THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 24, 1995 TAG: 9503240634
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE CARLSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: OAKLAND LENGTH: Short : 39 lines
If this was Joe Smith's last game as a collegian, a brief but stellar career didn't end the way he wanted it to.
Smith and the Maryland Terrapins were run over by Connecticut, 99-89, Thursday in a West Regional semifinal at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. UConn (28-4) meets UCLA in Saturday's final at 3:40 p.m. Second-seeded UConn has never been to the Final Four, UCLA has been there 14 times and won 10 titles.
With the top seeds winning Thursday here and in the Southeast Regional, every first- and second-seed is still alive.
Maryland (26-8), the first ACC team to drop out of the tournament, fell behind by as much as 14 in the first half. But the Terps cut the margin to eight points at halftime and to four, 49-45, in the first 45 seconds of the second half.
Then the Huskies took the game over with their fast break and dead-eye outside shooting. UConn made 7 of its next 10 field goal tries.
With 12:24 left to play, the Huskies were up 70-51 thanks to a 21-6 run after the Terps had cut it four. Maryland never got closer than nine points the rest of the way.
Smith and Johnny Rhodes led the Terps with 22 points, while Donny Marshall paced UConn with 27.
The Terps dug a hole for themselves with a compilation of problems in the first half, the biggest of which was that Smith spent too much of it on the bench and only had six points and three rebounds at the break.
First Smith went down hard on an attempted block of a Brian Fair shot. As Smith jumped, he was undercut and slammed to the floor on his left side. That put him on the bench for almost two minutes, and foul trouble did the rest. by CNB