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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 6, 2001)
Tuesday Best Bet NCAA Basketball: Michigan State at Illinois 4 p.m., ESPN SPORTS EDITOR: JEFF SMITH Smittside@aol.com Cardinal’s loss to UCLA makes Pac-10 race again ■The Pac-10 gets exciting as top teams fall to conference foes — and out of the nation’s favor By Peter Hockaday Oregon Daily Emerald Just when you thought the Pa cific-10 Conference was getting boring or predictable, the league went and slapped you in the face to wake you up. Stanford, 19-0 before the weekend, beats South ern Califor nia, then loses by six to UCLA? Arizona gets de stroyed by Oregon, then blows out Oregon State two days later? Oregon loses by 27 at home to Arizona State, previous ly 1-7 in the Pac-10? California beats UCLA by 29, then loses to USC by 14? Finally, the Pac-10 is getting interesting to watch, and it should only get more interesting if past seasons are a guide. Thank heaven for West Coast basketball. Stanford stunned Stanford dropped out of the top spot in both the Associated Press and ESPN/USA Today Coaches poll after losing to un ranked UCLA Saturday. The Cardinal dropped to second in both polls, while North Caroli na — winner of 16 straight games — took over No. 1 in both polls. Arizona dropped down as well in both rankings after its up set loss at Oregon. The Wildcats are 11th in the AP poll and 10th in the coaches poll. USC is 22nd in the AP poll and 18th in the coaches poll. UCLA, despite knocking off Stanford, being unbeaten at home this season and owning a 7-2 conference record, couldn’t crack the top-25. The Bruins re ceived 93 votes in the AP poll and six in the coaches poll. Knight in shining armor The Bruins’ Billy Knight was a major factor in UCLA’s upset win over Stanford this weekend. Normally a bench warmer, Knight practiced well on Friday at Maples Pavilion and Bruins coach Steve Lavin gave him the start Saturday. The move paid off for Lavin, as Knight scored a career-high 22 points on 8-for-15 shooting. It was Knight’s fifth start of the sea son. 'Cats, Bruins still clawing With UCLA’s upset of Stan ford, the Bruins kept themselves and No. 11 Arizona in the hunt for a Pac-10 Championship. Both UCLA and Arizona have two conference losses, while Stanford has one. In the second half of the season, the Cardinal will take on the Wildcats at home and UCLA on the road. USC and California are not far behind Arizona and UCLA in third place. The Trojans and Bears each have three confer ence wins. True Storey Arizona State’s Awvee Storey earned the Pac-lO’s top award for his efforts in wins over Ore gon State and Oregon last week. Storey was named Pac-10 Player of the Week after notching a dou ble-double against Oregon and Turn to Men’s, page 8 Emerald Michael McDonald and the Cardinal fell from the nation’s No. 1 spot after losing to UCLA. Nobody running with the Devils in conference race Laura Smit Emerald Lauren St. Clair and Stanford have tied for second in the Pac-10 since losing to Oregon. ■Arizona State sits alone on top, but Stanford is starting to heat up By Adam Jude Oregon Daily Emerald OK, women’s hoops fans: The Pacif ic-10 Conference season is half over, and while many surprises have already provided many sleepless nights, many more could be yet to come. With many wan derers, Arizona State sits alone at the top of the con ference standings with a 7-2 record. The little Devils now hold their own destiny: Win out and win their first Pac-10 crown. But in such a stacked league — where just two games separate the top five teams — you can bet the boys in Las Vegas (if they had lines on women’s games) wouldn’t pick ASU to accomplish such a feat so easily. The Cards are stacked After a 1-3 start in Pacific-10 Con ference play, which included a 72-54 loss at McArthur Court Jan. 13, Stan ford has rolled into the mix, and is now tied for second place — ahead of Oregon. An 89-75 trouncing of USC Sunday improved the Cardinal to 6-3 in the conference, 12-7 overall. The Ducks and Stanford will face off 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Maples Pavilion. The win in Los Angeles gave Stan ford five straight victories, and its first road sweep in two years. Stanford is now in contention for its 10th Pac-10 title. “We had our back against the wall and now we are fighting and that’s great,” Stanford head coach Tara Van Derveer told the San Francisco Chroni cle. “We are in the mix.” The Cardinal were led by Lindsey Yamasaki’s game-high 28 points against USC. “We had fire in our eyes tonight. Every player on this team was ready to go and it showed,” Yamasaki said. “We know we can win and if we focus, we will win.” Arizona coach records win No. 500 Arizona head coach Joan Bonvicini was carried off the court by her team after defeating Oregon State 83-73 Sat urday to earn her 500th career coach ing victory. Turn to Women’s, page 8 We had our back against the wall and now we are fighting and that's great. We are in the mix. Tara VanDerveer Stanford head coach yy Big money ruled, ruined professional sports in the ’90s THE HOME ^ STRETCH ROBBIE McCALLUM As the 20th century fades from our memories, so does the 1990s and a dark chap ter in professional sports.' For a brief moment in the early ’90s there was hope. The Lakers sucked, and so did the Yankees. Life was good. But when money talks, players listen. Our good friend, free agency, came in and the likes of George Steinbrener and Jerry West were back in business. They were able to attain the best teams money could buy. Toward the end of the ’90s, those teams you love to hate in New York and Los Angeles gained strength, as All-American teams such as the San Francisco 49ers and the Green Bay Packers fell from the limelight. Strikes in professional baseball and the NBA marred the sports, and they still haven’t fully recov ered. These sports are safe until the next contract expires. The ’90s also saw the death of the franchise player and the birth of the free-agency period, together killing the sports dy nasty. Larry Bird, Dominique Wilkins and Magic Johnson are gone, leaving only a handful of franchise players like David Robinson and Reggie Miller. I mean geez, Patrick Ewing is a Seattle Supersonic! Now we have rent-a-player mer cenaries like Randy Johnson and Kevin Greene. From now on, money talks. Speaking of money, have you been to Candlestick Park lately? Oops, I mean 3Com Park. No? How about Riverfront Stadium? Oh yeah, I meant Cinergy Field. This late-’90s innovation of corpo ratization is one of the worst in professional sports. There still is hope though. Fans in Denver and Chicago be gan a resistance movement when big businesses attempted purchas Turn to McCallum, page 10
