The Indianapolis Star from Indianapolis, Indiana • Page 20

I The Indianapolis Star in wy iy.u kA if New contract Two days after the Irish were invited to their first major bowl in five years, Notre Dame football coach Bob Davie has a new contract. Page 7 Wednesday, December 6, 2000 NFL 2 NHL 3 NBA 4 SCOREBOARD 6 COLLEGES 7 InfoLine: 624-INFO (4636) Online: www.starnews.com T5) IDJ Sports Brickyard Crossing loses Senior Tour event PL: Comfort Inns ends sponsorship; date goes to Des Moines. Senior champions Winners of the Senior PGA Tour tournaments played at Broadmoor Country Club and Brickyard Crossing Golf Course from 1 988 through this year: Bob Kravitz I V) V'-. Year Champion Score Earnings 1988 Gary Player 70-65-66-201 $52,500 $527500 1991 George Archer $67,590 1992 Raymond Royd "667-66-199 $67,506 1993" Bob Murphy x-66-i34: $75,000 if 67-65-69-201 2001 Senior Tour schedule will be taken by the Alli-anz Championship, to be played at a course to be determined in Des Moines, Iowa. Comfort Inns completed its four-year contract with IMS in September and the hotel chain had made a verbal commitment to sponsor the event in 2001.

Dan Shoen, Comfort's vice president and its primary liaison with the Brickyard, was out of the office Tuesday and unavailable for comment. After a six-year run at Broadmoor Country Club as the GTE North Classic, the Senior Tour moved to Brickyard Crossing Golf Course in 1994. In 1995 and 1996, IMS sponsored the event. It chose not to this time. The purse has escalated from $750,000 in 1996 to $1.25 million this year and the final round has been carried by ABC the past four years, a costly item.

"It's a different world. Considerations are different," said tournament director Lee Gardner. "Also, See BRICKYARD Page 3 By Phil Richards STAFF WRITER With a birdie-birdie finish in the 2000 Comfort Classic at the Brickyard, Gil Morgan became the second player in the Senior PGA Tour's 13 stops in Indianapolis to defend his title. It appears that he also will be the last. An abrupt change in corporate policy has cost the Brickyard its title sponsor and Indiana its lone big-league professional golf tournament.

"Last week, we were informed that Comfort Inns would not be continuing as title sponsor for 2001, reflecting a change in their priorities," Indianapolis Motor Speedway president Tony George said Tuesday in a statement. "With this unexpected turn of events and with the expressed willingness of Des Moines to be a host community next year, we informed Senior PGA Tour officials that we would agree to this arrangement." So the Comfort Classic's Sept. 3-9 slot on the Gil Morgan mm x-64-67-131 $187,500 2000 Gil Morgan x-weather shortened ana zuuu mammon iwm A Staff Photo Steve Healey; Staff Graphic Steve Vanderbosch 86 78 gtaom DiriisIlD 1998 Indiana Mr. Basketball scores career-high 30 points to pace IU. By Terry Hutchens STAFF WRITER SOUTH BEND, Ind.

Notre Dame came into Tuesday night's game with Indiana concerned about how to slow reigning Mr. Basketball MUMWH 11WIIWMMMMWMMMMMMMWWMIII lllll I. Ul I II! I W. I Mp jpn.ll J.IUIUH IIUI.I I Hi I TOI i HI UHIJ I WW "VjjiN 'Alt.) Hi i 1 a I A i i 1 Jared Jeffries INDIANA 86 NOTRE DAME 78 But it was Indiana shows it has grown in beating ND SOUTH BEND, Ind. -About a half-hour before Indiana's eye-popping victory Tuesday night, IU basketball coach Mike Davis stood alone in the back halls of the arena, bent over at the waist, looking like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

"Nah, nah," Davis said later after Indiana's unlikely 86-78 victory over Notre Dame. He smiled. "I was ready, real ready. I knew we could win this game." He did? Really? Wasn't this supposed to be an Irish coronation? Wasn't this supposed to be the night when Notre Dame's basketball program, a top-10 team for the first time since 1980-81, re-announced itself to the hoops world on national TV? How could IU, just 3-3 and dominated by freshmen and sophomores, come into the pit where the UCLA dynasty once fell and hope to fell this emerging program? Simple. By playing nearly perfect basketball.

By taking advantage of something Davis saw on tape; namely, thaLNotre Dame doesn't play in-your-face defense. By playing typical smothering man-to-man defense, by knocking down long-range Jumpers, by scrapping and winning loose balls and turning Notre Dame's All-Everything forward, Troy Murphy, into just another guy. The conventional wisdom will be that the Hoosiers grew up Tuesday night. But in Davis' mind, his team grew up after the dispiriting last-second loss to Indiana State in Terre Haute. After that game, he walked into a locker room dampened by tears, and he knew, for the first time all season, just how much his players cared.

"There wasn't a dry eye in there," Davis said. "Before that, they would wait for me to maybe come in and tear into them, but it was different that night." Whatever happened that night, the IU team that came to play on this night played like it was full-grown into basketball adulthood. It played with intelligence and passion, refusing to let its collective youth be used as an excuse for failure. They faced down a very good Notre Dame team and played this game like they've played it a million times before. Tom Coverdale was Damon Bailey reincarnate.

Jared Jeffries, matched inside with Murphy, more than held his own. Kirk Haston, playing just 25 minutes because of an injury, had 19 points. And when the Irish made the big run, IU maintained its poise with bloodless execution and near-perfect shooting. These guys aren't freshmen and sophomores anymore. The statistics second-youngest team in the Big Ten, no seniors for the first time since 1981-82 don't matter anymore.

