Show igp hiii 'ajlf4LW’14ifiii '¥" — Mrt-- Hffl y Sports Capsule c Section gait fake ifcibune Friday Morning— March B 6 Page 4 o 1987 Sports I or Hecnnlid Non— Call I -- Coral “porl' Inlormalion I M(10-M2-1'5 2:i7-20- Call 257-200- NBA 1 Denver 121 San Antonio 104 Phoenix 126 Cleveland 102 Golden State 105 Houston 96 Seattle 127 Portland 122 2 Top Twenty Basketball 76 Iowa 103 Northwestern 57 Temple 70 West Virginia Notre Dame 65 Miami 49 BYU Takes OT Win Wyoming Edges Utah 56-5- 4 Meets UNM Tonight By Ray Herbat Tribune Sports Writer The monkey fiALBUQUERQUE NM off the nally jumped Cougars’ back here Thursday afternoon Brigham Young University one of two teams never to have won a conference tournament game (Hawaii is the other) broke the overtime victory spell with an exciting over a fighting Air Force Academy in the of the Western Athletic Conference tournament here BYU will now play New Mexico a winner over Colorado State in a F riday semifinal matchup at 705 pm Mike Smith s two free throws with 20 seconds left in overtime sealed the 21st Cougar yictory of the season Smith is the WAC’s top foul shooter with a 91 percent average from situation the line He missed a earlier that enabled the Falcons to stay alive in regulation As ne stepped to the charity stripe for his two clutch foul shots Smith began to talk to himself "I just said to myself 'just be in the rim and it's as good as two' " said Smith I A crowd of 13857 — almost all of whom were rooting for the underdog Falcons and booing BYU at every opportunity — shook the rafters trying to bother Smith "Yeah I heard them” he laughed “All I wanted to do was mentally block them out I imagine they'll be against us tomorrow night - 46-3- Weber Startles No 1 Seed Montana State — Associated Press Photo Air Force forward Mike Lockwood (30) has a wall by the name of Usevitch to get ball past Falcons gave BYU a scare before losing Jim 82-7- ment berth and we struggle like this That's terrible” 9 The Falcons almost did BYU led 5 with 1:59 remaining in regulation Missed opportunities at the foul line prevented the Cougars from salting it away in the closing minute Freshman Marty Haws getting more playing time at point guard than he has seen all season missed the front end of a with 1:08 left Brian Taylor normally a trusted foul shooter late in the game missed from the line with 53 seconds remaining Air Force rebounded and worked the clock down to 28 seconds and called timeout With 18 seconds left Dudley was fouled on a drive by Capener who fouled out early in overtime Dudley one of the top freshmen in the WAC hit both charities to tie the game See B-- 7 Column 1 68-6- Why was the game this close then? "We didn't do what the coach told us” With Smith and Capener sitting on the bench in foul trouble midway through the second period the Cougars went on a 13-- 0 run deficit and taking a 7 wiping out a lead AFA called time out to regroup and the Falcons quickly got back into the game on the shooting of Eric Kjome and Raymond Dudley "Nobody in this building The Pit gave us a chance” said Falcon center Mike Lockwood "But we believed in ourselves At halftime we didn’t make any adjustments We just talked We said we still believed we could win and dedicated ourselves to that goal” 57-5- 2 65-5- one-and-o- game-winnin- Wyoming opened the second half with a 10- run to take a 3 lead Utah hit only two field goals during the first 14 minutes and 10 seconds of the second half The Utes stayed in the game via the foul line with Mitch Smith canning six charities The Cowboys did a better job of pounding the ball inside to the Leckner in the second half The Cowboys’ center had only 2 39-3- See B-- 7 Cal-Sant- 71 New Mexico St 54 Barbara a Fullerton St 92 Utah St 87 79 81 Cal-Irvm- e UNLV 105 Long Beach St 70 Big Sky Tournament Idaho 63 Montana Idaho State 62 78 Boise State 77 Weber St 106 Montana St 101 82 Northern- Arizona 80 Nevada-Reno NHL 10 Boston 2 Hartford Buffalo 6 4 New Jersey 2 Philadelphia 4 Washington Toronto 7 Pittsburgh 2 Detroit 9 Minnesota 3 Winnipeg Calgary 1 St Louis 1 7 Los Angeles 2 NBA Draft Date - The National NEW YORK (UPI) Basketball Association announced ThursMon-- day its 1987 draft will take place York New 22 in day June The league also announced the NBA ' Draft Lottery will be conducted in New York on Sunday May 17 The NBA has set a May 8 deadline for players filing for early entry to the draft Players with college eligibility remaining seeking to become eligible for the draft must state their intention in a letter to the NBA postmarked no later than midnight Friday May 8 Quotable “Apparently we don't need Lance Parrish It's hard to figure what they’re trying to do Apparently last year didn't ' teach them anything" — Pitcher John Tudor on the St Louis Cardinals’ failure to add any power to their lineup over the winter By John Gutman Tribune Sports Writer LOS ANGELES — Jerry Pimm's Santa Barbara Gauchos needed only to do two things to defeat Utah State Thursday in the first round of the PCAA Tournament — shoot well and stop Aggie guard Kevin Nixon Mission accomplished on both counts as Barbara showed the Ags a quick exit from postseason play at the Forum It was the Gauchos’ first-evwin in the PCAA Tournament UCSB