VANCOUVER -- The Vancouver Whitecaps may have been buoyed by their performance in a goal-less draw away to the San Jose Earthquakes last weekend, but the teams coaches werent leaving anything to chance. Andrew Luck Jersey Indianapolis Colts . Head coach Martin Rennie and his assistants were not impressed with what they saw at a practice on Wednesday, and they laid down the law before Vancouver departed for yet another must-win clash on the road to the Montreal Impact. With six games remaining, the playoff hopes of the seventh-placed Whitecaps (10-10-8) are hanging by a thread at the moment, as the club sits five points behind fifth-placed Portland, who are scheduled to face Colorado on Friday. "Rennie is just making sure we stay on top of our game," said Whitecaps captain Jay DeMerit. "It wasnt the best performance weve had all year but its something we can build on and we need to make sure on the training field that it continues to stem from that. "So I think for us its about being hard on each other, being critical in the right ways and making sure we all stay on the same page." Rennie felt he had to read his players the Riot Act after noticing a drop in intensity and focus from Saturday. "I think in the last game all the players were making themselves available to get on the ball and we kept good possession because of that and everybody was lively and hungry," he said. "And today in training it wasnt as good as wed have liked so I was just pointing that out and reminding people what we need to get to for the weekend." Rennie and midfielder Nigel Reo-Coker believed last weekends match in California was their best road performance of the season but the Impact (13-8-6) will no doubt present a tougher challenge. Montreal, second in the Eastern Conference, have had no trouble finding the back of the net at Stade Saputo this season, amassing a league-high 29 goals on home turf. Marco Schallibaums outfit had recorded three wins (two of them emphatic 5-0 and 4-2 wins over Houston and New England respectively) and a draw before falling 2-1 to lowly Columbus last weekend. The Impact then lost 3-0 away to San Jose in the CONCACAF Champions League on Tuesday night. Italian striker Marco Di Vaio was deadly in that five-game MLS span, scoring seven goals to lift his season tally to a league-best 18. Luckily for the Whitecaps, Rennie -- perhaps for the first time since the beginning of a season -- finally has a range of options in central defence to choose from now that DeMerit has returned to game action and Andy OBrien (back) and Johnny Leveron (calf) are both available. DeMerit was forced into last weekends game after 31 minutes when Brad Rusin went down with an ankle injury and he partnered up with Carlyle Mitchell. It was DeMerits first appearance since suffering an Achilles injury early in the opening game of the season against Toronto FC on March 2. Although Rennie said it would take a "team effort" to stop Di Vaio, he was nonetheless excited about having more resources at his disposal. "Maybe we can play all four of them in centre back," he joked. "This season weve really had a hard time with our centre-backs getting hurt so the fact that we have a little bit of competition in a position is nice and I think it can be important because if you keep struggling through that, then its a hard thing. "A lot of people probably dont realize how much of a foundation the centre-backs are to any team and we have not had a consistent partnership there but I think in the last game Jay and Carlyle Mitchell did very well." Rennie has had no injury issues up front in recent times, but the lack of goals from Kenny Miller and Camilo is starting to hurt the teams playoff hopes. The pair have not scored since the 2-0 win over San Jose at BC Place on August 10, which was Vancouvers last win. Miller says he isnt fazed by the dry spell engulfing him and his Brazilian teammate, but hinted a little help from the rest of the team would be welcome. "Sometimes with strike partnerships they kind of dovetail and maybe one guy might not be scoring but the other guy does," said Miller. "And when the other guy dries up the other guy can pick the baton up, but unfortunately for us its not quite working that way. "But its a team game, we defend as a team, we attack as a team and if the strikers arent getting goals, its up to other lads to come in and chip in with a few." Andrew Luck Jerseys . -- Michael Phelps has competed in the second event of his comeback and failed to advance to the 50-meter freestyle