Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 15, 1992 TAG: 9203150175
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUG DOUGHTY ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR
DATELINE: CHARLOTTE, N.C. LENGTH: Medium
\ After winning a national basketball championship and making three consecutivetrips to the Final Four, Duke seems eager to add another trophy to its collection.
The Blue Devils, who have not won the ACC Tournament since 1988, advanced to the championship game for the third time in four years with an 89-76 victory over Georgia Tech on Saturday.
Top-ranked Duke (27-2) raced to a 23-6 lead in the opening minutes at the Charlotte Coliseum and shot 59.6 percent for the game.
"This is more like the way we were playing in mid-January," said Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, forced to juggle his lineup last month after injuries to Bobby Hurley and Grant Hill. "Plus, nobody got hurt."
Duke's opponent in the championship game will be North Carolina, an 80-76 winner over Florida State. The Tar Heels administered one of the Blue Devils' losses in the regular season and routed Duke 96-74 last year in the tournament championship game.
The Blue Devils went on to win the NCAA title, but none of the players on this year's team has ever won an ACC Tournament title.
"It's important," Georgia Tech coach Bobby Cremins said. "If they don't accomplish this, they'll probably talk more about this than a lot of things they did accomplish.
"They want to put an exclamation mark on it and shut everybody up. They want to be able to say, `There was nothing we didn't accomplish while we were in school.' "
Krzyzewski, who will be coaching in the ACC final for the sixth time in 12 years at Duke, won championships in 1986 and '88.
"A lot of teams haven't won [the championship] and a lot haven't done what we have done," Krzyzewski said. "I don't think this group will be judged by what it does in this tournament.
"I would like to see this team and especially this class of seniors do well, but when we go home tomorrow it will be over. We'll put it all on the line tomorrow, and then we'll put it all on the line in the NCAAs."
Georgia Tech (21-9) is certain to receive an NCAA invitation, but that was little consolation Saturday after the Yellow Jackets made one of their first 13 field-goal attempts and shot 30 percent in the first half.
Duke extended a 43-25 halftime lead to 56-31 early in the second half, and Georgia Tech was unable to apply much pressure despite shooting 62.9 percent over the final 20 minutes.
The Yellow Jackets pulled to 72-60 on a lay-in by Matt Geiger with 7:03 left, but five seconds later Travis Best fouled Hurley on the way upcourt.
Cremins voiced his displeasure with Best for fouling Hurley, a 79-percent free-throw shooter who hit the free throw and bonus. Two free throws by Christian Laettner and a Hurley layup made it 78-60.
"I wish we'd given everybody a better game," Cremins said. "We were tight. I knew the key to the game would be that first 10 minutes, but their defense took us out of our game."
Three Georgia Tech starters - Best, James Forrest and Geiger - were a combined 0-for-14 in the first half. Geiger had made 16 straight shots before Saturday.
The Yellow Jackets got much of their offense from junior Malcolm Mackey, who sank his first nine shots and finished 11-of-13 for 25 points. Jon Barry and Forrest, who had 14 points in the second half, added 15 each.
Defensive stopper Brian Davis was the only Duke player to take more than 10 shots. He finished with 17 points to share team scoring honors with Hurley.
The Blue Devils had five players in double figures and a sixth with nine. Laettner, the leading vote-getter on the All-ACC team, was 4-of-6 from the field and had five assists.
"When I first came into the league, North Carolina had [Michael] Jordan and [James] Worthy, and I always think about the Duke teams with [Johnny] Dawkins, [Mark] Alarie and [Danny] Ferry," Cremins said, "but this Duke team, I think, is the best team I've ever seen in the ACC."
That's why the media has made such an issue of the Blue Devils' inability to win an ACC title.
"We don't look at it as a distraction," Krzyzewski said. "It comes with the territory and we try to enjoy it. Believe me, none of us is thinking about the NCAA Tournament right now." \
by CNB