By Chris Gibson staff reporter The TCU track and field teams take to the road today, traveling to one of the oldest meets in the country. The men's and women's teams will participate in the 73rd annual Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin. Men's track head coach Monte Stratton said the Texas Relays is one of the biggest and most prestigious meets of the year for his team. His team looks forward to it every year because of the high caliber of teams that compete at the meet, and this year is no different, he said. The Texas Relays not only features top college competition but also serves as a showcase for high school and professional athletes, Stratton said. Junior sprinter Anthony Amantine said the team has been using the last few weeks as preparation for this meet. The meet is an opportunity for the Frogs to show the rest of the country their real speed, he said "The (Texas Relays) are a very big deal to all of us," Amantine said. "They are something that some of us have been running since high school. We just need to go out there and run like we've been running." Stratton said both the men's and women's teams have a chance to win events. The men's sprinting events, specifically the relays, are the team's strong point, he said. The men's 4x400-meter relay team is favored at this year's event and the men's 4x100-meter relay team is picked second behind Florida. "There are some good teams that are going to be there this weekend," Stratton said. "We are really going to have to run our best. When you have teams coming to the meet just to run against you, like Florida, you know you are going to have to do your best. "We have to look at it like any other meet. It's not live or die. Whatever the outcome, we will live to run again." Last weekend, the teams competed at the Fort Worth Recreational meet at Clark Stadium. Coaches and athletes said they were hoping to get some good practice in for the Texas Relays but were severely hampered by inclement weather. The Frogs picked up three victories on Saturday before the meet was cut short by rain. Junior Darvis Patton broke the tape first in the 100-meter dash, and senior Johnny L. Collins II won the 400-meter dash. Senior Dywana Crudup captured the top spot in the women's 400-meter. Stratton said although the Frogs ran well, their focus was on the Texas Relays. "The most successful thing about the meet was that we didn't get anyone hurt," Stratton said. "We were hoping to get some good practice, but the weather was just too bad. We didn't want to take a chance on getting anyone hurt."
Chris Gibson
All right, so it wasn't the greatest college basketball season in recent memory, and it may not have had the most exciting conclusion, either. The season also was tainted by injuries to marquee players, such as player of the year Kenyon Martin and Arizona center Loren Woods and a series of NCAA suspensions (i.e JaRon Rush, Erick Barkley and Chris Porter). But as usual, this season offered great basketball played at its high level and showed this is a game where truly anything can happen. Critics can blast college basketball for serving as a brief stepping stone to the NBA and for having players more intent on making SportsCenter highlights than playing fundamentally sound. However, where else can you see a relatively untalented team like Wisconsin, which finished sixth in the Big Ten, reach the Final Four by playing overwhelming defense? Where else can you watch a tiny school like Gonzaga make two straight Sweet Sixteens? Where else can you witness this year's "smart" pick, Temple, led by this year's media darling coach, John Chaney, get upset by 10th-seed Seton Hall, who even lost its team leader to injury in the early minutes of the game? Another supposed problem with the game is that there's too much parity now. But look at women's basketball, which is the complete opposite. Its tourney goes virtually without upset, and anyone with any knowledge of the schools could have predicted a Connecticut-Tennessee finale. The prevailing parity in the men's game is what makes it so exciting. For example, take the two most powerful conferences this year. In the Big Ten, Ohio State and Michigan State were widely considered to be head and shoulders above the rest of the conference. But Purdue and Wisconsin both made it to the Elite Eight or deeper. Meanwhile, in the SEC, Louisiana State, Florida, Tennessee and Kentucky clawed their way into a four-way tie in the conference. But Arkansas, with barely a winning record, won the conference tournament. When March Madness finally began, everyone complained it was tainted due to all of the injuries, suspensions and pending NCAA investigations. But everything seemed to correct itself with a series of narrow first-round games, capped off by Mike Miller's buzzer beater to take Florida past Butler. Then came the most upset-filled second round in history. It was great getting to watch coaches such as Bill Guthridge of North Carolina and Steve Lavin of UCLA, who had fans screaming for their underachieving heads, make deep runs into the tourney and make their bandwagon fans eat their own words. It was also incredible seeing the opposing styles of Wisconsin and Florida earn ways into the Final Four, the latter featuring a young team led by a hotshot young coach, and the former with a senior-laden team guided by an aging coach who was finally able to redeem his style of coaching. But in the end there was Michigan State, led by a senior triad of Morris Peterson, A.J. Granger and a widely-smiling Mateen Cleaves, the Spartans rolled to an anti-climatic championship over the inexperienced Florida Gators. Highlighted by Cleaves' overly dramatized return from an injury, the championship was won in the first 10 minutes as the Spartans jumped to an 11-point lead and never let the Gators any closer than six. Although the lack of excitement in the final fueled the critics with additional ammo, it was ironic to see sanity restored to a crazy season in which the preseason favorite won it all in the end.
Jordan Blum is a freshman broadcast journalism
major from New Orleans. |
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