Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 26, 1993 TAG: 9303260266
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHARLOTTE, N.C. LENGTH: Medium
WILDCATS ROUT WAKE
On the road to the final eight, Wake Forest was little more than a worn speed bump for Kentucky.It may have been a "Monster" truck that mashed the Deacons, or maybe it was a Ford, as UK continued to treat the 55th NCAA men's basketball tournament like a demolition derby.
In the Southeast Region semifinal nightcap Thursday, the Wildcats roared to a 60-26 halftime lead and coasted to a 103-69 victory before 22,867 at the sold-out Charlotte Coliseum.
Wake (21-9) did show up for the second half, but second-ranked Kentucky already had played like demons to move into Saturday's 3:30 p.m. regional final date against 11th-ranked Florida State (25-9).
Since the NCAA expanded the field to 64 teams in 1985, only one regional game had a more lopsided finish. Michigan, the eventual national champion, crushed Virginia 102-65 in the Southeast Regional final at UK's Rupp Arena in 1989.
Kentucky was 12-of-15 on 3-point shots in the first 20 minutes, and the much-anticipated Jamal Mashburn-Rodney Rogers matchup was history.
The 6-foot-8 Mashburn played the first half as if he was being defensed by 5-7 Wake coach Dave Odom. The "Monster Mash" scored all his 23 points in the first 19 minutes on 8-of-11 shooting, including perfection on five jumpers from behind the arc.
When Mashburn wasn't scoring, point guard Travis Ford was. The Missouri transfer was 6-of-6 in the first half, including four 3-pointers - the last a 23-footer to finish the half - typifying the play of coach Rick Pitino's bomb squad.
If Pitino needed something to yell about at halftime, he could have chosen free-throw shooting. Kentucky was only 4-of-8 at the stripe at that point. Big deal.
Pitino's team already had taken 18 more shots than the Deacons and had only three turnovers.
It wasn't so much that Rogers, the ACC player of the year, had trouble scoring. He had difficulty shooting. The 6-foot-7 southpaw made his only two shots in the first half, when the Deacons got only 15 shots and seven rebounds while committing 12 turnovers.
Against Kentucky's pressure defense, Wake unraveled. On more than a few possessions, the Deacons couldn't even make entry passes for their offense.
On the eve of the game, Odom explained that Kentucky plays tough without the ball, too.
"Kentucky double-teams much on the order of North Carolina, but they try to steal the ball on the order of Florida State," Odom said, using ACC examples. "They have the best of both worlds."
Then, the Wildcats came out and proved Odom's point.
Kentucky, the region's top seed playing in its record 33rd NCAA Tournament, won its first two games last weekend by margins of 44 and 21 points. The Wildcats will take a nine-game winning streak into the meeting with FSU, which struggled past Western Kentucky 81-78 in an overtime Southeast semifinal opener. \
see microfilm for box score