985, didn’t have his first until 3:30 was left in the third quarter Sunday and the Raiders trailed by 31 points. That came just before Gannon’s 39-yard touchdown pass to Jerry Porter gave the Raiders’ their first TD. They got their second just 44 seconds into the fourth quarter when Tim Johnson blocked a Tom Tupa punt and Eric Johnson caught it in the air and took it in. But even those TDs didn’t pro duce what they could have be cause the Raiders twice missed 2 point conversion attempts. Tampa Bay started badly but soon took control and led 20-3 at halftime on a 2-yard touchdown run by Alstott and a 5-yard TD pass to McCardell. The defense held the Raiders’ top-ranked of fense to just three first downs at U SUPER BOWL, SEE PAGE 9 The Buccaneer defense Even though Oakland QB Rich Gannon passed for 272 yards, he was constantly under pressure. The Bucs recorded five sacks, a forced fumble and five interceptions, three of which were returned for scores. “He did what he do.” SIMEON RICE TAMPA BAY DEFENSIVE LINEMAN, ON DERRICK BROOKS' PERFORMANCE I «ir m »v L■ " - _I Buccaneer LB Derrick Brooks, the NFL Defensive Player of the Year, returned an interception 44 yards with 1:27 left in the 4th quarter. The touchdown gave Tampa Bay a 41-21 lead and put Super Bowl XXXVII in the record books. 5 Rich Gannon’s total number of interceptions, a Super Bowl record. Three of them were returned for touchdowns, effectively burying the Raiders' chances of winning. No Challenge for USC track BY MATT ROTHENBERG THE (JAMECOCK The USC men’s and women’s track and field teams traveled to Lexington, Ky., Saturday to take part in the SEC Challenge track meet, and both proved that they are going to be among the domi nant teams in the nation. Looking to repeat the success of their national championship 2002 season, the third-ranked women’s team easily handled the competition, taking first place with a total of 170 points, 43 ahead of Florida, the second place fin isher. No doubt the women’s dom inance was in part because of an impressive performance in the 200-meter dash, where USC occu pied the top five spots. The third-ranked men’s team also had a good day at the SEC Challenge, but fell 15.5 points short of first place. Overall, the Carolina men landed in second place behind the Tennessee Volunteers, who won with 124 points. In addition to the first and sec ond placing, Carolina had five athletes automatically qualify for the NCAA Indoor Championships, while 14 quali fied provisional ly. Three of those provision al qualifiers came out of the Bailey women’s 200, where the Gamecocks fin ished in first through fifth place. Two-time SEC Athlete of the Week Aleen Bailey won the race with a time of23.59 seconds while Miki Barber was a close second at 23.75. Demetria Washington (23.92) finished third and Erica Whipple finished fourth at 24.01. Rounding out the top five was Khalilan Carpenter at 24.47. Bailey, Barber and Washington were the provisional qualifiers from that group. Bailey and Whipple also raced well in the 60-meter dash, finish ing in first and third place, re spectively. With another top fin ish, Bailey qualified provisionally in the 60 dash. Winning with a time of 7.31. Whipple came in 0.1 second be hind Bailey. Washington took the 400-meter dash with an automatic qualifying time of 52.36. She currently holds the Nutter Fieldhouse facility record in the 400 dash, as she ran a time of 52.06 in 2001. Lashinda Demus also recorded an automatic qualifying time at 53.03, as she placed third. Demus also won the 60-meter hurdles with a provisional time of 8.34, while teammate Tiffany Ross qualified provisionally with a 8.38 finish. South Carolina’s national champion 4x^00-meter relay team finished second with a provision al time of 3:36.74, and USC’s Distance Medley Relay team won that event with a time of 11:56.69. Nicole Kendrick won the shot put, throwing 52 feet, 4.50 inches. Other top-five finishers for USC’s women in cluded Chelsea Hammond in the long jump and high jump, Rashida Abdul Malik in the triple jump, Kemesha Whitmire in the long jump and Lekote triple jump, Boikhutso Ramone in the 800-me ter run and Kendrick in the 20 pound weight throw. The men’s team also ran an im pressive 200 dash, finishing in sec ond through fourth place. Martin Jackson finished second at 21.56 seconds, while Thomas Lewis placed third (21.61) and Corey Taylor was fourth (21.62)., Jonathan Fortenberry won the 400-meter dash with an impres sive automatic qualifying time of 46.19, while Otis Harris ran a pro visional 47.22, finishing fifth. In the 800-meter run, Otukile Lekote ran 1:46.88, another auto matic qualifying time for the Gamecocks. Taylor finished third in the finals of the 60-meter hur dles with a provisional time of 7.79, but it was his run in the pre liminary heats, a 7.74 automatic qualifying time, that was the most impressive. Charles Ryan also record a provisional time in the 60 hurdles, running 7.93 in the prelims then an even better 7.90 in the finals, finishing sixth. The men’s 4x400-meter relay team, also the defending nation al champion, won the relay with a NCAA Provisional qualifying time of 3:08.84. Greig Cryer won the long jump with a mark of 23 feet, 11.50 inches. Cryer also fin ished second in the triple jump, jumping 47 feet, 6.50 inches. TRACK, SEE PAGE 9 NFL’s new era not all it could be BRAD SENKIW GAMECOCKSPORTS@HOTMAIL.COM The Super Bowl isn’t the showcase it was in past. The Super Bowl once again gave us another underdog win with Tampa Bay’s victory, but what does it matter? I’m not say ing it wasn’t a good game with plenty of highlights and star per formances, but it made me realize some of the problems of the NFL. This season gave us incredible races down the stretch, huge up sets in the playoffs and teams com ing back from remarkable odds to win in the post season. Sound great? Not if you have followed the NFL for say, the last 15 years. All of these wonderful things that happened over the foot ball season come down to one is sue, parity. It has become a plague in the National Football League and is tak ing over not just the teams, but also the fans. Why are we so excited to see a jones different team coming from nowhere every season? What is wrong with having that one domi nant squad like the Dallas Cowboys getting to the Super Bowl regularly? If you are thinking that I am saying that because I am a die hard Cowboy fan, think again. I hate everything about Dallas. So why am I making an argument for Jerry Jones’ team? At least they gave me someone to hate. I used to watch the Super Bowl hoping somehow the Bills or Steelers could knock off the Cowboys. And when my favorite team, the Washington Redskins, made it, it was such a satisfying feeling. That sounds like a better idea to me than watching the game, knowing or caring very little about the two teams and being more interested in Shania Twain’s halftime show. Face it, if you pull for a team like the Bengals, they should stay bad. But, who knows? They have a new coach and next year could run the table. Sounds crazy but not far-fetched anymore. □ This new era of NFL forces fans and viewers to not really care who wins the big game. In the previous three seasons, the champions have been New England, Baltimore and St. Louis. What were those teams do ing through much of the 1980s and most of the 1990s? Losing. In the previous 12 years, the winners included Denver, Dallas, Green Bay, Washington, New York Giants and San Francisco. These were all great franchises that have won for decades. This does not mean the NFL has been born into a new era of greatness in which everyone has the chance for a title. It does mean that parity has brought us less tal ent in coaching and little team loy alty, as shown by players. How hard is it to keep a job in the NFL? Coaches are getting bounced all the time, and to make it worse, another sorry team scoops up the same lousy coaches to lead them into oblivion. This happens because we have reached a time when systems are more important than the actual players. In pro football, it seems if you have a solid offensive system or a crazy defensive scheme, any combination of players can guar antee a trip to the playoffs. What ever happened to putting the ball u SENKIW, SEE PAGE 9