"Daily Utah Chronicle Red Rocks set sights on qualifying for nationals grabbed The U gymnastics team improved its ranking from No. 6 to No. 4 this week after posting a score of 197.950 in Washington last Friday. It was the biggest road score in team history, and it couldn't have come at a better time. The Utes not only needed to gain confidence in their abilities away from the Huntsman Center, but they also needed to improve their ranking to ensure a top seed at regionals. The way the NCAA regional gymnastics tournaments are set up is as follows: There are six sites spread across the country and each site hosts six teams, for a total of 36 teams. The top 18 teams according to the regional qualifying score (HQS) are spread evenly among the six sites with the No. 1, No. 12 and No. 18 teams grouped together, the No. 2, No. 11 and No. 17 grouped together and so on. The groups arc assigned sites according to a ' blind draw. , The remaining 18 teams are distributed among the six sites according to RQS (ii-i- ) at their own game St. time? After shooting a horrendous percent from the floor in the first game, SDSU came into the Huntsman Center and made some peaceful, homegrown gambling. We didn't want to go all the way to Vegas to lose our shirts to some card sharks, and we didn't want to illegally gamble in Utah, so we took the happy medium by taking the jaunt into what became my own nearly 45 percent of its shots last Saturday. The Aztecs more than doubled their shooting stats from the first meeting, and they did it on the road against one of the best teams in the league. The final score still indicated a fairly smooth 1 victory, but if the Aztecs play as well on a neutral surface as they did last weekend, the Utes could be in for a bona fide challenge in the personal paradise. Just to be clear, I have a wildly addictive personality, 63-5- making gambling games very attractive to me. I have always loved the purity of the thrill of the tables what could first round. The Aztecs have never won a conference tournament game, and the young team has only two players on its roster with any conference tourney d be more pure than the rush of putting your money on the line? Money is the key to life in our society, so the thrill is something akin to putting your life on the adre-nalize- experience. But the tenacious group seems to be playing well at the right time, and the game should be a good one. tsmithchronicle.utah.edu line. I'd have to imagine the excitement is similar to that experienced by an extreme athlete. The difference is that cliff jumpers and skydivers are actually are putting their lives on the line. Gambling is a way to simulate that experience, with the only real threat being that you could lose all of your money, your wife could leave you, your whole world could collapse and you might never even get home. ct'oncnil fnlit As long as you have some (ID $50 Deposit required) Up Atkins EAS to $600 off Rent Met-R- Dymatize Optimum Muscle Milk Twin Lab Muscle Tech One and Two Bedroom Homes Available, Pet Friendly Hydroxycut Xenadrin EFX Protein Bars RTD And more... 801-261-19- 1 Brickyard Plaza E) Brickyard Rod Slt Lake City. UT 84106 1140 Foothill Plaza Riverton Plaza 1400 South Foothill Blvd. Salt Laka City, UT 84108 1760 Wa.t 12600 South Rlvarton, UT 84065 if t ('J f .ill , 1 t M ' . !.--- - f 514 76 East 4090 South 'Valid on select apartments, ask for details 7190 t control over the amount of money you are willing to bet (a control I purport to have), gambling can be a lot of fun. It's not so fun if you lose, as the players whose money I took will sadly attest, but when you win it, is the best rush ever. I had never played poker in a casino before my trip last weekend now it's all I can think about. Sure, I was a regular at the blackjack tables and I have long been a craps fanatic, but the prospect of getting suckered into a highly technical game like poker at a casino was something I had always had the wisdom to (Bldllfaim. University of Utah Faculty and Staff. ' . ,,, avoid. But recently, poker has experienced an explosion of popularity. And being the highly influenceable peon that I am, of course I became intrigued with the idea as soon as TV told me it was cool. Last year, ESPN provided for the first time full coverage of the World Series of Poker, a tournament requiring a $10,000 entry fee. It was a huge hit. The reruns are still going as evidence of the show's popularity. The Travel Channel quickly followed suit , MORETHAfc 9 A DEGREE The Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps can start you on an exciting career as a pilot, surface warfare officer, SEAL, submariner or Marine corps officer. NROTC midshipmen leave the U with more than just a degree, they have great jobs already lined up. 801-581-67- 23 801-587-37- vised celebrity poker match in dramatic fashion. It wasn't that I was enamored with Affleck, but I figured that if Affleck could do it, I could too. It wasn't that I respected him, I just thought that if an actor could do it (actors are not n for their intellect), why couldn't I? So into the dragon's lair we went, unassuming and naive. When we arrived, we were informed that several poker players were in town for a poker tournament, a fact that became more and more evident as we made our way to the poker rooms. On a totally unrelated note, poker rooms are awesome because you can't smoke in them, meaning that the amount of smoke sticking to your clothes can be minimized as long as you stay in the poker room. Not only are your clothes spared the awful smell of cigarette smoke, but it holds strategic well-know- top-flig- value as players who leave to smoke after they fold