The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, March 26, 2003, Page 13, Image 13
THE GAMECOCK ♦ Wednesday, March 26,2003 • 13
1 yx yp- GAME SCHEDULE
PAATTAPT TTC1 I fi A I V[ I 1 W 1 MEN’S TENNIS vs. Clemson, 2 p.m. Wednesday
LiUlN IALi1 Uu I—^ I I I—^ I SOFTBALL at Arkansas, 2 p.m. Wednesday
I ■ ■ I A I k BASEBALL at Furman, 7:15 p.m. Wednesday
Story ideas. Questions? Comments. I \ / I I I k / MEN’S AND WOMEN'S TRACK at Florida Relays in
E-mailusatgamecocksports@hotmail.com W \-■_ fV-V Gainesville, -Fla., Thursday through Sunday
WOMEN’S TENNIS vs. Auburn, 2 p.m. Friday
Penn State ends USC run
BY DAN LEWERENZ
THE ASSOCIATED PKESS
STATE COLLEGE, PA. - Penn
State’s Kelly Mazzante won her
scoring duel against Jocelyn
Penn, and her team will advance
to the regional semifinals.
Mazzante scored 27 points to
lead the fourth-seeded Lady
IjIUIIS LU a I / -Q /
victory over fifth
seeded South
Carolina in the
Mideast Regional
yesterday. After
back-to-back 27
point games,
h Mazzante — still
w only a junior —is
just 27 points
from tying Susan
Robinson as Penn
State s career scoring leader.
■“Our team knew what a play
er (Mazzante) was. She reads de
fenses really well. She makes
good decisions, very poised, not
a lot of emotion in her game,”
South Carolina coach Susan
Walvius said. “Guards win
games, and she’s a great guard.
I’m not sure you’re going to find
many teams that can stop her.”
The Lady Lions (26-8) advance
to the round of 16 and face top
seeded Tennessee on its home
court Saturday in Knoxville,
Tenn.
The game was billed as a show
down between Mazzante and
Penn, who came into the game
ranked fourth and fifth nationally
in scoring.
But the showdown never ma
terialized. Mazzante jumped to a
quick start, hitting a layup just
four seconds into the game, then
hitting a 3-pointer to make it 5-0,
while most of Penn’s 21 points
came too late to matter.
“I think the big key for us was
finding her in transition,”
Mazzante said of Penn. “We
knew that she likes to run out,
and we had someone there to
make sure she didn’t get those
easy layups.”
“We were just looking to play
guuu untr-un-uiie
defense against
(Penn) and help
down if we need
ed to, and we did
a great job deny
ing on the guards,
making it hard to
get the ball in to
her,” forward
Jessica Brungo
said.
South
Carolina (23-8) could not handle
Penn State’s pressure defense, es
pecially in the second half. Kelly
Morrone hit a 3-pointer to bring
the Gamecocks to 46-35 with 12:15
left, but that’s as close as they
would get until it was too late.
“I think there were times in
the second half where South
Carolina thought they were go
ing to come back in the game, but
we had an answer for them,”
Penn State coach Rene Portland
said.
On the next possession,
Mazzante scored off her own steal
to start a 12-2 run. Tanisha
Wright then stole the South
“Guards win games,
and she’s a great
guard. I’m not sure
you’re going to find
many teams that
can stop her.”
SUSAN WALVIUS
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL COACH ON PENN
STATE'S KELLY MAZZANTE
FILE PHOTO BY JOHNNY HAYNES/THE GAMECOCK
Jocelyn Penn, 45, and Petra Ujhelyl, 00, go after a loose ball against the Auburn Tigers in a
game earlier this season. The Penn State Nlttany Lions defeated the Gamecocks 77-67 In the
second round of the NCAA Tournament yesterday, ending USC’s title hopes.
Carolina inbounds pass, feeding
Mazzante for another basket.
Brungo’s layup made it 58-37 with
11:58 left.
“I felt we turned the ball over
and that let them get out,” Penn
said. “We couldn’t do anything
about the runs because we were
handing them the ball.”
Wright finished with 16
points, and Brungo had 10. Jess
Strom had eight points and eight
assists.
Penn hit a 3-pointer with 1:25
left to start a 12-1 South Carolina
run, and Morrone’s 3-pointer
with 6.3 seconds made it 77-67.
Cristina Ciocan had 14 points
for the Gamecocks when she
fouled out with 7:10 left, and Petra
Ujhelyi scored 11.
The Lady Lions held South
Carolina without a field goal for
almost 8 1/2 minutes in the first
half while going on a 17-1 run.
Mazzante started the run with a
layup and a fadeaway jumper,
and Wright had four baskets in a
row before Jennifer Brenden hit a
jumper to make it 30-13.