shot pretty well in the first half — 59 percent But they only got better knocking down 73 percent in the final period for a 63 percent mark for the game And though Nixon sqeezed out 13 points he only hit 6 of his 17 shots and the Gauchos succeeded in preventing him from controlling the game’s tempo “We did our best to control Nixon” said Pimm “We didn’t want him to penetrate or get open shots like he did last week in UCSB’s regular season win” And if that wasn’t enough the Gauchos were stingy with turnovers in the second half — 14 in only five — after an the opening period A prime reason for the Gauchos’ hot shooting is that many of their field goals weren’t airborne very long Strong inside play' by UCSB frontliners Khris Fortson and Brian Vaughns combined with weak Aggie defense in the middle gave the Gauchos easy buckets most of the game And when they couldn’t push it inside they kicked it out to their shifty guards who also had a hard time missing Thursday night Gaucho guard Brian Johnson scored 17 points hitting 5 of 7 from the three-poiline His counterpart freshman Carrick DeHart had 16 points "The difference in the game was their ex See B-- Column 4 UC-San- 87-7- 9 er top-seed- ed 73-7- 1 g arrived “When pressed our philosophy is to turn the opponents’ press into our fastbreak" Farmer said “Things came together tonight We’ve never really had it all at the same time See B-- 7 Column 1 San Jose St Gauchos Use 63 Percent Shooting to Blast Ags 106-10- ! PCAA Tournament Column I By Richard Velotta Tribune Correspondent FLAGSTAFF Ariz — Upsets in the Big Sky Conference basketball tournament reached a crescendo Thursday night when lowest-seedeWeber State knocked off and defending tourney champ Mon1 tana State Aft°r eing the consensus preseason pick to win the league Weber State earned just its seven victory of the season against 21 losses Montana State bowed out of the tournament with a 21-- 7 record ! It was the third consecutive upset in the tournament marking the first time in Big Sky tournament history that underdogs won the !first three games "Its been a great day for the favorites hasn't?” said MSU Coach Stu Starner whose iteam won last year’s tournament despite !owning a losing regular season record "Our league is so close from top to bottom There’s ’not much difference between the number one Iseed and number five six or eighth seed” Weber State Coach Larry Farmer helped prove Starner’s point when his Wildcats beat Montana State at the Bobcats’ own game With senior guard Robert Maxwell consistently breaking the MSU press and racking up 13 assists Farma tournament record-tieiner said the Wildcats might finally have d d Wyoming 56 Utah 54 UTEP 85 San Diego St 65 six-fo- e 26-2- 2 first-roun- 56-5- 4 92-7- 7 The Cougars struggled early in the game with five minutes remaining and trailed in the half Smith Jeff Chatman and Bob then went to work and ignited BYU's offense as the Cougars took a 9 lead at intermission This trio scored 40 of BYU's 46 first half points The Cougars went stone cold to open the second half BYU did not score a point during the first four minutes of the period By this time Air Force had caught up It was a dog fight after that ' "This game never should have been that close” said Chatman in disgust "He we are thinking about going back to Alabama or North Carolina with a possible NCAA tourna By Ray Herbat Tribune Sports Writer This time it was ALBUQUERQUE NM the Cowboys’ turn to have Lady Luck ride with them Having lost its last three regular-seasogames by close scores because of missed down the stretch the University of in the Wyoming eliminated Utah of the Western Athletic Conference tournament here Thursday night Wyoming will play the winner of the UTEP-Sa- n Diego State game in Friday's semifinals at 9:05 pm MST Reggie Fox hit the winning hoop on a bank shot as he drove the right side against the defense of Gale Gondrezick Utah called time with three seconds to plot its final strategy Chris Fulton inbounded with a long pass down court The ball went off Jimmy Madison’s hands toward the Ute basket Gondrezick managed to chase it down on toss at the noop the baseline Kis hit the side of the backboard Ute Coach Lynn Archibald didn't think there was a foul on Gondo’s last shot "If 1 were a referee I wouldn’t call one” he said Fox was surprised he was in position to g shot make the "After we called time out our strategy was to isolate Fennis Dembo and Eric Leckner on one side so they could play a two-ma- n game I was supposed to be at the point When 1 got the ball I saw the path open and that surprised me because I’m supposed to be the outside shooter “I think too” added the sophomore guard “Utah was surprised to see me make that move because we hadn’t shown it that much this year” n first-roun- too” New Mexico 92 Colorado St 77 79 (OT) Brigham Young 82 Air Force - 82-7- 9 Tournament WAC nt —Associated Press PSoto Utah State’s Gilbert Pete (55) reaches out to deny a shot by Santa Barbara’s Brian Vaughns (24) during i i PCAA Tournament game Thursday in Anaheim UCSB knocked Aggies out of tourney with 9 win 87-7- 7 Texas Baseball Man Searches for Prospects Others Overlook Prospectors have devoted lifetimes to seeking diamonds in the rough but Van