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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 13, 1993                   TAG: 9303130065
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: C7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LOUISVILLE, KY.                                LENGTH: Short

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HOKIES BAND TOGETHER

Snapping back?

Virginia Tech's basketball team did so, literally, on Friday.

The Hokies upset 23rd-ranked Tulane in the Metro Conference Tournament, breaking a seven-game losing streak, with some help from a pregame pep talk from assistant coach Dean Keener.

He showed the team a rubber band, confirmed its use in holding things together and demonstrated it would break if stretched too far.

Then he took a handful of rubber bands and showed the power of numbers: They stretched, but didn't break.

"I said, `One rubber band can't do a whole lot. But 15 or 20 together can,' " said Keener, Tech's restricted-earnings coach. " `We're going to stretch and stretch and stretch, but we ain't gonna break today.' "

Every player, coach, trainer and manager put a rubber band on his or her wrist. It was good mind medicine for the Hokies, who have battled a split personality all year and gone through stretches of selfish play. The players and coaches were supposed to snap their rubber bands on their wrists if they deviated from the togetherness theme during the game.

Keener said Tech coach Bill Foster OK'd the talk, which Keener said he gleaned from former boss George Raveling at Southern California. Raveling, Keener said, used the same talk before the Trojans beat UCLA at Pauley Pavilion this year.

Thomas Elliott spoke of the "support stuff" being in place before Tech's upset.

Said Keener: "We're not going to take them off until we leave Louisville."

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