The Commercial Appeal from Memphis, Tennessee • 49

i MEMPHIS SUNDAY NOVEMBER 17 1991 I MM TUe Commercial Appeal Holt Mississippi State runs by LSU toward Liberty! Maleeva beats jKeller in final "of Jell-O tennis The Aaaodatod Pros Rom Our Praas 8rvtcw 9 overall 34 SEC) of its third straight losing season Kenny Roberts led the Bulldogs with 157 yards rushing on 22 carries and quarterback William Robinson rushed for 92 yards and two touchdowns and passed for another score The Tigers go down easily as quarterback Jesse gle threw two fourth-period TD passes after State took a 28-7 lead Daigle completed 25-of-44 passes for 394 yards and three IDs leading 533-yard attack Todd Kinchen caught 1 nine passes for an SEC-record 248 yards including a 75-yard TD Carlos Alvarez had 237 yards receiving against Miami in 1969 LSU coach Curley Hallman said his team's inability to stop Robinson was a key to the game lined up in that bone (wishbone) and aid some things with it that were Hallman said "They changed their offense completely from two weeks Sherrill said his team's ability to dominate LSU early in the game paid off when the Tigers rallied in the fourth period thought that after their BATON ROUGE La When Jackie Sherrill took over as Mississippi State football coach last December he vowed to make the Bulldogs winners Saturday night he did it Mississippi State beat Louisiana State 28-19 clinching its first winning regular season since 1986 The Bulldogs 64 entering next season finale against Ole Miss will apparently get a postseason bonus for their turnaround from last 56 record Liberty Bowl executive director A Dudley indicated Saturday that State would be invited to play Air Force (8-3) in the Dec 29 game at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium Bowl invitations can be officially issued today The Bulldogs have not played in a bowl game since beating Kansas 1(M) in the 1981 Hall of Fame Bowl at Birmingham State used a punishing 422-yard running attack to improve its Southeastern Conference record to 3-3 and assure LSU (4-6 INDIANAPOLIS Katerina Maleeva of Bulgaria defeated unseeded Audra Keller of Bartlett 7-6 6-v2 Saturday to win the $150000 Jell-0 Tennis Classic for the third time The topeeeded Maleeva ranked 11th in the world went through the 32-player indoor tournament without losing a set to boost her confidence for next $3 million Virginia Slims Cham- pionships in New York Maleeva earned $27000 Keller won 13500 i i' Keller who turns 20 today was playing in her flrst professional tournament final She beat fourth-seeded Radka Zrubakova of Czechoslovakia 6-2 6-3 and seventh-seeded American Patty Fendick 7-5 6-3 as well as unseeded Czech Patra Langrova and Petra Thoren of Finland to reach title match Keller ranked 138th kept pace with Maleeva in the hard-hitting groundstroke rallies of the first Set which had no service breaks Keller used her first serve to turn back three break points in the dramatic seventh game of the first set which went to deuce six times In the pivotal first-set tiebreaker pa- tience forced Keller into three groundstroke er- rors as the top seed took the last six points to win 1 7-1 'j "I felt in the first set I make a dent in her service games" said Keller who began the 11991 season playing on the secondary satellite 'Si fM (LSU) first touchdown (and) we came back and drove the ball and scored then held them and scored again and went up 21-7 at the half that it was going to be 1 Sherrill said The TDs Sherrill referred to were runs of 11 yards I and 16 yards and his 11-yard pass to William Prince That offset the shock of 75-yard TD pass to Kinchen on the game's i second play I Kinchen is a great play- er We knew it coming Sherrill said I An aggressive Bulldogs de-j fense kept Daigle off balance i and held the Tigers out of the I end zone in the second half until Daigle passed 7 yards to flanker Wesley Jacob with just over five minutes left in the game Daigle then connected with Vincent Fuller for a 4-yard TD LSU failed in its two-point conversion at-I tempt after each-TD The Bulldogs who did not at- tempt a pass until 1:38 was left in the first half made it 21-7 when Robinson hit Prince on an 11- yard TD pass The scoring play I was set up by 47-yard pass to Tony James that put State on the Tigers 15-yard line 1 Colonels slip past Rhodes Audra Keller shown in a file photo lost to Katerina Maleeva in Jell-0 Classic title match first pro final circuit a machine a solid player" Maleeva said the first set seemed to weaken Keller saying could tell she got a bit tired After the tiebreak her game went down a bit" Said Keller am very happy with the way I played this week I was relaxed and had nothing to lose (Saturday) and except for part of the second set I played a good AP Aggies survive kansas fHogs return to wishbone By Bradd Todd Special to The Commercial Appeal DANVILLE Ky Centre Col-! lege wide receiver Eric Horst- neyer feels like his team might lave a supernatural advantage over Southern Collegiate Athle-! tic Conference rival Rhodes Horstmeyer and the Colonels (5-5 2-2) came from behind to beat Rhodes 16-12 Saturday and mock the Lynx (6-2-1 2-1-1) out' of a conference championship' for the third consecutive year and end hopes for a na- tional playoff berth think a little mental edge maybe a jinx Horst-' meyer said "Because beat-1 en them the last two years we: knew we had a Rhodes dominated the first half outgaining the Colonels by 156 yards (184-28) and racking up nine more first downs (12-3) but led only 64) I Centre stormed back in the third quarter scoring a 69- yard screen pass from Jeff Ra-' tanapool to Tim McDaniel le than two minutes into the ond half Centre padded its lead five plays later on a 10-yard TD run by McDaniel that was set up by a Steve Cherry interception Centre added a safety in the fourth quarter but Rhodes came back scoring with 2:04 to play and recovering an on-sides kick The late comeback reminded Rhodes players and coaches of1 the Lynx's last visit to Danville in 1989 a 13-10 Centre victory three minutes left we were down by 10 (166) and! coach (Mike) Clary reminded us that two years ago we were up by 10 with three minutes left and they came said Rhodes flanker Demetrl Patikas It was Patikas who scored