Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 3, 1994 TAG: 9403030126
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
If the Cavaliers can shoot like they did Wednesday night, they'd be happy to play this state rivalry at a landfill.
UVa, hitting more than 50 percent of its shots for the first time this season, held off the Hokies 70-61 in its biennial visit to the Star City's so-called neutral site.
The paid attendance was 9,286 on a lousy night. The game ended with public-address announcer Pete Petersen giving UVa travelers back to Charlottesville a weather report about the impending Ice-64 drive over Afton Mountain.
Despite the live cablecast, there were few no-shows, unless you counted the Tech offense in the first nine minutes. While Virginia's offensive efficiency was stunning, its always-tough man-to-man defense wasn't.
The Cavaliers lowered their ACC-best field-goal percentage defense to .395, the league's best since patient South Carolina's foes shot .382 in 1969-70.
The victory may have solidified UVa's NCAA Tournament bid. The Cavaliers (15-10) are helped by their No. 25 ranking in the Ratings Percentage Index, with the RPI's fifth-toughest schedule. Their opponents' aggregate schedule ranks 18th. No team in the RPI's top 30 has been excluded from the 34 at-large berths.
If coach Jeff Jones' team can't quite be sure about its postseason fate, the Cavaliers are certain they want to keep playing in the Roanoke Valley, and not just because it's the home of a prize recruit, perimeter sharpshooter Curtis Staples from Oak Hill Academy.
Virginia has prospered in Roanoke's 10,056-seat arena. The Cavaliers are 8-3 against Tech since the building became one of the alternating sites for the rivalry in 1977. UVa has won 11 of 14 overall at the civic center.
If UVa can shoot the 51.1 percent it did Wednesday here - only its third 50 percent night in the past 42 games - maybe Jones might want to consider moving the annual visits by North Carolina and Duke from University Hall to Roanoke.
OK, maybe not. One thing is certain. The Cavaliers intend to keep playing the Hokies here at least every other year. UVa's athletic director, Jim Copeland, said the annual game will be played at the Richmond Coliseum next season, and should be back in the Star City in 1996.
Tech and UVa have played 108 times in basketball. They've played in Richmond, Roanoke, Hampton, Norfolk, Alexandria and even Salem once, in 1969. They've played in Charlottesville and Blacksburg - and that's what Hokies athletic director Dave Braine and coach Bill Foster want to do again.
Scheduling is another area where this rivalry endures. Tech wants to take the series back to the campuses, where it hasn't been played since February 1976, when UVa won an overtime game at U-Hall. Copeland and Jones don't plan to add a winter stop in Blacksburg to their biennial basketball itinerary.
"We want it at a neutral site," Copeland said. "We have a good alumni base here. Besides, we don't need another game in a pit. We have eight of them [in the ACC] every season already."
The past four Tech-UVa games have failed to sell out, two each in Richmond and Roanoke, and the average attendance in those four has been 9,236. The last capacity crowd in the series was here in 1990.
Each school would sell about 5,000 seats if the game returned to the campuses, and keep the net of the gate at home. The schools split the net 50-50 at neutral sites.
At $18 a ticket, minus arena guarantees, each school takes home about $75,000 from a neutral site. If the series went back to Blacksburg and Charlottesville, each school would make about the same amount only every other year.
"There's another point, too," Copeland said. "Tech's not going to need us coming there for their season-ticket package. They're getting in the big East. They'll have plenty of good home games then."
What's most important is that Tech and UVa keep playing somewhere - and somewhere in the state.
Tech (16-9) has won only six of the 23 consecutive meetings with UVa on neutral floors. At the civic center, the Hokies are 13-15 and rarely do they shoot well in what many consider to be their home away from home.
The bad news for Tech is that it is scheduled to hold the Metro Conference tournament in Roanoke in 2001. The good news for the Hokies is that they'll be in the Big East five years before that.
by CNB