THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 31, 1997 TAG: 9701310774
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DOUG DOUGHTY, LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE LENGTH: 38 lines
On a night when three of his Virginia teammates were in street clothes or otherwise hobbled by injuries, Harold Deane provided another lesson in playing with pain.
Deane, who was limping on a swollen right shin, scored a season-high 23 points Thursday night as the Cavaliers defeated Richmond 83-66 in men's basketball.
``Harold's not going to be 100-percent healed until maybe a month after the season,'' said U.Va. coach Jeff Jones.
Deane played 35 minutes, which was his shortest stint in the last eight games. He had played 309 of a possible 320 minutes during that stretch and has seldom looked sharper than he did Thursday night, when he was 8 of 13 from the field and did not have a turnover.
``Frankly, I think Harold Deane took the air out of us,'' said Richmond coach Bill Dooley, whose Spiders were coming off a 75-65 victory Monday night over James Madison. ``We just couldn't stop them consistently.''
As opposed to Tuesday night, when Curtis Staples scored 27 points and U.Va. (14-6) did not have a second double-figure scorer in a 56-50 victory over North Carolina State, five players had 10 or more points Thursday and a sixth had eight.
That was despite the absence of leading scorer Courtney Alexander, who sidelined for the second straight game with a sprained left ankle. Jones isn't sure if Alexander will play Saturday against Florida State.
Jones had feared how his team might react to its first non-conference game in four weeks, but the Cavaliers did what they have been doing for nearly 20 years. It was U.Va.'s 39th straight victory over in-state opposition at University Hall.
Richmond (7-10) had cut an 11-point halftime deficit to 41-33 before the Cavaliers went on a 12-0 run that included a pair of baskets by freshman center Colin Ducharme. Ducharme finished with a season-high 14 points.