the Lynx's only touchdown on a 23-1 yard reception of a Drew Robison pass with 2:04 to play after Terry Johns recovered a McDaniel fumble Rhodes's try for a two-point I conversion failed when fullback David Kahalley slipped and fell in the backfield The Lynx got a second chance when defensive' back John Bratton recovered Peter onsides kickoff at the Lynx 48 Two completions to wide re-i ceiver Steve Staid moved the Lynx to the Centre 38 Staid caught another pass on the next play and got out of bounds on the 27 with 1:13 to play After three incomplete pass the Lynx converted on fourth and-10 when Robison hit split end Brian Vandegrift over the middle for a 15-yard gain I On the next play Centre line- backer Alex Newman broke up a I Please see RHODES Page 04 LSU center Shaquille O'Neal is the most dominant force in college basketball By Phil Stukenborg The Commercial Appeal COLLEGE STATION Texas £The University of Arkansas off an old offense and welcomed back a forgotten quarterback Saturday night And for nearly three quarters pthe change of pace worked The lbone offense under the direction of season-opening starting quarterback Gary Adams (Tstalled Texas getting just lough yardage to keep the Ag-'gies off the field But in the end the wealth of talent profiled as the 13th-ranked Aggies gripped Arkansas 13-3 before "1487 at Kyle Field The victory moved one I step closer to its first Southwest Conference title since 1987 Texas (8-1 60 in the SWC) can clinch the SWC title and a Cotton Bowl berth with a win at home next weekend against SMU Arkansas (55 4-3 in the SWC) saw its bowl chances dim The Razorbacks close their season next weekend at Little Rock against Rice and a victory could earn an Independence Bowl bid Ineffective in the first two games of the season Adams was replaced by Jason Allen and moved to the secondary But with injuries decimating the QB spot Adams was broug back ana put in the offense for which he was recruited by former coach Ken Hatfield Adams generate much offense but he did keep off the field for' a half put Adams in an element where we could said Arkansas coach Jack Crowe had to have execution around him but we have that We never got a rhythm We sump ourselves But it was the right offense The defense which gave up a season-high 38 points last week-! end against Texas Tech held the 1 top-ranked offense (4575 yards per game) to 125 yards and six points in the first was a big scare" said coach RC Slocum But broke away from a 6-'3 halftime lead getting 242 of its 367 total yards and its only I touchdown: a determined 4-yard run by quarterback Bucky ardson after the break Richardson finished with ame-high 83 yards rushing on '19 carries He passed for 128 yards "Bucky made some critics Slocum said the conference's top-rat-lied defense held Arkansas to 41 yards in the second half and 121 overall think you have to give credit" Adams said But the bottom line is we stopped our-selves at times with bad reads missed blocks and penalties" Adams said Arkansas's switch from the 1-formation to the wish-bone didn't exactly catch Coffuardd 0f their players after the game and the told me they had practiced Please see HOGS Page IX i j4 4 back Neal stays with By Ron Higgins Tha Commercial Appeal Ole Miss coach Ed Murphy said the SEC may have six NBA first-round draft choices after this season but have a special draft for Shaquille and another one for human bad news for SEC coaches O'Neal who averaged 275 points 147 rebounds and 5 blocked shots per game last season said bigger stronger and faster had special tutoring from two of the greatest centers in basketball history learned sky hooks from Kar-eem Abdul-Jabbar and post moves and defense from Bill Walton That's like a college student asking Shakespeare to help with an English Lit paper and Pi- Please see Page Dll our first day of practice this season I counted five times in the first two hours that Shaquille dove on the floor after loose Brown said "It reminded me of what I love about him He could haVe turned pro after last season made S30 million and been living in a mansion on the mountaintop Instead he lives in a cramped dorm room where the heater work half the When fans see dunking so hard that he shatters backboards it's easy to forget he is a 19-year-old "Shaquille is the fourth-best center in the world today behind (NBA stars) David Robinson Hakeem Olajuwon and Patrick Vanderbilt coach Eddie Fpgler said could start for the (Los Angeles) Lakers How does Louisiana State basketball coach Dale Brown love Shaquille his all-American junior center and one of the most dominating college players in the last 20 years? Brown can count the ways He can count the fact that the 7-1 295-pound O'Neal led the nation last season in rebounding and became the first Southeastern Conference player to lead four statistical categories He can name four 1990-91 Player of the Year awards But Brown looks past all that Woeful Patriots accomplish the fiscally impossible i of the top five TV markets It also is i a problem for Fran Murray Patriots a minority owner and also a prospective expansion team co-owner in St Louis when Kiam (51 percent owner) and parking concessions and luxury skyboxes in return for $149 in rent and not even stratospheric player salaries can dim the picture But Victor team the New England Patriots (3-7) is a financial disaster You may have heard You probably read it in the newspaper or watched it on TV Or else someone approached you whispering "Psst Wanna buy a used football But New team just and New England's problem It is a problem for the NFL which want to lose one Bt is nearly impossible to lose money owning a National Football League team but Victor Kiam has done it This is like losing weight working in a bakery All sorts of financial empires fall every year The market shifts crops fail or the world starts buying a new brand of toothpaste But NFL owners are each handed $32 million per year from television revenue alone which itself almost assures a profit Add sales of tickets and officially licensed products plus a cushy lease in which cities hand over revenue from 1991 Murray's share amounted to $38 million and he asked for it The deadline passed Another deadline Sports Columnist Please see NFL Page D14.