Follow the Leaders Where: Lambeau Field TV: Fox Senior Trio Paves the Overs
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[email protected] WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 2008 The Capital Times Sports editor: Adam Mertz 252-6474 Sports D NFC championship Who: New York Giants (12-6) at Green Bay Packers (14-3) When: Sunday, 5:30 p.m. Follow the leaders Where: Lambeau Field TV: Fox Senior trio paves the overs. “We see them playing calm Line: Packers by 7 Inside/D3 and confident and knocking down way to UW’s eighth shots and playing good defense; we By the numbers: A statistical see that on the road and we just all straight victory, a glance at the Badgers’ victory follow them.” COMMENTARY over the Nittany Lions It was the eighth straight victory romp at Penn State. Spartans top Buckeyes: for the 17th-ranked Badgers (14-2, Michigan State builds big 4-0 Big Ten), who stayed undefeat- early lead, then holds on to ed in the Big Ten and took over the By ROB SCHULTZ defeat Ohio State. lead in the conference standings. Lambeau isn’t The Capital Times Big Ten standings: UW, It also was the Badgers’ fourth STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Any Indiana lead the way straight road win, seventh straight college basketball team that hopes over the Nittany Lions and fourth to win on the road needs its seniors straight win at Bryce Jordan. cold ... at least points and added six rebounds and to lead the way with smart, funda- Penn State (10-6, 2-2) lost its sec- mentally sound performances. five assists. Butch had nine points ond straight game as well as lead- Never was that more apparent and 12 rebounds. And Stiemsma ing scorer Geary Claxton, who left to Lombardi than during the came off the bench to add 10 points, the game early with an apparent University of three rebounds and three blocked season-ending left knee injury. BADGERS 80 By JOHNETTE HOWARD Wisconsin men’s shots during the Badgers’ wire-to- The Nittany Lions never knew Newsday PENN ST. 55 basketball team’s wire romp in a Big Ten Conference what hit them as the Badgers Some Giants fans are worried about 80-55 victory game in front of 8,600 at the Bryce jumped out to an 18-2 lead and nev- quarterback Eli Manning’s ability to play over Penn State Jordan Center. er looked back. UW shot a season- effectively in the cold during Sunday’s here Tuesday night when seniors “Guys follow the leaders like high 59.6 percent overall (31-of-52) CAROLYN KASTER/ASSOCIATED PRESS NFC championship game at Green Bay. Michael Flowers, Brian Butch and Greg and Brian and Mike,” said and 55.6 percent from 3-point range UW senior guard Michael Flowers Cold? Greg Stiemsma showed exactly junior swingman Joe Krabbenhoft, (10-of-18) as four Badgers finished scored a career-high 23 points who added 12 points, five rebounds, What cold? how it should be done. in double figures. Tuesday night in the Badgers’ three assists, a steal and no turn- “With Vince Lombardi, it was never cold Flowers had a career-high 23 See BADGERS, page D3 80-55 victory over Penn State. here,” said former Packers All-Pro Fuzzy Thurston, who played guard for Green Bay from 1959 to ’67. “Before games he’d just say something like, ‘Men, it’s a little blus- tery out there today.’ Blustery, see? Then COMMENTARY he’d say, ‘It’s our kind of day! Now get your asses out there and strut around like it’s the Fourth of July.’ ” Congress Thurston is 74, and he has outlasted throat cancer and endured swings from two hip replacements. This year marked the first time in 46 years he has missed a game its heels, but at hallowed Lambeau Field. The Giants Thurston haven’t played a playoff only singles game there since 1961, Lombardi’s third season, and it’s been 40 By JIM LITKE years since the legendary coach patrolled Associated Press the Packers’ sidelines in his trademark overcoat, barking at officials in his best If this latest round of Congres- Brooklynese. But within the magical space sional hearings were scored as a of Lambeau itself, and the surrounding baseball game, well, let’s just say little town of Green Bay, it can often feel it’s a good thing for lawmakers like not a lot has changed. that the slaughter rule wasn’t in It’s not just the snow or terrible cold effect. that gives playoff games at Lambeau a Tuesday’s session was barely flashback feel. When the Packers return called to order when House from an important road game, win or lose, Oversight and Government the townspeople still leave their porch Reform Committee chairman lights on for the team as a show of support. Rep. Henry Waxman