ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 2, 1997 TAG: 9702040032
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: JACK BOGACZYK
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
Appropriately, the Bast Center's biggest crowd of the basketball season appeared Saturday.
It was for the best game.
When you're talking men's basketball in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference these days, there is no rivalry to match Hampden-Sydney against Roanoke.
Washington and Lee against the Maroons? This wasn't lacrosse. Roanoke has won 10 of the last 11 meetings with W&L on the hardwood. That's only a rivalry paved by I-81.
The Maroons had won 19 in a row at the Bast Center, but who should have been stunned by the Tigers' 85-82 victory - and the second consecutive loss for a Roanoke team that began last week ranked sixth in the Division III coaches' national poll.
It was typical of the series in recent years, when the two teams have pretty much beat up on each other at the top of the ODAC. Each has had three NCAA Tournament trips in the '90s.
In 1994-95, the Tigers reached the NCAA quarterfinals, and their only league loss was to the Maroons. A year earlier, Roanoke swept the ODAC regular-season series, then Sydney stopped the Maroons' 22-game winning streak - and a 26-2 season - in an NCAA Tournament game.
In '95-96, Roanoke reached the NCAA's Sweet 16. In '91-92, the Tigers did the same. Guess who beat each other during those regular seasons? In the last seven seasons, entering Saturday's game, the series was 9-9.
It isn't just about numbers, or the large number of raucous Tiger fans who appear when their team visits the Salem campus. The basketball programs truly don't like each other, and it's more than competitiveness and quality on the floor.
Their coaches, Tony Shaver of Hampden-Sydney and Roanoke's Page Moir, like each other even less than that, a fervor and furor fueled by more than a few rancorous recruiting clashes over the years.
``I think part of it is we have so much respect for their program, because they're good, that we know we have to be ready to play when we meet,'' Shaver said.
``We recruit from the same pool, probably a lot like North Carolina and Duke on the Division I level,'' Moir said. ``We've got guys they recruited hard, and vice versa.
``There's also such a familiarity in our league among coaches who stick around. We know how each other prepares. The last four years, it's pretty much been Sydney and Roanoke. It's a big win whoever beats whom.''
The 1,538 spectators - the largest Bast regular-season crowd since the teams met in February 1995 - saw the Tigers blow an early 12-point lead, go down by 10 early in the second half, then rally to win.
One player who figures to be huge in the rivalry - and for other ODAC opponents of the Tigers - is 6-foot-8 Jeremy Harris, a freshman from Farmville. He already knows how to play the post, as he showed the Maroons on a 21-point day.
Roanoke got a season-high 31 points from guard Jason Bishop, but on too many possessions the Maroons played like the scarecrows of the ODAC - no brains. Hampden-Sydney was smarter in the clutch and used a match-up zone to change the complexion of the game.
It wasn't the way Moir wanted to start a span of eight games in 17 days to end the regular season, a stretch that will include the return bout at Hampden-Sydney next Saturday afternoon.
``The players love it,'' Moir said of the loaded schedule. ``There's no time to practice.''
Shaver doesn't think anyone can catch Roanoke (14-3 overall, 9-2 ODAC) in the regular-season race. The maturing Tigers (13-5, 7-5) are among a jumbled pack in the standings that will require some tiebreakers.
The Tigers and Maroons have played three times in each of the last three seasons. It could happen again.
It's a good thing they're shooting only with basketballs.
LENGTH: Medium: 75 linesby CNB