Blue women's hoops sweeps Big Ten games

It was a weekend of records and monkeys for the Michigan women's basketball team. The Wolverines managed to break the former, while getting the latter off their collective backs. To begin with, Michigan beat Indiana, 78-73, at Assembly Hall for the first time in 11 years and in front of a record crowd of 3,213.

The Wolverines went on to beat rival Michigan State, 81-65, on Sunday, in front of another record crowd of 4,032, this time at Crisler Arena. Michigan has beaten Michigan State, where Michigan coach Sue Guevara was once an assistant, twice this season.

The Wolverines (5-3 Big Ten, 13-5 overall) were forced to play most of Sunday's game against the Spartans (1-6, 7-10) without center Pollyanna Johns. Johns, who averages 20 points and 10 rebounds per game, left the game with a knee injury early in the first half.

"We just had to be aggressive and go to the boards," said forward Stacey Thomas, who finished the game with 16 points and seven rebounds. "Everybody knew that they had to step their game up to another level, and we all contributed and played our roles."

Michigan State coach Karen Langeland said coaching was the key to the Wolverines' determined play without Johns.

"Give Michigan a lot of credit," Langeland said. "Any time you can lose someone that's averaging 20 points a game and win the way they did with 3-point shooting and outside shooting, you've got to give a lot of credit to coaching."

The 3-point shot played a tremendous role in the Wolverines' 81-65 victory. They took 21 shots from beyond the arc, hitting 43 percent. Guard Ann Lemire was 5-of-7 from 3-point land on her way to a team-high 23 points. Lemire also contributed on the boards, ending the game with eight.

"We had people that were able to hit the 3-point shot for us," Guevara said. "Obviously, one of those was Ann Lemire. Molly Murray was able to hit the 3- point shot. I was especially proud of this team that they played this game without Pollyanna Johns."

Both teams came out strong, and the game remained close throughout most of the first half, with the score either tied or separated by less than four points. That all changed with about three minutes to go in the opening period.

With 3:20 until the half, Murray hit one of her three treys to make the score 34-29. At 1:53, she hit another, while Lemire scored another three with six seconds left in the half, putting the Wolverines up, 40-30.

The game's second half saw much of the same, as the Spartans never got closer than seven points. The Wolverines were strong throughout the game, ending with a .441 shooting percentage and .750 free throw percentage. They had a total of 40 rebounds and 19 assists. The Spartans finished shooting 39 percent from the field.

"With Pollyanna out, Stacey and I knew that we had to go to the boards more, and Coach G talked about that," Lemire said. "Whenever a team plays a zone, you always want to shoot your way out of it. They had to come out and play a little different defense on us in the second half, because we did shoot well with 3-pointers."

01-20-98