Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 25, 1993 TAG: 9303250153
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUG DOUGHTY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
HE'S `ALL RIGHT'
LIFE HASN'T always been easy for Cornel Parker at Virginia, but he has cast aside the annoyances to become an impressive contributor to the basketball team. \It would be hard to convince Cornel Parker that ending his sophomore silence has made him a big hit with the media.
When the All-ACC teams were announced in early March, Parker didn't get a vote.
Nobody is saying he was any more deserving than North Carolina's Derrick Phelps or Georgia Tech's James Forrest, two of the more notable absentees from the three teams, but you might have thought Parker would get a vote.
Among the 32 players who received at least one vote were four of Parker's teammates, one of whom (Doug Smith) does not start.
"Was there another player in double figures [scoring] who did not get a vote?" Virginia assistant basketball coach Tom Perrin asked.
As a matter of fact, there were four, although Parker's worth to the Cavaliers never has been measured by his scoring.
Statistics don't always do Parker justice, but try this one: If Parker can scrounge up five assists before Virginia ends its NCAA Tournament run, he will become only the second ACC player in the past four years to get 200 rebounds and 100 assists in the same season.
Moveover, Parker is the third-leading scorer for the Cavaliers, who will meet Cincinnati at 7:33 p.m. Friday in the East Region semifinals in East Rutherford, N.J.
"Recognition is fine if it gets you to the next level," said Parker, the only two-time selection as ACC player of the week this season, "[but] I think some people may not like me. I don't know what it is.
"I know that [the media] likes to talk to the guys who score the points, but I've found this year that sometimes I'll have a good game offensively and there isn't much difference."
Parker, a 6-foot-7 junior, suspects there is some resentment lingering from last year, when he left the team briefly in mid-season, then declined to speak to the media for the remainder of the year.
Parker has been cooperative this year, partly at the urging of the UVa staff.
"I don't really want to talk," he said. "It's not that I'm uncomfortable doing it. There have been a number of times when I feel I've been misquoted."
The situation worsened when Parker was being recruited by Virginia and his academic standing was the object of constant scrutiny.
"I thought that was personal," said Parker, who spent a year at Fork Union Military Academy, where he scored better than 700 on the Scholastic Aptitude Test. "Everytime I took it, it was in the paper.
"I was talking about it the other day with Yuri [Barnes] and T.J. [Ted Jeffries]. They didn't even know me and they knew how I was doing on the test. I'm here now. I don't think about it."
But, is he happy?
"I'm all right," Parker said. "It's been a better year than the first two. I think I started off great and then died down a little bit.
"I guess that's me more than anything else, but you play 28 or 30 games and the competition gets to know you a little bit better."
All he ever wanted was playing time, and this year Parker has gotten it. He has played more than 1,000 minutes - second on the team behind sophomore guard Cory Alexander - and has started every game for the Cavaliers (21-9).
In most cases, Parker has drawn the other team's best perimeter player, but that is subject to change. Against Massachusetts in a second-round NCAA Tournament game, he started on small forward Tony Barbee, moved to hot-shooting point guard Mike Williams, then switched back to Barbee when he started taking the ball inside.
It was not the first time Parker has found himself in the post.
"Cornel is able to guard anybody 6-1 to 6-8," Perrin said. "Last year was cut and dried. He was going to check [Tom] Gugliotta, [Allan] Houston, Hubert Davis. Sometimes now, we'll put him on a weaker guy and ask him to deflect balls in the middle."
Parker said he thinks his best defensive performance may have come as a freshman against North Carolina State's Rodney Monroe. Earlier this year, in what have been UVa's biggest victory, he held Duke's Grant Hill to 15 points on 6-of-16 shooting as the Cavaliers ended the Blue Devils' 36-game home winning streak.
"He's definitely rebounded the ball much better than I thought," Perrin said. "He's consistently getting us five or six rebounds and, to me, that's the real added dimension to his game."
Parker, the leading rebounder among ACC guards, is averaging 11.2 points, 6.9 rebounds and 3.2 assists. No Virginia player since Ralph Sampson has come as close to a "triple-double" as Parker did three weeks ago, when he had 12 points, nine rebounds and eight assists against Maryland.
"I didn't even know I was close," said Parker, who had a few triple-doubles at Maury High in Norfolk and at Fork Union. "That's definitely something I'd like to accomplish before I'm done here."