Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 6, 1994 TAG: 9403060191
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHARLESTON, S.C. LENGTH: Medium
This time the bouncer was Campbell University, which rained bombs on Radford's Highlanders and blew them out on their collective ear by the score of 72-61 Saturday night in the men's basketball semifinals at the North Charleston Coliseum.
That makes five straight years that Radford (20-8) has tripped on its shoelaces in the semifinals. The misery of that state of affairs was evident in the reddened eyes of Highlanders senior Tyrone Travis.
"It's something that keeps getting away from me, but I hope the young guys on our team see this and keep working hard so that they can reach the championship," he said.
Radford had seemed on the verge of a gallant comeback from an 18-point second-half deficit and had shaved the gap to 52-51 when Travis slipped inside for a soft kiss off the glass.
But typically for the cold-blooded Camels (20-8) on this particular night, the answer came in the form of a 3-pointer, this one from reserve Jared Harrison, who would contribute two 3-pointers and 11 points off the bench.
"We needed somebody else to score for us, and he did it," Campbell coach Billy Lee said. "Jared's a wiggler. He could tread water in a garden hose he's so skinny."
Radford kept it close but never gained the lead. Every time the Highlanders got close, there was one or the other of the Camels hitting a 3-pointer.
The primary marksman was Scott Neely, who put on a wondrous show by making seven of nine 3-point attempts on the way to scoring 32 points. The Camels made a tournament record 14 triples on 27 attempts.
"The name of the game was Scott Neely," Radford coach Ron Bradley said.
With that, Lee had no argument:
"Man, was he hot as a $2 pistol?"
Neely, a 6-foot-3 junior guard, indicated that there was a little more to it than that.
"I was really concentrating on reading the defense and Dan [Pogue, the point guard] was getting me the ball when I was open," he said.
For the life of it, Radford couldn't figure out a way to keep Campbell cooled off from the outside. The Camels hit long shots in clusters, which was how they manufactured their lead to begin with.
Campbell, which made eight of 17 3-point attempts in the first half, drilled five 3-pointers in a span of 4 minutes, 38 seconds, with Neely making four. By halftime, he had five 3-pointers and 19 points.
Radford did an excellent job on Campbell forward Joe Spinks, the conference player of the year. Spinks was held to 13 points on 4-for-13 shooting.
"They were dropping Don-Don [Burgess] down to help on me and putting a big guy on Pogue so that he would have a hard time throwing it over him to get inside," Spinks said. "They had three guys around me a lot of times."
Travis was one of those helping out Spinks, and he was magnificent at both ends, scoring 25 points, pulling down nine rebounds and making three steals. In two tournament games, he had 50 points and 18 rebounds.
The loss obviously troubled him deeply:
"We were just a couple of stops away from making it . . .," he said.
Burgess, like Travis a senior, did his usual job of staying in harmony with the game's events and scored 14 points, six of that coming on 3-pointers.
But aside from Travis and Burgess, a composite 12-for-22, Radford had trouble getting good shots against the Camels' swarming man-to-man. The Highlanders shot 37.3 percent for the game, 30.4 percent in the first half. Freshman guard Anthony Walker went 3-for-13, 2-for-9 on 3-point attempts, and finished with nine points.
Even with a tough night of shooting, Radford did have the nice comeback.
"We never thought we were out of it," Burgess said.
But what can you do when somebody shoots like Neely did?
"Some of those were some pretty tough shots . . .," Bradley said.
Some were next to impossible, but he made them anyway, which earned him a dig in the ribs from Lee.
"Coach says if they go, it's a good shot," Neely said. "And if they don't, it's a bad shot." \
see microfilm for box score
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.