Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 17, 1992 TAG: 9201170218
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: NEW ORLEANS LENGTH: Medium
GREEN WAVE ROLLS OVER HOKIES
Virginia Tech on Thursday resembled a bank robber who picks the lock on the safe and then can't find the money.For a while at Fogelman Arena, Tech did the hard part - breaking Tulane's full-court press - but couldn't run its half-court offense.
Result: Tulane's 13th straight basketball win, an 80-60 smothering of Virginia Tech in which the Green Wave forced 29 turnovers and led by 27 points.
Last year here, a 17-0 Tulane run in the second half won the game. Thursday, a 20-4 Tulane run in the second half included a 15-0 spurt. Tech committed six turnovers in that stretch, four of which came in the frontcourt.
"Once we broke it, they started coming and causing turnovers once we got below the free-throw line," Tech's Steve Hall said.
And the Hokies were flustered.
"Once they got their press going and forced us to turn [the ball] over, it was something that was hard for us to deal with," Tech's Thomas Elliott said. "They were unstoppable, really."
No one has stilled the 19th-ranked Green Wave, which entered Thursday as one of four unbeaten teams in the nation and needs a win Saturday at Texas Tech to tie the school's longest winning streak, set by the 1947-48 team. Tulane won its Metro Conference home opener.
Yet Tulane coach Perry Clark tries not to trumpet the school's first ranking in 43 years.
"We don't talk about that," he said. "In life, nothing stays the same. You either get better, or you get worse. Coaches are happy sometimes, but never pleased."
Tulane was the third Top 25 team Tech has faced this year. The others were Michigan and UNC Charlotte, and Tech has lost all three.
Tech is 6-7 overall and 1-2 in the league.
The teams played before the fifth sellout in eight home games for the Green Wave. Fogelman Arena seats 3,600 spectators, but 3,688 snuggled in on a cold New Orleans night to make it cozy and crazy in Fogelman, where spectators are only a few feet removed from the court and the scent of popcorn wafts in from the concession stands.
"I like it," Tech's Steve Hall said. "It's a challenge. They were loud, and were definitely a homecourt boost."
Tech coach Bill Foster agreed, perhaps thinking of Tech's foul trouble. John Rivers and Erik Wilson had three fouls by halftime; Rivers got his third after having a second straight pass stolen against the press and sat out the last 8:41 of the first half.
That helped Tech get abused on the boards in the first half, when Tulane had 10 offensive rebounds to Tech's four.
"It affects us, it affects the officials, it affects everybody," Foster said of the crowd. "If we rebound better in the first half, it's a lot closer game."
In the first half, the Hokies led 11-10 with 11:49 to go, but Tulane outscored Tech 28-16 the rest of the way to lead by 11 at halftime.
Clark wasn't giddy about his team's first half. But the Green Wave swelled in the second half because of two 3-pointers by David Whitmore in the first 3 1/2 minutes after halftime that gave Tulane a 48-33 lead.
"We were a different basketball team," Clark said. "We were a lot more aggressive, a lot more alert."
Not to mention hot. Freshman point guard Pointer Williams capped Tulane's surge with a fall-away 10-foot jumper and a three-point play off a driving layup.
"We hope we can catch fire like that," Williams said. "They just got a little careless with the ball."
Clark praised Williams' offense. The freshman is one of five members of "The Posse," a group Clark sends into the game five minutes into each half.
"Pointer was very important to what we were doing," Clark said. "They were packing it in with their big guys. What we were trying to do was spread the floor, get them to move and come out on us, and then attack with the basketball."
The Hokies, meanwhile, had only sporadic success on offense. A 17-4 run by Tech cut the Tulane lead to 64-50 with 7:26 to go, but the Green Wave scored the next 11 points to punt the Hokies.
Foster noted that several Hokies aren't playing their natural positions - power forward Thomas Elliott and point guard Jay Purcell, for two - and that limits Tech's options.
"They exploited our lack of fundamentals at the positions we're playing," Foster said. "As coaches, we can't set our kids up the way we wanted against that defense." \
see microfilm for box score