THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, March 6, 1995 TAG: 9503060109
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY FRANK VEHORN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE LENGTH: Long : 104 lines
After Virginia was blown away on the glass in a loss to Maryland in College Park, Md., last month, coach Jeff Jones was so infuriated he punched a blackboard and broke his right hand.
Sunday, the Cavaliers made sure Jones had no reason to break his good hand.
They whipped the Terrapins savagely on the glass, outrebounding them, 42-27, and just as viciously on the scoreboard to claim a 92-67 victory and a share of the ACC regular-season championship.
The Terps' Joe Smith, who had humiliated the Cavs with 29 points and 21 rebounds in College Park, got 25 points in the rematch.
The big difference, though, was he had only five rebounds and none in the second half, when the Cavs turned the game into a romp for a piece of their first regular-season title since 1983.
Maryland, which could have won the title outright with a victory, finished in an unprecedented four-way tie for the title, along with North Carolina and Wake Forest.
Based on regular-season results against the other three first-place teams, Wake Forest gets the No. 1 seed for the ACC tournament, which begins Thursday in Greensboro with a play-in game between Duke and North Carolina State.
North Carolina is seeded second, Maryland third, and Virginia fourth.
The Cavaliers play Georgia Tech at noon on Friday.
``This victory gives us a lot of confidence going into the tournament,'' point guard Harold Deane said.
Deane gave the Cavaliers some anxious moments late in the game when he fell hard to the court and came up clutching his left wrist.
He sat out the final 1:29, denying the sophomore guard an opportunity to get a school-record 15th assist.
Post-game X-rays, though, revealed there was no fracture.
While others admitted to being amazed by the size of the victory, Deane wasn't.
``When we get it going, we can do anything,'' he explained. ``And we had it going.''
Indeed, they did.
In addition to dominating the rebounds and playing their usual tough defense, the Cavaliers shot 54.1 percent from the floor.
Freshman Curtis Staples knocked down a half-dozen 3-pointers for 18 points, Deane added 19, and senior Junior Burrough, playing his final game in University Hall, was the high scorer with 24.
Virginia never trailed after Staples drilled his first 3-pointer only 75 seconds into the game.
The Cavaliers led, 42-33, at intermission and used back-to-pack 3-pointers by Staples to pump the lead to 19 points in the opening four minutes of the second half.
Smith, scoring 10 points in a four-minute span, helped the Terps close the gap to 12 midway through the half before Virginia roared away again.
Smith said the Cavaliers played him about the same as in College Park, but were much more physical this time.
``It was frustrating,'' said the 6-foot-10 sophomore center from Norfolk.
``We could never get it going. We were missing layups and jumpers. It hurts our pride to lose by so much, so we will learn from this and be ready to play in the tournament.''
The Terps failed to take advantage of the overplay on Smith. No one else was in double figures.
Maryland played its second straight game without coach Gary Williams, who is hospitalized with pneumonia.
Virginia senior Yuri Barnes, who got his first start since the second game of the season, did most of the defensive work against Smith.
Barnes started because it was senior day, but he made the most of the opportunity with a strong 28-minute performance.
``It was my last game in this building, and I wanted to leave a good impression,'' Barnes said. ``I had the old fire back and it felt great to play that way.''
Barnes said the defensive strategy was to bump Smith away from the boards.
``He is real good on the offensive glass, but we took that away from him,'' Barnes said.
``He got his points, but we made work for them. I don't know if he got frustrated, but I think he got pretty tired.''
Barnes picked up four fouls, as did reserve center Chris Alexander.
``We had four players ready to go against him (Smith), and that's a total of 20 fouls,'' Jones said.
``We wanted to play physical and keep him from catching the ball. We wanted to wear him down. He still had a heckuva game, but he had to work hard.''
Jones was a point guard on the last Virginia team, in 1983, to win 12 league games. That also was the last time Virginia finished first in the league, in a tie with North Carolina.
``This is very satisfying to share the title, but not as satisfying as it would have been if we had won it alone,'' Jones said.
Staples' six 3-pointers gave him 83 for the season and broke by one the school record set by Richard Morgan in 1989. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by PAUL AIKEN, Staff
Yuri Barnes of Virginia, left, tries to grab a rebound from
Maryland's Joe Smith. In a rare starting assignment, Barnes helped
to hold Smith to five rebounds, down from 21 in the teams' first
meeting.
Photo by Paul Aiken, Staff
Junior Burrough of Virginia watches as time expires in the
Cavaliers' 92-67 win over Maryland on Sunday.
by CNB