will miss finding out certain im- portant pieces of information about how people are betting and what they are betting on. Now I don't claim to be great at poker, and maybe it was beginner's luck, but between my friend and me, we took the card sharks' money every one of them. We didn't take it all, by any means, but when we left we had more money than we came with, which is more than the experienced vets can say whose mouths are likely still hanging open three days later as they wonder what hit them. I have to admit, when we first sat down, it didn't look to good for us. We must have looked like tourist idiots because the poker players seemed to think they would be taking our money. You can sense things like that by the way people look at you. The problem is that each one of the poker pros had been playing for so many years that they had developed habits that even they themselves were not aware of. One big cocky guy would start talking all nonchalantly every time he had a good hand. Another guy would bet every time, so we knew he was usually bluffing. A lumpy nerd in the corner was the best off because he refused to play bad hands, but luck got the best of him as even his good hands weren't enough. Another of the guys would sit up straight every time he had something it was a dead giveaway. The poker players were, in a sense, too involved in their game to realize what they were doing. My buddy and I could see it all because it was new to us, as ironic and backward as it may seem. Anyway, the real fun of poker is trying to read the other people, and from the way things went, it looks like we did a pretty damn good job. is hiring photographers. ' ' " -- v Ask for Lonny Danler in Union Room 240. 36 or email kbaldwin( navsci.utah.edu Bring your portfolio. 10J University of Utah ht The Chronicle For more information contact LT. Ken Baldwin at the one that me Ben got won Affleck the first tele- tsmithchronicle.utah.edu Scholarships Available Qualified Freshmen can compete for two, three or four year scholarships. Two year scholarships available for qualified sophomores. is Smith Sports Columnist for fbX Point j'j Discount to all University of Utah Students. 20 Discount to all 15 Tye After all, gets dark, muscles get sore, balls get lost and with each beer, the courses get longer and harder. It would be somewhere bordering on masochism if we were to do nothing but play golf. So, after a long day of golf, we would head into Mesquite WWW.DAlLYUTAHCHRONlCLE.COM (EDSHQZ Soon thereafterand this it 19 The Csircnuft is the features best players in the world. George, can one really golf the whole points. PAGE 12 launching by its airing of the World Tour of which Poker, effort to drive all the way to In the second meeting, a game that took place last weekend in the Huntsman Center, Smith and Thorburn played well, but this time the Aztecs fought back. SDSU had two players finish in double figures in scoring, perforincluding a game-hig- h mance from guard Courtney Fritz, who finished with 16 The Utes moved up this week because they replaced a 196.225 road score with a 197.950. The Utes could still improve their ranking over the next couple of weeks, but Marsden thinks the possibility is slim. "I don't see us improving because road scores are so much more important than home scores, and we don't have any more meets on the road," he said. "Actually, our current position could be tough to hold on to because there are teams right around us that still have away meets left, and scores have been a lot higher lately than earlier in the year." Both No. 6 LSU, and No. 5 Alabama have away meets this week, and could easily overcome the small leads the Utes have over them with good road scores. If the Utes are to maintain their ranking, they will have to turn in another re- - (pun intended) We were really only there for the golf, but when a Salt Lake resident takes the 27 points. score. GYMNASTICS How to beat the card sharks Thorburn, turned in an impressive performance as welL Thorburn nabbed nine boards, scored seven points, recorded four assists and also had two steals to round out her night In the end, the Utes nearly doubled the score of the Aztecs, winning by a whopping at a SEE rebounds to go along with an assist, two steals and two blocks. Her partner in crime, sophomore shooting guard Shona neutral site. The RQS, which determines the seeding for regionals, is the average of a team's three best home scores, plus its three best away scores, minus the best and location. The only changes to this format occur if two host teams are grouped together. In that case, the groups would have slight variations made accordingly to ensure that each site accommodated its host squad. If the regionals began tomorrow, the Utes would be the No. 1 seed at their regional, and they would be grouped with No. 9 Iowa State, archrival No. 15 BYU, and three other teams from the remaining 18 qualifiers. The six sites for this year's regionals are Oregon State, LSU, Arizona, Denver, Penn State and North Carolina State. However, the Utes will have no control over where they end up. "Obviously, Denver or Arizona would be ideal from a travel standpoint, but where we end up is not that important," U coach Greg Mars-de- n said. What is important to Marsden and his team is qualifying for nationals. Only two teams from each regional site qualify, so a higher seed for the Utes could mean the difference between competing against No. 6 LSU in Baton Rouge or against No. 9 Iowa State 13 10, 2004 Straight flu HOOPS continued from page 9 Utes yet to find out where they will compete Matthew Ouellette Spoits Wr Iter Wednesday, March www.nrotc.utah.edu 581. NEWS