The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, March 19, 2003, Page 11, Image 11
THE GAMECOCK ♦ Wednesday, March 19, 2003 11
--p. pi ' GAME SCHEDULE
AAMTAAT TTC I 9 i I I 9 ! I l V ' BASEBALL vs. Wofford, 7 p.m. Wednesday
VjUJN IAvj 1 U U 9 ^ I 9 9—^ 9 MEN’S TENNIS at North Carolina, 2:30 p.m. Thursday
„ „ 999999k BASEBALL at Tennessee, 7 p.m. Friday
Story ideas? Questions? Comments? |\/|9|k? WOMEN’S BASKETBALL vs. Chattanooga at NCAA
E-mailusatgamecocksports@hotmail.com _ 9 —9— —9_ Tournament in University Park, Pa., 12:10 p.m. Sunday
Carolina to meet Wofford
Wofford at No. 14 USC
7 p.m. Wednesday
Sarge Frye Field
BY BRAD SENKIW
THE GAMECOCK
The 14th-ranked USC baseball
team hopes this past weekend’s
losses aren’t going to become a reg
ular theme in SEC play. Before the
Gamecocks can get their minds
back on success in the conference,
the Wofford Terriers stop by
Columbia tonight to take on USC.
Carolina (15-5) stumbled this
1 past weekend as the team lost both
games of Sunday’s doubleheader
against Arkansas. The Gamecocks,
12-4 at home, have won seven of
ineir pasi iu games.
Wofford (2-15) has struggled this
season with its only two wins com
ing against North Carolina A&T
on the road and Niagara at home.
The Terriers are on a nine-game
losing streak with the last three
losses at the hands of The Citadel
on the road. Wofford was held to
two runs the entire series and lost
to Wake Forest 26-8 on March 12.
Wofford has been outscored
this year 161-81 and has lost all six
of its conference games.
Brian Casey leads the team in
hitting with a .339 batting average.
Jason Nidiffer and Jesse Cole are
> hitting .333 and .326, respectively.
Nidiffer and Blake Timanus are
□ tied with a team
leading two home
runs, while
Timanus leads the
team in RBIs with
11
Senior Culley
Kline (0-4) gets the
Lalor start for the
Terriers and has
given up 27 runs in 16 innings
pitched and an ERA of 12.94. Kline
has 10 strikeouts and eight walks
and has been taken deep twice for
home runs this season.
Freshman Conor Lalor (3-0)
takes the mound for Carolina
with a 1.47 ERA, which is tops
among starting pitchers. Lalor’s
last victory came against Western
n Carolina on
March 12, when
he gave up four
hits and one run
in 6 2/3 innings.
USC head
coach Ray Tanner
plans on keeping
a tight leash on
Tanner Lalor to keep him
fresh for the
weekend. Tanner expects to give
Forrest Beverly and Rico Bravo
some time in relief.
The Gamecocks hope to get the
bats going again after scoring only
nine runs in the Arkansas series.
Brian Buscher has
tnerngnestoatting
average on the
team at .405, with
Jon Coutlangus
right behind him
at .339. Buscher
will try to keep his
nine-game hitting
streak alive and
has had a hit in all 20 of the team’s
games except for one. He also leads
Carolina in at-bats (79), hits (32),
home runs (4) and total bases (48).
Landon Powell is the team leader
in RBIs with 18 and is batting .319
with eight doubles.
The USC pitching staff has a
2.86 ERA with 167 strikeouts and
50 walks on the season. The
Gamecocks have scored 133 runs
and held opponents to 70.
Carolina leads the overall se
ries with Wofford 53-21-1, includ
ing a pair of wins at home last
year by scores of 15-6 and 11-0. The
two teams will meet again this sea
son at Wofford on April 30.
The first pitch is scheduled to
go out at 7 p.m. at Sarge Frye
Field.
Comments on this story? E-mail
gamecocksports@hotmail.com
Teams
ruin own
NCAA
dreams
MATTROTHENBERG
GAMECOCKSPORTS@HOTMAIL.COM
Four schools’ actions
burst their own bubble.
Now that the field of 64 teams
has been set for the NCAA men’s
basketball tournament (well,
yeah, there are really 65 teams,
_ but the play-in game last night
eliminated one), we should take
note of the teams that should be
there but aren’t.
No, these aren’t the so-called
bubble teams, though their bub
bles were clearly burst some time
ago.
First off, let’s talk about Georgia.
