ROANOKE TIMES
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, November 25, 1993                   TAG: 9311250124
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: HOLIDAY 
SOURCE: Doug Doughty
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long


TRIBE SENT PACKING FOR PLAYOFFS

An eight-game winning streak to end the regular season left William and Mary with the impression it might serve as a host for a first-round NCAA Division I-AA playoff game.

Instead, the Tribe (9-2) was sent to McNeese State (9-2) in Lake Charles, La., which is 170 miles east of Houston and 220 miles west of New Orleans.

William and Mary coach Jimmye Laycock didn't go into shock, but he was in a good place for a medical emergency. He was at a hospital with his wife, Deidre, who Sunday gave birth to their third child.

"What we were told was that they were trying to give conference champions home games whenever possible," William and Mary senior Rob Light, an offensive tackle from Salem, said.

It will be the second trip to Louisiana this season for William and Mary, a 10-0 loser at Tulane, the only Division I-A team on its schedule. The Tribe was without star quarterback Shawn Knight for that game. One thousand-yard rusher Derek Fitzgerald did not play in the other loss, 42-35, at Delaware.

Knight, a junior, threw 22 touchdown passes - compared to four interceptions - and shattered the Division I-AA record for passing efficiency.

The loss to Delaware eventually cost William and Mary a shot at the Yankee Conference because the Tribe did not play Boston University (11-0).

The teams had played three times between 1989-92, with then-independent William and Mary winning twice. However, not all teams play each other in the Yankee, which is separated into Northern and Southern divisions.

Laycock, already being mentioned in connection with the vacancy at Clemson, took the Tribe to the playoffs four times between 1986-90. They probably would have gone last year if the team had not accepted an invitation to play in Japan.

"We felt we had an excellent season [9-2] last year, but a lot of people questioned our schedule," Light said. "Teams had the attitude of, `Welcome to the Yankee Conference,' as if they were going to show us what Division I-AA football was all about. I don't think they're questioning us now."

\ AROUND THE STATE: Cave Spring product Scott Pruner was nominated for All-American by Emory & Henry before a violation of team policy caused him to miss the last two games. Pruner made first-team All-American on the defensive line as a junior.

\ IN THE BIG EAST: ESPN football analyst Lee Corso said Saturday that Big East football - specifically the programs at Miami, West Virginia, Boston College and Virginia Tech - is approaching the level of Big East basketball.

Syracuse fullback Al Wooten on the Orangemen's 5-4-1 record: "This was the most talented team I've played on at Syracuse. To have the expectations we had and then to have the season we had, I'd have to say we were underachievers in a big way. We not only made liars out of ourselves, we made liars out of everyone who believed in us."

\ IN THE ACC: Tim Murphy of Cincinnati and Gary Blackney of Bowling Green have emerged as two of the leading candidates to succeed Barry Wilson, who three weeks ago resigned as Duke football coach.

"Duke has a reputation for not having a commitment to football," Wilson said. "I'm leaving but I want to go on record as saying that's not true. It is not true. [Athletic director] Tom Butters wants football to succeed at Duke more than he wants anything else in his professional life."

The illness of quarterback Jim Kemp proved costly to Wake Forest in a 33-32 loss to Maryland. Kemp usually serves as holder for the Demon Deacons, who missed two extra points and a 30-yard field goal before passing up a field goal from the Maryland 1-yard line with 2 minutes, 35 seconds left.

\ HIGHLANDER HAS-BEENS: Place-kicker John Milligan, who attended Radford University and three other colleges before transferring to Maryland before the start of football practice, was mobbed by teammates after kicking the winning extra point against Wake Forest after time had expired.

Jamie Warren, who began his basketball career at Radford University, scored 37 points Friday night in his debut for Mary Washington. Warren played eight minutes for Radford in 1991-92 before transferring to George Mason, where his plan was to baseball until he was cut from the traveling squad.

\ EX-PATRIOTS: Virginia signee Curtis Staples from Oak Hill Academy was pictured on the front page and front sports page of Wednesday's edition of USA Today, which ranked Oak Hill first in its national prep poll.

Ex-North Carolina star George Lynch, who preceded Staples at Patrick Henry High in Roanoke, had played in only five of 10 games for the Los Angeles Lakers before he had eight points and six rebounds in 12 minutes Tuesday night. The team attributed Lynch's earlier lack of playing time to a "coach's decision."

\ RECRUITING: Virginia's fall recruiting class was ranked anywhere from No. 2 to No. 5 in the country by a panel of four recruiting analysts in USA Today. Moreover, Leron Williams, a 6-7 forward from Bradenton, Fla., reportedly has a sincere interest in UVa.

The Cavaliers are focusing their attention on Williams and 6-7 Mike Maddox from Atlanta, who did not sign early. Both are national top 50 players. Seton Hall signed 6-10 Jacky Kaba from Washington, who visited UVa during the early period but was not a high priority for the Cavaliers.

\ IMPRESSIVE START: Longwood College freshman Nikki Hall from Glenvar was named to the all-tournament team at the C&L Lady Lancer Invitational after registering 22 points, 12 assists and 12 rebounds in two games.

\ MOON MOVING ?: Former Roanoker Lee Moon, the athletic director at Marshall, has been interviewed twice by Missouri, which is looking for a successor to Dan Devine, who is retiring. Moon, who played football at VMI, has been at Marshall since 1988.

Moon was in Roanoke recently with Tom Fletcher, a former assistant coach and administrator at Virginia Tech who now serves as associate director of the Big Green Scholarship Foundation.

Keywords:
BASKETBALL



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