lobbed the When a heavy snowfall hits the area in the first compliment at commis- days before a game, the Packers’ front of- sioner Bud Selig in his opening fice — as it did Tuesday, for the fifth time statement. this season — puts out an announcement “To his credit,” Waxman said, asking volunteers to show up at Lambeau “Mr. Selig listened and did the to grab a shovel. For $8 an hour, citizens right thing.” come by the dozens to clear the stands. Right about then, you sus- pected lawmakers were resting See LAMBEAU, page D3 their arms for Feb. 13, when Roger Clemens, Brian McNamee — his increasingly desperate personal trainer — and a fresh round of villains have been asked to testify. That, or else some congressmen suffer from the same attention-deficit disorder plaguing so many baseball play- ers today. Either way, it was hardly the last bon mot thrown baseball’s MICHELLE STOCKER/THE CAPITAL TIMES way. MATC guard Jason Jensen’s basketball odyssey will take him next fall to Brownsville, Texas, Credit Bud for being crafty, if where he will be on a full scholarship to play at NCAA Division I Texas Pan-American. not downright clairvoyant. He He’s believed to be the first MATC player to sign with a Division I school. saw this day coming. CHARLIE NEIBERGALL/ASSOCIATED PRESS Although Congress provided Packers linebackers Nick Barnett (right) plenty of the impetus, it still took and A.J. Hawk celebrate during the courage for Selig to commission second half of Saturday’s playoff victory the former Senate majority lead- over Seattle at snowy Lambeau Field. er to investigate baseball’s murky Hoop dreams performance-enhancing past. Selig didn’t have to, and as we’ve MATC’s Jason Jen- know me, I grew up basically with heard several times now, most Defense nothing,” said Jensen, who admit- in his inner circle counseled him sen earns scholarship tedly has had an up-and-down not to roil the waters. family life. “Now that I finally have The last time this committee continues to NCAA Division I something, I feel blessed. I had a lot dragged MLB up to the Hill, in of controversy growing up, and I March 2005, it hit the ball out of Texas Pan-American. had to deal with a lot of things. But the park a few times. Committee I’m telling you, I’m blessed.” members unmasked Mark McG- to grow By signing with Texas-Pan Amer- wire, unintentionally vindicated By ADAM MERTZ ican last month, Jensen achieved a Jose Canseco and embarrassed By CHRIS JENKINS The Capital Times pair of firsts. He’s the first person Selig and union chief Don Fehr. Associated Press from his family to attend college, Naturally, that made it tempt- ither way you look at it, Jason GREEN BAY — The clock said 10:59. The and he’s also believed to be the first ing for Congress to swing from Jensen has taken a circuitous scoreboard said 14-0. NCAA Division I men’s basketball the heels again. Only this time, route to his dream. After being backed into a corner by a pair E recruit out of MATC, which typi- the best it could do was a few From St. Francis, a small south- of fumbles from running back Ryan Grant, cally operates in the shadows of scratch singles, not to mention a ern suburb of Milwaukee, to Madi- the Green Bay Packers’ defense had given up powerhouse junior college hoops few glorious whiffs. It was a bad son, to Brownsville, Texas. two touchdowns in just a tick past the first factories in Kansas, Iowa and other day for Miguel Tejada and maybe From a kid who was hanging on four minutes of Saturday’s divisional playoff states. Giants general manager Brian to high school by a thread, who game against Seattle at Lambeau Field. The residual effect for MATC Sabean, but that was about it. needed some rounding out physi- MICHELLE STOCKER/THE CAPITAL TIMES Much has been made of Grant’s comeback is that other players on the roster This time, Selig and Fehr knew cally, emotionally and academical- Jensen, currently sidelined after the fumbles. But lost in the shuffle of — notably first-year guard Chris how to play the game — agreeing ly at junior college, to a full-fledged while he recovers from hand Green Bay’s dominant 42-20 victory was Davis, formerly of Madison East, with the committee and promis- scholarship recruit at an NCAA surgery, averaged 22.4 points an equally impressive rally by the Packers’ and second-year forward Jason ing to do better in the future. Division I basketball program. defense, which held Seattle to a pair of field per game and made 54.1 percent King of Minneapolis — are also Most important, Mitchell, just So even now, as the sharpshoot- goals the rest of the way.