Schley finds the diamonds and then looks for the rough gems Schley heads Texas Star Baseball Corporation which has a player development contract to supply baseball players for the Salt Lake Trappers of the Pioneer (Rookie) League Schley has done remarkably well with his scouting service with the Salt Lake Trappers winning two straight Pioneer League chamIn addition 12 pionships with his players or six from five and last from year players to sold been have professional two years ago baseball clubs His system differs from regular scouting since he works independently of any major alleague club He finds the players almost in the were who men ignored ways young baseball draft He furnishes the players for the Trappers and then hopes some will develop sufficiently to impress professional teams into buying them That's where his profit enters the picture In some ways Van offers the court of last resort for the ball players yet the success of the Trappers would indicate there are good ball players overlooked by big league scouts You might think this is the basketball tour nament season but if you go outside you’ll know baseball season is just around the corner and the Utes are working out at Derks Field In the old days the potential players for Salt Lake City would have been gathering with the other minor league hundreds at Merced Calif Woodland Calif or Tucson Ariz about this time Teams like the Dodgers actually had hundreds of players in their development camps for spring training One year at Woodland scout Mickey Shader was supposed to run the minor league camp for the San Francisco Seals who still belonged to the Pacific Coast League md were working with the New York Giants In camp were ball players to be sent to the Western International (B classification) Pioneer and California (class C) and class D Far West leagues The latter classification was the pits of baseball but a few players made the climb from class D to the majors In Woodland it rained every day for a week and the San Francisco brass called Shader every day to complain about the fact he hadn't sent any players home or assigned them to a minor league club and the per diem was breaking the big for food and hotel ) club (I7-J8- John Mooney Sports Editor The spring training camp for one of those chain gang operations was a three-rin- g circus Coaches and managers were giving lessons in hitting pitching fielding throwing sliding play situations and everywhere were the guys clicking their stopwatches Maybe the brief performance of one afternoon would decide a player's fate whether he was assigned to AA or C baseball for that season But at least he had the opportunity to play baseball at some professional level if he had any visible talent Roughly there may have been 5000 jobs for minor league ball players 40 years ago Each morning all of us scouts minor league managers press and radio and the players would rake the infield and attempt to get it dry enough to use Then each afternoon we'd sit in the grandstand and watch the rain wash out our efforts Started as Loser That was the heyday of minor league baseball In 1949 it reached its zenith with a reVan got into this business from the bottom cord 59 leagues with 224 farm clubs or clubs with a franchise in an independent league in with working agreements with the majors Texas in 1977 This year there will be 17 leagues in Triple A “Shortly after I was awarded the franchise A and Rookie classification In the glory days of the minors there were AAA AA A B C the league folded" he laughed “My job is to and D classes A major league club with a find players and sign them to contracts I run count on tips from college good farm system had at least one club in tryout camps and and high school coaches and major league each classification scouts Many of the majors owned their minor clubs few “A coach or scout may like a young man and cities league outright operated or one just overindependently without major league working who may be a looked in the draft He may be a year away agreements late-bloom- “ iP' 5 from being a quality ball player but a scout can t take a chance on his development So he tips me and if I like the kid I get him a job and a chance to prove himself If the rookie progresses the scout may come back and sign him I m expanding a deal which I started last year If a businessman for example has a favorite college baseball player who is not drafted and I sign the player the business-- y one'hal the player's contract tor Jl000 If the player is sold he gets half the price But he has the satisfaction of being a part of an organization of having a piece of the baseball action without involving a lot of money” Van explained “The Pioneer League allows us to retain five players who have previous baseball experience We like thisprofessional because it provides a continuity for the fans when we back bring players they know My job is to 5 sign players after the major league draft this spring because I supply some players for the Miami club too” Van concluded 22-2- Observation Ward If a horie raced as erratically as the Jazz play the vets would be taking samples for tests and the stewards would be speaking harshly to the jockey i ""nntiiiii ffihimlinittii'jfainp-- a frjij! |