Morrone said the bottom line
was that South Carolina simply
couldn’t control Mazzante.
“She’s an All-American for a
reason. She’s going to score her
points,” Morrone said. “Limiting
her touches was part of our game
plan, and we didn’t.”
Penn had just two points for
the Gamecocks in the first half,
and Penn State led 37-23 at half
time.
With game against
Furman, baseball
hopes to end skid
% BY NICK YOUNG
THEHAMECOCK
The USC baseball team (16-8,1-5
SEC) hopes to end a three-game
skid tonight when it takes on the
Furman Paladins (10-11) at
Greenville Municipal Stadium.
Carolina’s struggles left it un
ranked in this week’s Baseball
America poll.
The Gamecocks were swept by
Tennessee in an important con
ference matchup this past week
end after routing Wofford 29-4 on
March 19.
The Paladins are coming off a
three-game series at VMI in which
the team won the series opener
and lost the last two games 4-3 and
^ 8-5. Furman has dropped six of its
" past eight contests.
The Gamecocks and the
Paladins met March 5, when USC
took the game 9-2. Conor Lalor
recorded the win after going 5 2/3
innings, allowing two runs on six
hits. Landon Powell led the charge
offensively with a 2-for-3 perfor
mance and three RBIs.
Carolina will start freshman
left-handed pitcher Forrest Beverly
against the Paladins. Beverly is
getting the first start of his career,
and has a 0-1 record with a 4.82
ERA in his 91/3 innings pitched
this season.
Furman’s senior right-handed
pitcher Coogie Freedman, who has
a 0-1 record with an 8.53 ERA, gets
the start against the Gamecocks.
Freedman has pitched in 12 2/3 in
nings this year, and has recorded
eight strikeouts and nine walks.
This is Freedman’s second start
on the year, and he has also
recorded one save.
The Gamecocks come into the
FILE PHOTO BY JOHNNY HAYNES/THE GAMECOCK
Hank Parks and the USC baseball team will look to rebound
frwn their losses to Tennessee when the} play Furman tonight.
game looking to get back on track
and put one in the win column.
But first, the team is focusing on
trying to improve on driving in
runs. In a three-game series with
Tennessee, USC scored only eight
runs. In the two losses to
Arkansas, the team scored only
two runs.
Carolina will look to ride the
hot bat of junior third baseman
Brian Buscher. In the team’s 24
games, Buscher has hit safely in
23 of them. He is on a 13-game hit
ting streak, which is the third
longest in the nation. Buscher is
batting .432 on the year with 41
hits, six home runs and 23 RBIs.
He is second in the SEC in batting
average.
Thp fppm will alcn lnnlr tn hp
carried by Bryan Triplett’s and
Powell’s productive batting. On
the season, Triplett has a .338 av
erage with one home run and 19
RBIs. Powell has a .326 average
with one home run and 24 RBIs.
On Furman’s offensive side, it
will turn to batting leader
Dominic Frankey, who has a .338
batting average, two home runs
and 16 RBIs. The Paladins’ other
threats are Clint Hill and Nick
Wajda. Hill has a .280 batting av
erage and also has a home run and
eight RBIs. Wajda is hitting .340
with seven RBIs.
Carolina will be without right
handed pitcher Aaron Rawl, who
injured a finger in the eighth in
ning Sunday against Tennessee.
Rawl broke a finger on his right
hand when he punched a wall in
the dugout, and it is not known
how long he will be sidelined. Rawl
has a 4-2 record with three saves,
and ranks third on the team with
a 3.72 ERA.
The first pitch against Furman
will go out at 7:15 p.m. Afterward,
Carolina will head home for a
three-game series against
Vanderbilt at Sarge Frye Field
this weekend.
Brad Senkiw contributed to this
report.
Comments on this story?E-mail
gamecocksports@hotmail.com
Graduation
rates lagging
in Sweet 16
BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
For all the profits and fun of
the men’s NCAA basketball
tournament, too many players
wind up with nothing more
than memories.
A study released Monday
showed that 10 of the schools
in this week’s round of 16 have
failed to graduate even half of
players in recent years. Black
players are less likely than
whites to finish their careers
with degrees, according to the
study of NCAA graduation
rates.
Butler posted the best num
bers and Oklahoma had the
worst. They play each other
Friday in the East Regional
semifinals.
Butler, a small private
school in Indianapolis, gradu
ated 86 percent of its basket
ball players and all of its black
players over a six-year period
starting with the 1995-96 sea
son. Oklahoma had a zero
graduation rate, although the
school challenged the criteria
as misleading.
A school is credited with
graduating students within six
years of their freshman year,
andisnotcred
ited for trans
fers or junior
college players
who might get
their degrees.
