Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 24, 1992 TAG: 9201240213
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
HOKIES TOP ECU
There was a pact made Thursday night in a dark, dank hallway underneath Cassell Coliseum between furtive Virginia Tech and shady East Carolina.With a secret handshake, they agreed:
"We'll abandon our offense if you abandon yours."
Tech broke the imaginary deal - barely - and beat the Pirates 57-44 in a non-conference basketball game.
Tech did not score in the last 10:29 of the first half and for a total of 11:47, including a brief drought to open the second half.
ECU countered with a four minute, 39-second scoring gap in the second half, and Tech responded by getting one point in a six-minute, 15-second stretch. The Pirates pulled to 47-42 with 3:03 left, then were outscored 10-2 as Tech made eight of 10 free throws.
"I wanted to jump up and down and scream and yell," Tech coach Bill Foster said of the Hokies' first-half futility against ECU's zone. "But this is not a scream-and-yell team.
"I figured we'd get our way out of it."
Tech, 7-8 overall and 6-1 at home, played its first home game with students on campus since Dec. 10 against George Washington. Nevertheless, only 5,056 attended in 9,971-seat Cassell Coliseum.
East Carolina (5-10) lost its seventh straight. Four of those losses were by four points or fewer.
"We're struggling with the idea [of whether] we can win," said the Pirates' first-year coach, Eddie Payne. "These kids have never won, and I've never coached a losing team, so I'm really struggling on how to handle all this, too."
All that struggling couldn't save the Pirates, who are 0-8 on the road this year. No Tech opponent has shot better than 50 percent from the field in the past 14 games, and the Pirates made 30.8 percent of their shots in the first half.
Yet they trailed by just one point at halftime.
Tech took a 22-12 lead on John Rivers' dunk just after ECU switched from man-to-man to a 1-2-2 zone. In its next 10 possessions, Tech was 0-for-8 from the field - including 0-for-5 on 3-point attempts - missed two free throws and had four turnovers.
ECU didn't do much better, scoring nine points in the last 10:29. The scoreboard read 22-12 for six minutes, 21 seconds until ECU's Lester Lyons made two free throws with 4:17 left in the half.
"No, we really didn't," Tech's Thomas Elliott said when asked if he thought the Hokies would score again. "We were out of sync. We didn't know what was going on."
Payne knew. Tech's height advantage and suspect outside shooting prompted the zone.
"You're trying to take away certain guys, primarily Elliott and [Steve] Hall, and take your chances with the other guys," Payne said.
ECU took a 23-22 lead on its first possession of the second half, but Tech got five points from Hall and a 3-pointer from Elliott to go ahead 30-27. ECU's Curley Young hit a jumper with 14:34 to go, but the Pirates didn't score again until 9:57 remained and they trailed 41-31.
ECU had played man-to-man for a couple of possessions to start the second half, then changed.
"When they went back to the zone, we played like a totally different team," Foster said.
The passing was better, and the Hokies found Elliott in the post a couple of times. Tech also got a boost from Erik Wilson's return from foul trouble. A threat from outside and a better passer than Jimmy Carruth, Wilson gave ECU another scorer to deal with.
"We got a lot of high-post to low-post play," Elliott said.
Not for long. Tech took a 44-31 lead on Corey Jackson's 3-pointer but scored just one point in the next 6:13 as ECU pulled to 45-40. That was as close as the Pirates got.
Tech guard Don Corker, averaging well over 20 minutes per game, didn't play "for no particular reason," Foster said.
see microfilm for box score