Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 13, 1993 TAG: 9301130107
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-5 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
A GAME TO REMEMBER
The winners ran like dervishes around the basketball court, embracing anybody within grasp.The losers left the locker room in tears and sat on the floor or leaned against the corridor wall in quiet despair as they awaited their coach to finish his postgame business so they could go home.
The aftermath of a conference championship game? The parting scene from a NCAA Tournament nail-gnawer?
No, just the second outing of the 1992-93 Big South Conference regular season. A day after Radford University edged Coastal Carolina 84-83, there was talk that it would go down as the most memorable conference game ever.
"You'd be hard-pressed to find one much better, with the finish they had," said Radford sports information director Rick Rogers, who has seen as many Big South games as anybody since the league opened for business in 1983. "Radford certainly had its share of gut-wrenching finishes last year, but the Coastal Carolina game would be hard to top."
Highlanders coach Ron Bradley, in his third season at Radford, doesn't have the long-range perspective on the Big South, but he knows an interesting basketball game when he sees one.
"It certainly was a well-played game," Bradley said. "You talk about Duke-North Carolina, but I don't think there could be a basketball game that is any more intensely-played than the one we had with Coastal."
Said Coastal Carolina coach Russ Bergman, the dean of Big South coaches and the Chanticleers boss for 17 years:
"I remember thinking at one point during the game that I hoped the fans were enjoying this, because it sure was a great one to watch."
Judging the quality of basketball games has a lot to with do with matters of taste. By any standard, Coastal-Radford had a lot to commend it. For example:
The best players on each team gave an outstanding effort as Coastal was coming from 16 points back in the second half. For Coastal, forward Mohammed Acha played 39 minutes; forward Ton Dunkin, the three-time conference most valuable player, worked 38 as did sharp-shooting guard KeKe Hicks (8-for-11 from 3-point range, 33 points). For Radford, forward Don Burgess (18 points, seven rebounds) played 39 minutes and guards Brian Schmall (13 points, eight assists), and Doug Day (8-for-16 from 3-point range, 27 points) never sat down.
There was terrific team play. Radford scored 47 points in the first half and Coastal 49 in the second.
There was terrific individual play. Hicks had one of the best games by an opposing guard ever seen in the Dedmon Center, right up until the time Day swiped the ball from him with seconds left to set up his game-winning free throw.
Day had a fine night offensively despite having to deal with Hicks' hot hand at the other end. In fact, the only guard who's gotten as hot as Hicks in the Dedmon Center is probably Day.
"Maybe Doug knows what it's like now," Bradley said.
"We couldn't stop him," Schmall said of Hicks.
Then there was Acha, the wonderfully gifted Nigerian who is said to have a 40-inch vertical leap. The alley-oop he and guard Joey Hart executed was highlight reel stuff.
"He could have grabbed the rim with his teeth," Bergman said.
Keywords:
BASKETBALL