Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 16, 1994 TAG: 9403160023
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-5 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RALPH BERRIER JR.
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Most eyes, but not all. Bob Clark could only look at the clock on his right wrist.
After the last second evaporated from the Highlanders' 83-78 win over UNC Greensboro in the finals of the Big South Conference women's basketball tournament, Clark, a Radford assistant coach, showed an observer his NCAA wristwatch, one of two he received on previous NCAA tournament excursions as a coach at Providence.
"Like I need another watch," Clark was heard to say, as he pulled his jacket sleeve back to make sure the bystander got a good look.
Clark will get his third NCAA timepiece today. More importantly, Radford will make its first appearance in the NCAA tournament when the Highlanders, the 16th seed in the West Regional, play at top-seeded Purdue today at 7:30 p.m.
Clark is not the only Highlander associate who can boast an NCAA background. Head coach Lubomyr Lichonczak owns at least six NCAA watches from his years on staff at women's basketball powers Old Dominion and Ohio State. This is his first trip as a head coach.
"You know, I don't know where any of those [watches] are," said Lichonczak. "I'm not letting anyone touch this one."
Part-time assistant coach Tricia Cullop took part in three NCAA tourneys as a player.
At Purdue.
When the team gathered at a Radford sandwich shop Sunday afternoon to watch the tournament pairings program on ESPN, many team members joked about the possibility of playing Purdue, where Cullop played from 1989 to '93.
When that first-round match-up became reality, the restaurant exploded with shouts and cheers. The coaching staff's resident Boilermaker was asked to reveal the deepest secrets behind Purdue's success.
"I don't feel like a snitch," Cullop said later with a laugh. "I enjoyed my time there, but I'm here now."
\ SCOUTING REPORT: Cullop's input will be welcomed. In preparing for a possible NCAA bid, the Radford staff did not scout the Big Ten prior to the Big South tournament. Lichonczak checked out Tennessee during the Southeastern Conference tournament, top assistant Joe Matthews followed North Carolina and Virginia in the Atlantic Coast Conference and Clark departed for his old stomping grounds in the Big East to look at Connecticut.
Cullop will be able to help formulate a scouting report on the Boilermakers, but quite a bit has changed at Purdue this season. Purdue's best player is freshman Leslie "Baby Barkley" Johnson (18.5 points per game, 9.7 rebounds).
"They have a young team," said Lichonczak. "[Cullop] may know the X's and O's [of Purdue's offensive and defensive schemes], but she doesn't know their new personnel."
Purdue (25-4) is a big, strong team. Johnson is 6-foot-1 and center Stacey Lovelace (11.3 ppg, 9.7 rpg) is 6-4.
\ JUST ANOTHER NCAA BID: Anne Fontaine, a reserve guard who was a key player on the Radford volleyball team that advanced to the NCAAs last fall, will make her second NCAA trip in four months this week. The Wytheville native and former Timesland female athlete of the year said she tried to impress on her basketball mates how memorable an NCAA tournament berth can be, even if its just for one game, like the volleyball team's early exit at Southern California.
"At different times when we were all just sitting around, I'd say that this [NCAA basketball bid] was definitely an achieveable goal," Fontaine said.
Although Fontaine said she can't compare her NCAA experiences until she actually goes to Purdue this week, she has already noticed some differences. The basketball selection show, for example, is televised nationally, the volleyball pairings were not.
"We had to go over to [volleyball coach Jannell Dobbins'] house and wait [to hear the volleyball pairings]," Fontaine said. "A professor with a satellite dish called us and told us where we were going."
\ BIG SOUTH SWEEP: Radford won its fifth straight Big South title, as Wilkey, who won her second straight tournament Most Valuable Player award, joined former Radford teammates Tammie Crown and LaSaundra Siddle as the only players to play on four championship squads. The Highlanders have won seven of the Big South's eight women's tournaments. Ironically, the only year they didn't win it was in 1989, when Radford had its best club ever. That team went 25-7 and earned a berth in the National Women's Invitation Tournament. The loss to Campbell in the Big South finals probably kept that team from earning an at-large bid to the NCAAs . . .
\ SAME FLOOR, NEW NAME: UNC Greensboro may have made a crucial error when it changed the name of its basketball arena from the HHP Spectator Gymnasium to Spartan Center just before the conference tournament.
Radford had never won a game in that building under the old name. In two previous trips to the HHPSG, the Highlanders were soundly thumped by UNC Greensboro.
Now, it can be said that the Highlanders are 3-0 at the Spartan Center.
"We've set a new precedent," said Lichonczak.
The Highlander men lost this year in their first (and now only) trip to the HHPSG. Perhaps the name change will serve them well, too.
UNC Greensboro should have remembered, "if it ain't broke, don't rename it."
Ralph Berrier Jr. covers sports for the Roanoke Times & World-News' New River Valley bureau.
by CNB