Women's hoops faces test from Tigers

After opening its season with seven straight wins, unprecedented in its 27-year history, the Michigan women's basketball team played sloppily in a 76-60 loss to Vanderbilt on Tuesday. Clearly, playing four games in seven days, flying from Dallas to Ann Arbor Sunday, and the stress of exams had taken its toll on the Wolverines in the Vanderbilt loss.

"You could see that we've been playing a lot," guard Anne Thorius said.

"The transition of being away then home is catching up to us. Coach said herself that she could see that we were tired. We're a running team, and when people start beating us down the floor, there's definitely fatigue involved."

SAM HOLLENSHEAD/Daily After a rough schedule which led to their first loss of the season on Tuesday, LeeAnn Bies and the Wolverines hope to rebound and defeat Louisiana State.

But now isn't the time for the Wolverines to start feeling sorry for themselves, because Louisiana State awaits.

If Michigan loses to the 15th-ranked Tigers tonight at 7 p.m., the Wolverines will be staring at a possible three-game losing streak. They travel to No. 3 Louisiana Tech on Monday.

"We look at this as a good opportunity to steal one on the road," forward Kenisha Walker said. "LSU and Tech are good teams and we just want to go down there, have some fun and regroup."

And so far this year, the Wolverines have had fun on the road. Michigan is 4-0 with all four victories coming against teams that played in last year's postseason. But none of those teams were as good as the Tigers, let alone the Techsters. Factor in a weak low-post game, and this weekend could be disastrous for Michigan.

In Michigan's last three games, opposing teams' starting centers and power forwards have outscored Michigan's, 77-19.

Senior Alison Miller and sophomore Ruth Kipping - Michigan's starters before Raina Goodlow replaced Kipping against Vanderbilt - combined for just eight points against New Mexico State and Rice, the Wolverines' two opponents before the Commodores. Against Vanderbilt, Goodlow and Miller combined for 3-of-ll shooting.

But Thorius feels that if Michigan's perimeter game plays better, its interior game will follow.

"We didn't have a good shooting game on the perimeter," Thorius said after the loss to Vanderbilt. "We can't think that our post players are going to guard them by themselves. (The perimeter players) need to step in and help from the weakside. The best situation would be if we could get contributions from both the inside and outside, but we (perimeter players) can get it done."

And while Michigan had success defensively, it struggled with Vanderbilt's 2-3 zone. The Wolverines shot just 39 percent from the field and committed 20 turnovers.

"The zone was more of a problem (than we expected)," freshman guard Infini Robinson said. "We need to practice penetrating against a zone."

And if they don't, Louisiana's warm weather and jambalaya will be the only things the Wolverines will enjoy this weekend.

"We're going down there thinking we need to beat at least one of these teams," Thorius said. "When we go on the road, we get to focus on basketball. We get to sleep a lot. It's going to be good to go on the road."

Tomorrow

Where: Maravich Assembly Center, Baton Rouge, La.

When: Tomorrow at 2 p.m.

TV/Radio: Live TV coverage on ESPN2.

12-10-99