9 I Friday, Dec. 10, 2010
Oklahoma provides
tough test for Lions
By Jake Kaplan
COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER
The Oklahoma women’s volley
ball team is accustomed to facing
some of the nation's top teams
it’s in the Big 12 with perennial
national championship con
If you go
Women’s volleyball vs.
Oklahoma
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Rec Hall
Senior forward Billy Oliver (35) shields a defender during the Lions' 66-52 exhibition win vs. East Stroudsburg University in October.
Oliver overco
By Alex Angert
COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER
Laura Oliver' could feel Andrea
Jackson's pain.
As a hush swept through the
Bryce Jordan
Center during
Saturday's game MEN'S
against BASKETBALL
Duquesne. Oliver .
and Jackson
the mothers of Penn State basket
ball forwards Billv and D.J..
Fifth-year senior leading Lions in final season
Tom Ruane/Collegian
Brown (left) attempts a spike vs. Niagara last weekend in Rec Hall.
NBA
Los Angeles Lakers at Chicago
8 p.m., ESPN
Q: Which NFL team did Auburn quar
terback Cameron Newton’s father, Cecil
Newton, play for?
Thursday's answer: Florida coach Urban
Meyer attended the University of
Cincinnati.
RTS
tenders Nebraska and Texas.
That is just one of the reasons
Penn State coach Russ Rose
knows his fourth-
seeded Nittany
Lions are in for a WOMEN’S
tough match VOLLEYBALL
tonight.
No. 8 Penn
State (28-5) hosts Oklahoma (23-
10) at 7 p.m. in the NCAA Regional
Semi-Finals at Rec Hall. The win
ner will face either 12th-seeded
Duke (26-6) or Missouri (22-10) at
6:30 Saturday night with a trip to
Thursday’s Final Fbur in Kansas
City, Mo., on the line.
respectively sat next to each
other and watched as Andrea's
son laid on the floor in pain.
Watching her son's teammate
struggle to get up, flashbacks
began to appear right in front of
Mrs. Oliver's eyes.
"I was frantic when D.J. went
down in that game because I
knew what was probably going
through his head and what was
going through his mom’s head,
who was sitting right next to me,"
Mrs. Oliver said. "My heart went
1 '
Frosh Sullinger drops 40
Jared Sullinger set an Ohio State fresh
man record with 40 points, leading the sec
ond-ranked Buckeyes back from a nine
point second-half deficit to beat lUPUI 75-
64 on Thursday night.
The 6-foot-9 Columbus native hit 12 of 17
shots from the field and 16 of 23 free throws
both of which were also records and
had 13 rebounds as the Buckeyes (7-0)
escaped on a night when the pesky Jaguars
(4-6) shot 51 percent from the field and con
stantly applied pressure.
William Buford added 14 points and Jon
Diebler 13 for the Buckeyes, who looked
rusty at times after a nine-day layoff.
Alex Young had 20 points.
“They do a number of things
that hopefully we’ll be able to con
tend with,” Rose said in a press
conference Thursday evening.
“We know that every match has a
different personality and we re not
sure exactly which direction this
one is going to go. But were going
to have to play well if we have
hopes of advancing."
See OKLAHOMA Page 12.
For up-to-the-minute cover
age on the regional games
in Rec Flail this weekend:
twitter.com/Collegian_WVß
g head
out to her because I was like. Oh.
man. I’ve been there.' "
In fact, she has been there plen
ty of times in the past.
And little did she know then
that she would be back there with
in the hour.
At the start of the second half,
her son was hit in the head by Jeff
Brooks' knee, causing Oliver to sit
out the rest of the game on the
bench with a headache.
To most, a sip of water and two
Advils would have done the trick.
Series Note: This is the third
of a three-part series high
lighting the senior co-cap
tains of the women's volley
ball team.
By Ryan Loy
COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER
Blair Brown ended her Penn
State career, alongside Megan
Hodge and Alisha Glass, as the
core players who helped the pro
gram to three consecutive nation
al titles and 102 straight wins.
At least, that’s how it could
have happened.