final. Matt Overton . A noon downpour turned the 2.25-mile, 13-turn circuit into a slippery strand of roadway, but Bourdais proved to be the best on rain tires. The French driver made it through the first two qualifying rounds and into the Fast Six.LAWRENCE, Kan. -- Every time that Towson missed a shot, it seemed as if somebody from Kansas was there to corral the rebound, throw an outlet pass and start the Jayhawks on the fast break. Usually it ended up with a dunk. Andrew Wiggins of Vaughan, Ont., and the high-flying Jayhawks put together a highlight reel in the first half Friday night, rolling to a big lead over the overmatched Tigers. The nations No. 2 team cruised in the second half to an 88-58 win in its opening game of the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament. "When were playing our game, no one can stop us," said Wiggins, the star freshman who led the Jayhawks (4-0) with 16 points. "When we play in the flow of the game, no one can stop us. We have too many tools to use. When were playing like we did today, nobody can stop us." Andrew White III finished with 13 points, Wayne Selden added 12 and Perry Ellis had 10 for the Jayhawks, who used a 22-2 run to take a 49-16 lead by halftime. From there, they might as well have started to look ahead to their game against Wake Forest in the Bahamas on Thanksgiving Day. The Jayhawks are scheduled for three games in the rest of the Battle 4 Atlantis. "Hopefully this will be a good stretch for us to start putting some stuff together," Kansas coach Bill Self said. "Were making steps in the right direction." Jerrelle Benimon had 21 points and 10 rebounds to lead Towson (3-2), the favourite in the Colonial Athletic Association. Rafriel Guthrie scored 15 points off the bench. "Theyre deep, theyre athletic, and unfortunately for us, they were locked in," Towson coach Pat Skerry said with a shake of his head. "If theres a better team in the country, Id like to find out who they are, and I certainly dont want to play them." After stumbling a bit out of the gate, the uber-athletic Jayhawks reeled off 11 straight points to seize control. Six of the points came on rim-rattling dunks, two of those by Tarik Black. Towson quickly became rattled and started to settle for a cacophony of quick 3-pointers, ill-advised shots in the paint and tightly contested jumpers. All of its misses only served to fueel the Kansas fast break, which piled up 22 points in the first 20 minutes. Coby Fleener. "All of them run," Benimon said. "They just get up and down." The Tigers were still within 27-14 with 7:42 left in the half, but they only managed one field goal from there as Kansas used a 22-2 finishing flurry to blow the game open. Wiggins scored nine of his 14 first-half points during the run, and was involved in both of the highlights. The first came after a miss by the Tigers Timajh Parker-Rivera. The ball ended up with Frank Mason, whose pretty one-bounce, cross-court pass to Wiggins resulted in an easy dunk. The second highlight came after Mike Burwell missed and Mason again got the ball in the open court. He fed it to fellow freshman Conner Frankamp who, rather than take a mildly contested layup, added one extra pass like a seasoned veteran that Wiggins slammed with two hands. By the time White was fouled in transition and made the second of two free throws with 1.4 seconds left on the clock, the Jayhawks had built their huge halftime advantage. Kansas wound up shooting 69 per cent from the field over the opening 20 minutes, had a 23-11 advantage on the boards and outscored the smaller Tigers 26-10 in the paint. Towson shot 20.7 per cent from the field and missed all 10 of its 3-point tries. The Jayhawks didnt slow down much in the second half, racing up and down the court like it was a YMCA pickup game. Black had another big dunk during one stretch, Frankamp curled in a 3 and Kansas coasted to its 66th consecutive non-conference win at Allen Fieldhouse. The Jayhawks wont return to the friendly confines of the Phog for close to a month. After the Bahamas, they visit Colorado and Florida along with playing New Mexico at Sprint Center in Kansas City, Mo. They return home to play Georgetown on Dec. 21. "I think potentially we could be one of the better teams, no question," Self said. "I think by the end if our young kids get better, we have a chance to be in the conversation. ... Theres a lot of nice teams out there but certainly when we play with energy we can be one of the better ones." cheap jerseyscheap jerseys from china ' ' '