“Our gradu
ation rate is
100 percent,”
Sampson Oklahoma
coach Kelvin
Sampson said. “That fresh
man class (1995-%) was Bobby
Joe Evans and Michael
Cotton, and they both gradu
ated — Bobby Joe from here
and Michael from Boston
College.
“They can stereotype us all
they want, but the bottom
line is our kids are graduat
ing.”
Calling the results “dis
turbing,” the study by Richard
Lapchick of the Institute for
Diversity and Ethic# in Sport
at the University of Central
Florida found:
♦ Five of the 16 teams had
graduation rates a third to a
half lower than the school’s
overall athletic graduation
rates.
♦ Six schools had gradua
tion rates for black basketball
players a third to three-quar
ters lower than overall athletic
rates.
♦ Only three schools —
Butler, Duke and Kansas —
graduated at least two-thirds
of black basketball players,
while just those and two oth
ers — Marquette and Notre
Dame — graduated at least
two-thirds of all basketball
players.
♦ Only six schools graduat
ed at least 50 percent of all bas
ketball players, and seven
graduated at least half of their
black players.
Men’s basketball, where 57
percent of the players are
black, has the worst gradua
tion rates of all college sports,
Lapchick said, with 58 of the
328 Division I teams failing to
graduate a single black player
in six years.
It is a nightmare waiting
to be fixed,” said Lapchick, one
of the nation’s leading sports
sociologists.
The study lends support to
NCAA president Myles
Brand’s drive to reward or
punish schools by tying the
number of scholarships to
graduation rates.
“It confirms what we’ve
known for some time,” Brand
said. “It shows why we need to
take steps in order to correct
the situation through a clear
and fair policy of incentives
and disincentives.”
Lapchick said schools
would “do themselves an
enormous favor” if they used
the type of system Brand fa
vors.
“I think he’s got a moment
in time, where there have been
♦ GRADUATION, SEE PAGE I t
Tourney
is better
than we
expected
MATT ROTHENBERG -
GAMECOCKSPORTS@HOTMAIL.COM
Close games make the
Big Dance fun to watch.
For all the griping that was
done after the brackets were re
leased March 16, it seems to me
that, this year, the competition
in the NCAA men’s basketball
tournament has become a little
more even than in years past.
Sure, the West region was
stacked with powerhouses such
as Kansas, Duke and Arizona,
with Notre Dame now looking to
be a force to be reckoned with.
There were teams that no one
thought should have been al
lowed in, like Alabama (which
proved the doubters correct) arid
Auburn (which has partially de
structed the bracket predictions
of many).
Usually, in the first round,
there is a given handful or so of
upsets. Like
111CU1J UU1C1 J ecu o,
this was once
again the case.
Butler’s upset of
Mississippi State
proved early that
it was ready to
play, and Tulsa
stated its case Kaman
against a top
Atlantic-10 con
ference team in Dayton. Chris
Kaman and Central Michigan
brought Creighton’s Cinderella
hopes to an end, while Arizona
State and the aforementioned
Auburn also scored big on then
opening days.
But other than these upsets,
there seems to be few blowouts,
save for the traditional No. 1 seed
beating the daylights out of the
No. 16 seed. Only seven of the 33
first-round games (which include
the play-in game between Texas
Southern and UNC-Asheville)
were decided by 20 or more
points, compared with 19 in
which the margin of victory was
10 points or less.
Did the NCAA Tournament se
lection committee just stumble
upon the best first-round match
ups? I doubt it. Surely this process
can’t be akin to rocket science; yet
it’s just as hard to please every
one involved, from fans to school
officials to the teams themselves.
For one thing, it’s made for
thrilling television so far. Now,
it’s getting more difficult to tell
who will score the big victory
over a higher-seeded team, and
with the games as close as they
are, more people are bound to
stick to their televisions to watch
until the end.
The second round of the tour
nament wasn’t nearly as tightly
contested as the first round,
though there were definite signs
that there was going to be a
shake-up going down. For
Lsiariers, tne
South’s No. 1 seed,
Arizona, got the
heck scared out of
it by ninth-seeded
Gonzaga, eventu
ally pulling the
game out in dou
ble overtime.
v',0'c" Somehow, I’m be
ginning to wonder
whether Arizona head coach Lute
Olsen has lost the cockiness he
had prior to the Pac-10
Tournament, when he considered
it worthless and lost in the first
round. I bet he has. It’s truer now
than ever before that anybody
can beat anybody on any given
day.
That must explain how
Auburn pulled off a big win over
Wake Forest and Butler decimat
ed people’s brackets by beating
Louisville in the East region.
Butler’s Darnell Archey was
draining 3-pointer after 3-point
♦ ROTHENBERG, SEE PAGE 14