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New Season, New Arena Opens For M Next Week - Events Building Adds Glamour To Basketball

New Season, New Arena Opens For M Next Week - Events Building Adds Glamour To Basketball image
Parent Issue
Day
24
Month
November
Year
1967
Copyright
Copyright Protected
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Donated by the Ann Arbor News. © The Ann Arbor News.
OCR Text

New Season, New Arena Opens For M Next West

Events Building Adds Glamour To Basketball

The curtain rings down tomorrow on Michigan’s 88th football season but goes up almost immediately on the Wolverines’ 51st basketball campaign.

The date for the varsity-freshman game, the annual warmup preceding the intercollegiate opener, is set for 8 p.m. Tuesday in Yost Fieldhouse.

Then, Adolph Rupp, one of the most famous coaches in college basketball, will lead his Kentucky Wildcats into town for the Saturday, Dec. 2 opener. Game time is 1:30 p.m.

It will be an historic event for Michigan and Ann Arbor, marking the opening of the Wolverines’ new basketball palace—the $7,200,000 Events Building just east of Michigan Stadium.

While old and dark Yost Fieldhouse could hardly squeeze in 7,000 persons, the new basketball arena will seat about 14,000 individual upholstered seats.

There’ll be plenty of room for everyone who wants to buy a season ticket or individual game ticket. Also, there’ll be plenty of parking for all.

The parking lot which extends halfway around the Events Building has room for about 650 automobiles. This lot will be open to all on a first come, first served basis.

Michigan officials also estimate there is parking in the immediate vicinity (off Green St., and in the huge lot north of Michigan Stadium, off Hoover St.) for another 3,000 cars.

The Events Building, designed by former Michigan linebacker, Dan Dworsky, is a beauty. It has many doors for ingress and egress. On the back of each ticket is printed the seating plan and spectators will have no difficulty finding their seats which are maize-color around the upper half of the building and in blue colors in the lower half.

Season tickets for the general public are $24 for 12 games while individual games have $2.50 rate. Michigan students and Michigan faculty and staff are charged $6 for a season ticket and $1 for an individual game.

The season opener pits a couple of rivals for the national championship two years ago.

Michigan and Kentucky met in the mideast regional finals at Iowa City and the Wildcats defeated Cazzie Russell and Co., 84-77, to mark the end of Russell’s colorful, three years in which he led the Wolverines to three straight Big Ten titles.

The Wolverines had opened mideast play by edging Western Kentucky, 80-79, on Russell’s free-throw shooting but then were out-gunned by the Wildcats who entered the finals by defeating Duke, 83-79, but were upset by Texas Western, 72-65.

Dave Strack, starting his eighth season as Michigan head coach, said today he would have a starting lineup of one senior, three juniors and a sophomore to go against the freshman, coached by former Michigan standout, George Pomey.

Strack said senior Jim Pitts (6-3, 195) from Detroit and junior Ken Maxey (5-9,160) of Chicago would start at the guards, junior Dennis Stewart (6-6, 210) from Steelton, Pa., at center and sophomore Rudy Tomjanovich (6-7, 195) from Hamtramck at one of the forwards. Either junior Bob Sullivan (6-4, 200) from Manitowak, Wis., or junior Dave McClellan (6-4, 195 ) of Toledo will start at the other forward.

Certain to see a lot of duty is sophomore Rick Bloodworth (6-3, 180) of Ferndale.

Pomey said he’ll have Tim Nicksic (6-5, 205) of East Chicago, Ind., at center, Rodney Ford (6-4, 190) of Hammond, Ind., and Tom Lundstedt (6-4, 190) of Arlington Heights, Ill., at forwards and Dan Fife (6-3, 190) of Clarkston and Mark Berg (6-0, 155) of Dalton, Ohio, at guards.

Nicksic is from the home town of a former Michigan captain, Bob Cantrell. Ford is an Indiana all-stater who played for Indiana in the annual games against the Kentucky prep stars. Lundstedt is an all-stater from the same high school (Prospect High in Mt. Prospect, Ill.) as Pomey. Fife was a Michigan all-stater who averaged 32 points a game. Berg is a quick, high scorer.

Pomey’s leading reserves will include Bob Bruns (6-4, 195), Mike Rafferty (6-4, 185), Rex Emerick (6-2, 175), Bob Starck (6-3, 185), Steve Morrison (6-4,190) and Bob Wilson (6-6, 195).

Dec. 2--Kentucky
Dec. 4--at Detroit
Dec. 6--Duke
Dec. 9--at Davidson
Dec. 21-22--at Sun Devil Classic (Tempe, Ariz.)
Dec. 27--Butler
Dec. 30--Northern Illinois
Jan. 2--at Houston
Jan. 6--at Wisconsin
Jan. 13--Michigan State
Jan. 20--at Ohio State
Jan. 22--Ball State
Jan. 27--Ohio State
Feb. 3--at Michigan State
Feb. 5--Minnesota
Feb. 10--Iowa
Feb. 13--at Illinois
Feb. 17--at Indiana
Feb. 20--Illinois
Feb. 24--at Minnesota
March 2--Northwestern
March 9--at Iowa

DAVE STRACK