Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 3, 1990 TAG: 9004040601
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B4 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: From Associated Press and New York Times reports
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The Denver native and second-year graduate student didn't have the money to get from Duke back to his hometown to root the Blue Devils on to victory in the Final Four. He still is trying to get over the Super Bowl, where his beloved Broncos were trounced by the San Francisco 49ers. Then came the NCAA championship game between Duke and Nevada-Las Vegas.
"They need some outside shooting," Gaty said in the first half of the title game as Duke trailed 30-17 with about eight minutes left. "Their halfcourt defense is a lot better than I thought it would be. They [Duke] just can't get it inside."
Eventually, Duke couldn't get it inside, outside or anywhere in between and the Blue Devils took a 103-73 pounding from the Runnin' Rebels, the worst loss in the history of the NCAA championship game. It cast a damper on a festive evening, one which the Blue Devils faithful thought would be the end of a streak of seven appearances in the Final Four without a trophy.
"What a terrible night," Gaty said in the final minutes. "Vegas is just too good.
"At this point, it's just like the Super Bowl was. You just have to laugh it off. It's been a terrible year for sports for me."
It might have been a bigger letdown because the Duke students thought it was their night.
"I was very optimistic, which scared me a little bit," said Billy Sumner, a junior from Concord, N.C. "Everyone was very confident. I was nervous that it was a little bit too confident. But everybody was ready to party and slide in the mud."
Once the 4,000 students ran through a thunderstorm and got inside Cameron Indoor Stadium to see the game on a big-screen television, the students munched on pizza, hot dogs and chips before game time, and what they didn't eat usually went airborne and at a classmate. It made for a mess - not to mention sticky footing and no place you'd want to lie down in sorrow when it was all over.
One student sat with his girl friends amid the flattened hot dog buns and wieners looking disconsolate. Another buried his head in his hands, and when he looked up, he was surrounded by photographers recording his frustration. He tried to shoo them away, but succeeded only after telling them his name. Coeds could be seen sobbing, having seen one more title opportunity fade into the stormy night.
"I've been watching basketball for years," said freshman Mike Krachon of Cincinnati. "We were so close. I don't know, they just couldn't do it tonight. We had our chance and we blew it."
NCAA still trying to put bite on Shark
On a day when his Runnin' Rebels captured their first national championship by beating Duke, Jerry Tarkanian found he couldn't run away from an old adversary - the NCAA.
The Nevada-Las Vegas coach may face a suspension and his school may receive additional sanctions in connection with infractions by the Runnin' Rebels basketball program that were cited in 1977.
NCAA officials said Sunday that reports indicating the NCAA had agreed to drop its 13-year case against Tarkanian were incorrect.
USA Today reported last week that the NCAA had decided not to pursue the suspension and that Tarkanian only had to pay court costs and legal fees.
"It has been reported that the NCAA has agreed not to go back and pursue its 1977 order to suspend Tarkanian," said Jim Marchiony, a spokesman for the association. "The NCAA has made no such agreement."
Last week, a Nevada District Court judge signed an order issued by the state Supreme Court that it vacate an injunction entered against the NCAA beginning in 1977.
The significance of the signing is that it allows the committee to take up the question of whether additional sanctions should be imposed on the university because of the infractions found in 1977. The committee also may go back to its original request that UNLV show cause why it should not suspend Tarkanian.
The school currently is under NCAA investigation for allegations of wrongdoing involving the recruitment of Lloyd Daniels, a player from New York City who never completed high school and was arrested on drug charges while attending UNLV.
In light of his strained relationship with the NCAA, Tarkanian was reluctant to accept the championship trophy from Jim Delany, chairman of the NCAA Basketball Committee and commissioner of the Big Ten.
"I wanted our athletic director to take it," Tarkanian said, "but I went ahead and did it."
Triangle incomplete
Duke failed to add one more jewel to the basketball crown in North Carolina's Research Triangle. The Blue Devils could have joined North Carolina and North Carolina State, separated by about 40 miles, in bringing to the state its third Division I men's championship in nine years. North Carolina Central, also in Durham, won the 1989 NCAA Division II championship.
Duke has failed to win the NCAA title in all eight of its Final Four trips, four under coach Mike Krzyzewski.
It took North Carolina coach Dean Smith eight tries before the Tar Heels defeated Georgetown in 1982. The next season, Wolfpack coach Jim Valvano topped a trip through the West Regionals with a last-second triumph over Houston.
Since 1980, the Triangle has sent seven teams into the Final Four.
The title for Duke would have topped a season in which the cynics expected very little from the Atlantic Coast Conference and got plenty - two teams in the Final Four for the first time since 1981, when North Carolina beat Virginia en route to the title game, where it lost to Indiana.
The Duke loss gave the ACC a postseason record of 14-5 and a non-conference mark of 109-29 for a .790 percentage. The Big East was next at 85-24 for a .780 record, and including the ACC-Big East Challenge last December, the ACC took a 10-7 record against that conference.
Simply `awesome'
UNLV's domination of Duke, a performance Krzyzewski called "awesome," was reflected in the statistics:
UNLV had a championship record 16 steals, including four straight in one stretch of the first half and three straight in the clinching 18-point run in the second half. Duke committed 23 turnovers, six more than its season average.
UNLV hit 61 percent from the field (41-of-67), the fourth-highest percentage in championship history. Duke made one of 11 3-point field-goal attempts.
UNLV guard Anderson Hunt, the Final Four's most outstanding player, scored 29 points, including 12 as the Rebels outscored Duke 18-0 to open a 28-point lead with 13:18 left.
Duke guard Phil Henderson, who made just one of eight 3-point attempts, committed six turnovers and had no assists.
The Runnin' Rebels' 103 points set a record for a championship game, as did their 30-point victory margin.
The Rebels' frontcourt outshot Duke's inside players 69 percent to 45 percent and outscored them 56-38.
UNLV's guards outshot their Duke counterparts 56 percent to 48 percent, outscored them 47-35 and had nine more assists at 12 to three.
UNLV scored 36 of its points on fast breaks, while the Blue Devils had eight points in transition.
Duke has given up the three highest point totals in championship-game history. The Blue Devils also surrendered 98 to UCLA in 1964 and 94 to Kentucky in 1978.
UNLV's 103 points increased its total for the tournament to 571, breaking the record of 552 set by Oklahoma in 1988.
by CNB