That team is missing the NCAA
tournament, and is ineligible for
\TTT Kaaoiico if Time maI oilATim/T
to participate in the SEC
Tournament last week. The simple
reason is because UGA determined
academic fraud in a class for which
former assistant coach Jim
Harrick Jr. taught — a class on
how to coach basketball. It just so
happened that three Georgia play
ers, including ex-Bulldog Tony
Cole, were in that class, never at
tended and yet got A’s. Cole ac
cused Harrick Jr. of the fraud
Supposedly, Harrick Jr., the
son of now-sus
pended head
coach Jim
Harrick, also paid
a number of ex
penses for Cole, as
revealed by Cole
in an interview
last month.
It’s unfortunate
that Georgia won’t
be playing in the
NCAA Tournament, and a couple
of players even sued for the right
to play in the SEC and subsequent
NCAA Tournament. But that’s as
iai ao mj oj mpauij 5UU0, omvu
UGA administration knew of
Harrick’s checkered past when it
hired him. If you can honestly tell
me that Georgia President Michael
Adams and Director of Athletics
Vince Dooley didn’t know about
Harrick’s dealings at Rhode Island,
then I’ll laugh in your face.
Can people improve their rep
utations? Sure. But still, a certain
amount of precaution must be tak
en before hiring people of
Harrick’s ilk. Harrick and his son
single-handedly screwed their
program out of the postseason be
cause they tried to cover up their
misdeeds. And Georgia isn’t the
only place this happens, either.
Fresno State is going to sit out
the postseason after revelations
showed academic wrongdoing,
□ likely during the
reign of former
head coach Jerry
Tarkanian, who
retired after last
season. The school
imposed its own
postseason restric
Tarkanian tions, probably to
abate any punish
ment from the
NCAA itself.
This is another black eye for
college basketball.
Despite being the undisputed
2002-03 regular season champions
of the Western Athletic
Conference, the Bulldogs and
Rookie Coach of the Year Ray
Lopes will watch the NCAA
Tournament and NIT from their
living room couches this year.
Another talented team, another
one to fall prey to the blemished
past of a not-so-clean coach.
Tarkanian was well known for hav
ing fine teams during his tenure at
UNLV; however, there was also a
cloud of controversy, which re
sulted in his quitting in 1992.
Again, these college presidents and
athletics directors know what
they’re getting: Guys happen to be
good coaches but can’t avoid prob
lems during their tenures.
♦ ROTHENBERG, SEE PAGE 12
PHOTO BY JOHNNY HAYNES/THE GAMECOCK
Brian Buscher and the 14th-ranked Gamecock baseball team will play Wofford tonight at
Sarge Frye Field. Buscher has a nine-game hitting streak and leads the team in at-bats, home
runs and total bases. His batting average is .405.
Shyatt out at Clemson
following poor season
BY JEFFREY COLLINS
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
CLEMSON — Three days af
ter Clemson had beaten then
No. 1 North Carolina 75-65 in
2001, the Tigers found them
selves behind 41-9 to Wake
Forest at halftime in a game
they would lose by 32.
It was that kind of inconsis
tency that dogged Clemson
throughout coach Larry
Shyatt’s tenure, and led-to his
resignation Monday after five
years and a 70-84 record lead
ing the Tigers.
Clemson’s season came to
an abrupt end Sunday when
the Tigers failed to get an invi
tation to the NIT despite a 15
13 record. It was the fourth
year in a row Clemson failed to
make the postseason.
“I feel it is just time to give
someone else an opportunity
to coach this program,” Shyatt
said in a release issued by the
school.
Clemson fin
ished in eighth
place in the
Atlantic Coast
Conference this
season, after
three straight
finishes in the
league base
ment.
Shyatt met
with athletic di
rector Terry
Don Phillips on
Monday, and
agreed to step
down. But
Phillips said
Shyatt has been
such a good rep
resentative' for
the school, that
he agreed to pay
Shyatt the
♦ SHYATT,
SEE PAGE 12
PHOTO BY JOHNNY HAYNES/THE GAMECOCK
Larry Shyatt stepped down as Clemson’s
head men’s basketball coach on
Monday.
NFL mulling the addition of
two wildcards to playoffs
NEW YORK (AP) — The NFL
is considering a proposal made
by the New England Patriots
and Kansas City Chiefs to ex
pand the playoffs by two wild
card teams.