They are a good basketball team blessed with infinite possibilities. And they are a team that now has a defining victory that could loom large if the team is on the bubble come NCAA tournament selection time. For all the hand-wringing about IU's 3-3 start, the fact is, it played four of its first seven games against teams that went to the NCAA tournament last season and two against NIT teams. Suddenly, 4-3 looks pretty impressive. "I wasn't sleeping before our early games," Davis said.

"But the night before Southern Illinois and this game, I slept fine. I know we're becoming a good basketball team." By the time it was over, Davis was on his feet, standing tall, a man without a worry in the world. Bob Kravitz is a sports columnist for The Indianapolis Star. Contact him at (31S) 444-6643 or via at boBt.Kravitzstamews.odn Indiana's other Mr. Basketball that shot the lights out on the Irish.

Next game: vs. Western Michigan, 6 p.m. Friday, WTTV-4, WIBC-1070 AM How far they've come in a week. Last Wednesday, IU dropped a 59-58 decision to Indiana State, its third loss in a row. Now the Hoosiers have put together back-to-back wins over Southern Illinois and Notre Dame to raise their record to 4-3.

Kirk Haston added 19 for Indiana; Jeffries had 14 and Kyle Homsby chipped in 11. Notre Dame All-American Troy Murphy was limited to 15 points, more than 11 under his season average. Murphy made 5-of-18 shots from the field. "When we were coming on the court before the game one of their fans yelled at me, 'Hey, what does it feel like to be the third-best team in Haston said. "1 told him I didn't know.

I guess he'll have to ask some other team." The Hoosiers made 53.3 percent of their shots from the field, 7-of-11 3-pointers, and out-rebounded the 4-1 Irish 42-33. But defense, particularly In the post on Murphy, was a big key to IU's success. "We knew he was going to score, but we just wanted to slow him down," said Haston, who returned to action after missing the Southern Illinois game with a sprained toe. "He's a great player, but we can cause some people problems in the middle, too." Contact Terry Hutchens at (317) 444-6469 or via e-mail at teny.hutchensstamews.com. Tom Cover-dale, the 1998 Indiana Mr.

Basketball from Noblesville scored a career-high 30 points to lead Indiana to an 86-78 upset of the No. 10 Irish before a stunned sellout crowd of 11,418 at the Joyce Center. It was Indiana's sixth victory in a row in the series. Coverdale hit ll-of-15 shots from the field, including 4-of-6 from 3-point range to lead the Hoosiers. He also had six assists and four steals in 39 minutes of action.

"I just had all the confidence in the world tonight and coach (Mike) Davis has given that to me," said Coverdale, whose previous career-high was 13 twice this season. "I thought we did a nice job of post defense, and we seemed to always have an answer for everything they could bring us. This was a big, big win for our team and it just shows how far we've come." Staff Photo Steve Healey Flying high: Freshman Indiana forward Jared Jeffries (right) tries to block the shot of Notre Dame All-American Troy Murphy in the first half of their game in South Bend, Ind. "4" 1 Bad snap obscures center solid role Pacers aren't too proud to accept Nets' generosity 11 I 3 I 0T I TJX Yf i I I. IV.

I By Mark Montleth STAFF WRITER During the holiday season, it's appropriate to consider those less fortunate. The New Jersey Nets, for example. Already without By Phil Richards STAFF WRITER Peyton Manning has taken every snap this season as the Indianapolis Colts quarterback. That's 839 of them. It's a trivia item that might have escaped the notice of all but the closest observers, of which Jeff Saturday is one.

Saturday knew because he had a personal stake in each of those 839 snaps. As the Colts' starting center, he made them, and the one that made him famous Sunday at Giants Stadium was the one that got away. Saturday's wayward shotgun snap was the biggest play in the biggest loss of the Colts' season. He didn't attempt to duck it. "I don't make excuses for what I See SNAP Page 2 '4 ft could have been much worse, and a welcome warmup for tonight's more difficult game at Charlotte.

"It definitely was a confidence game for us," said Pacers coach Isiah Thomas, whose team had lost seven of its previous nine games. "We needed a game we could have a comfortable lead and give a lot of guys meaningful minutes. Just get them feeling good about themselves. Confidence is a big thing in this league, and with a young team confidence comes and goes." Confidence came gift-wrapped from the Nets, who lost their eighth in a row and dropped to 6-12. They shot just 27 percent from the field a record low for a Pacers NBA opponent and 54.5 percent from the foul line.

Capping off a miserable evening in appropriate fashion, they hit just l-of-18 See PACERS Page 4 starters Keith Van Horn, Kerry Kittles and Jamie Feick, the frayed Nets had to play Tuesday without All-Star guard Stephon Marbury, PACERS 88 NEW JERSEY 64 Next game: at Charlotte, 7:30 p.m. today, vVTTV-4, WIBC-1070 AM i Jeff Saturday didn't duck his responsibility. "I don't make excuses for what I do. If I miss a block, I miss a block. If I bust a snap, I bust a jnaP-" I r-1 Staff Photo Mpozi Mshale Tolbert who has a sprained ankle.

That made them the perfect foil for a team in need of cheering up, the Indiana Pacers. A stress-free 88-64 victory A Conseco Fieldhouse served as a reminder that their plight This is just too easy: Jalen Rose of the Pacers goes to work on Nev Jersey's Lucious Harris. Rose scored 21 points..