Instead, Brown redshirted her
freshman season in 2006 and is
S :APi
Ariel Scott (1) goes for a kill
injuries
But not for Billv
Headaches to Oliver can be
much more worrisome after he
was forced to redshirt the past
two seasons after suffering two
concussions and unrelated
migraines during his freshman
and sophomore year.
Finally healthy and the first
Lion off the bench this season, it
appeared for a brief time
Saturday that Oliver's return to
the court was back in jeopardy.
See OLIVER. Page 12.
now a senior co-captain for the
2010 Nittanv Lions attempting
to help her adoptive class capture
an unparalleled fourth straight
NCAA championship.
As far back as she can remem
ber. Brown has had a key attrib
ute for playing volleyball: height.
Early in her childhood, Brown
said her height helped save a cat
from a tree, but as she grew, it
became a tool for athletics. After
playing a variety of sports as a
child, she focused on volleyball
and track in high school.
When she came to Penn State,
she had the size and ability to
play, but the opposite hitter said
redshirting was the right thing to
do.
KG leads Celts past 76ers
Kevin Garnett banked in a shot off an
alley-oop pass with 1.4 seconds left to give
the Boston Celtics their ninth straight vic
tory, 102-101 over the Philadelphia 76ers on
Thursday night.
After Philadelphia's Andre Iguodala
drove for a hook shot with 6.6 seconds left to
give Philadelphia a 101-100 lead, Rajon
Rondo flipped a long pass to Garnett for the
winner.
Garnett then raced to midcourt to inter
cept the 76ers' inbounds pass.
Ray Allen led Eastern Conference-lead
ing Boston with 23 points, Rondo had 19
points and 14 assists, Glen Davis added 16
points, and Garnett finished with 14. Jodie
Meeks led Philadelphia with 19 points, and
Lou Williams and Thaddeus Young had 16
each.
See BROWN, Page 12.
OUR THOUGHTS
Lee deal could decide East
The Red Sox have struck deals with
Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford. And
suddenly, the American League East title
could come down to one man who hasn't
signed yet: Cliff Lee.
The New York Yankees played chicken
with the Sox and the Sox won. The Big
Apple team is now in the hot seat
Lee’s potentially monster deal might be
what is going to decide the East.
Yankees Chairman Hal Steinbrenner
and G.M. Brian Cashman had better con
sider what this deal means.
If the Yankees don’t get Lee, the Red
Sox will enter 2011 as the team to beat in
the division.
The Daily Collegian
Lions
land
ISIPs
Long
By Brandt Gelman
COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER
With the success Penn
State’s freshman class is having
this season, the team’s future
seems to be a bright one.
After lowa
State Sports
Information WRESTLING
released a
statement
Wednesday say
ing Andrew
Long, a former
wrestler, intend
ed to transfer to
Penn State, the
future may have Long
gotten
brighter
The lowa State athletic
department had not returned a
call seeking confirmation, and
the Penn State athletic depart
ment had not responded to an e
mail regarding the situation as
of press time.
Long was the 125-pound run
ner-up at the NCAA champi
onships last March, but was dis
missed from lowa State in June
for violating team rules.
He was arrested twice while
on lowa State's wrestling team,
most recently in April for pos
session of a fake ID. Both offens
es were alcohol-related.
"The team gave Long a
series of steps to accomplish to
rejoin the team," lowa State
coach Kevin Jackson said in the
release. "During that process.
Andrew decided that he could
best address those issues in a
place where he would be start
ing over.
See LONG. Page 12.
ACC’s
Hokies
provide
challenge
By Jared Shanker
COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER
Before the season started, one
glance at Penn State's noncon
ference schedule was enough to
see that three games could end
up defining the Nittany Lions'
season. A road game at Ole Miss,
a home game
against
Maryland and MEN’S
finally a road BASKETBALL
date at Virginia - -
Tech immedi-
ately stood out as earlv-season
tests for the Lions.
Well, through the first two
games, the Lions are 0-2 with
Virginia Tech remaining. A win
at Virginia Tech at 1 p.m. Sunday
in Blacksburg, Va. will go a long
way come March for the Lions as
they build their case for the
selection committee.
“It’s a huge resume builder for
us, we know that,” forward Billy
Oliver said. “These are the
games you look back at come
March, that we went to Virginia
Tech and won."
See HOKIES, Page 12.
' *4* f . jS