However, like the dozens of
proposals submitted annually
by teams and individuals be
fore the NFL meetings, it prob
ably will not be enacted this
year because it takes only nine
of the 32 teams to defeat it.
Under the proposal, the play
offs would increase next season
from six teams to seven for
each conference with only the
team with the best record in
each conference getting a first
round bye. It is being consid
ered by the league’s competi
tion committee, which is spli
on the idea, an indication tha
getting it through is unlikely.
When the league voted ir
June 2001 to go from six divi
sions to eight, it decided to con
tinue with 12-team playoffs. A
that time, commissioner Pau
Tagliabue and other top offi
cials said the NFL wanted to se<
how the system worked before
changing it.
Under the new format
teams play only six of their 1(
games within their divisions
leaving open the possibility
that a weak division could b(
won by a team with a record ot
8-8 or 7-9. Because there are
now just two wild-card teams
instead of three, that leaves
open the possibility that a team
with a winning record could
miss the playoffs while a .500
team makes it.
That happened in 1985, when
Cleveland won the AFC Central
at 8-8 while Denver (11-5)
missed the postseason. In that
year, only five teams made the
playoffs from each conference.
But the six teams that made
■ the playoffs from each confer
ence in the first season of the
eight-division format were thfc
six with the best records.
MLB cancels
Tokyo opener
rnucniAjMrj —major league
baseball canceled the season-open
ing series in Japan between
Seattle and Oakland because of
the threat of war in Iraq.
“Given the uncertainty that
now exists throughout the world,
we believe the safest course of ac
tion for the players involved and
the many staff personnel who
must work the games is to resched
ule the opening series,” commis
sioner Bud Selig said Tuesday. “It
I would be unfair and terribly un
settling for them to be half a world
away — away from their families
at this critical juncture.”
The teams had planned to leave
Wednesday for games March 25
26 at the Tokyo Dome. But plans
were put on hold Tuesday morn
ing as Selig and major league offi
cials talked to government and se
curity agencies.
T ^nn’+ riml
plary security efforts that the city
of Tokyo and the government of
Japan were prepared to provide for
our players and personnel, I had to
weigh those security precautions
against a very unpleasant and po
tentially dangerous set of variables
that go along with a nation on the
brink of war,” Selig said.
Baseball opened its 2000 season
in Tokyo, with the New York Mets
j and Chicago Cubs playing two
' games.
Seattle’s visit was highly antici
pated because of two Japanese stars
on the Mariners: Ichiro Suzuki and
Kazuhiro Sasaki. It would have
been the first time Seattle owner
Hiroshi Yamauchi, who lives in
Japan, saw his team play.
1 “I was looking forward to go
ing,” Oakland outfielder Terrence
Long said. “I think everybody
was. A lot of people don’t get this
opportunity. I doubt I’ll get a
chance to go back.”
The games were rescheduled
for April 3 and June 30 in Cfekland.
“With world tensions so high,
mis is me pruueni course oi ac
tion,” union head Donald Fehr said.
Baseball had already been plan
ning to have the New York
Yankees open the 2004 season in
Japan, probably against Tampa
Bay, Toronto or Baltimore.
“I find it extremely unfortu
nate, but it’s because of war and
there is little we can do,” Japanese
baseball commissioner Hiromori
Kawashi said. “Japanese baseball
fans who were looking forward to
the event must find it extremely
disappoipting.”
Other sports also discussed
contingency plans, but the NCAA
said Tuesday that it would not
change its schedule for the men’s
and women’s basketball tourna
ments, which start this week.
Even though several baseball of
ficials already were in Japan, set
ting up for the series, many play
ers had been jittery about going.
“We’ve got guys going to war
for our country,” Oakland third
baseman Eric Chavez said before
the decision. “I want to be here.
Call me patriotic or whatever, this
is where I want to be.”
Seattle outfielder John Mabry
was ready for any decision.
“I would have loved to have seen
Japan, but I wasn’t looking forward
to the 15-hour plane ride,” he said.
On Monday, President Bush
said Saddam Hussein must leave
Iraq or face a U.S.-led invasion. In
an evening speech to the nation,
Bush gave Hussein 48 hours.
Unlike the 2000 Japan trip,
where many players took their
families to see the sights, the trav
eling parties for the A’s and
Mariners had shaped up to be
much smaller.
AL MVP Miguel Tejada and
Athletics outfielder Jermaine Dye
were among those who planned to
leave their families at home.
“It’s a tough decision,” Tejada
said. “We’ire a team. We all have
to stick together.”