Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 27, 1994 TAG: 9403270145
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: KNOXVILLE, TENN. LENGTH: Medium
"BEWARE OF THE DOG," it read.
In Saturday night's NCAA Southeast Regional championship game, Duke showed up with plenty of animal-control officers.
The Blue Devils didn't exactly use invisible fencing to keep Boilermakers star Glenn Robinson penned up. They used tough defense to turn "The Big Dog" into a Chihuahua.
Duke's 69-60 victory brought its seventh Final Four trip in nine years and likely ended the college career of Robinson, a certain national player of the year. The curtain not only fell on Robinson. The stage - and Duke defense - collapsed, too.
The victory sends sixth-ranked Duke 160 miles from its campus and down I-85 to the Charlotte (N.C.) Coliseum, where the Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season champions lost to Virginia in a conference tournament semifinal on March 12.
The Blue Devils (27-5), the Southeast's second seed, will play the East Regional champ to be crowned today in Miami - Boston College or Florida - in a national semifinal next Saturday. Duke's victory extended the ACC's streak of Final Four appearances to seven years.
The Blue Devils are 7-0 in regional title games in coach Mike Krzyzewski's 14 seasons at the Durham, N.C., university.
"We've been fortunate to play in a lot of regional championship games, and this is as good as we've played," Krzyzewski said. "We played a team that has two of the best perimeter players anywhere. Our team's defense was the biggest factor."
Robinson's 13 points were a season low, ending a nine-game stretch in which he'd averaged 37.1 points. The nation's scoring leader with a 30.8 average entering the game, Robinson went 6-of-22 from the field and finished with his lowest point total in 56 games.
The anticipated Robinson-Grant Hill matchup materialized only in that they often guarded each other. Hill was in foul trouble and sat out six minutes of the second half - and Duke actually played better with its star sitting next to Krzyzewski.
While freshman guard Jeff Capel provided needed leadership and scoring, Hill and senior classmate Tony Lang - with backstop help under the hoop from 6-foot-11 Cherokee Parks - did something Krzyzewski thought impossible.
They stopped Robinson. Coach K said it would only be possible to contain the Big Ten Conference champions' superstar. After a Robinson basket gave Purdue a 27-17 lead with 7 minutes, 43 seconds left in the first half, he went almost 18 minutes without a field goal.
After a 4-for-7 start, Robinson was 1-for-14 until his meaningless dunk with 26 seconds left ended a 1,030-point season - the 12th best in Division I history.
"It was a great game, and they won," Robinson said. "Duke's defense was great. They denied me the ball. We'd set picks, and then they'd switch."
Robinson repeatedly said during the tournament that Purdue wasn't a one-man team, but unlike in the regional semifinal victory over Kansas, the Boilermakers' star got little help Saturday. Forward Cuonzo Martin, who bombed the Jayhawks for 29 points Thursday night, managed 12.
Robinson and Martin were a combined 11-for-36. That was worse than Duke's 11-for-31 first half - when the Devils had to like their chances after rallying to tie at 32 despite the poor marksmanship.
Purdue's 10-point lead with 7:43 left in the first half evaporated when six personal fouls were capped by a bench technical on Purdue's assistant coaches.
Coach Gene Keady complained about Duke's huge free-throw advantage - 26 attempts to five, although almost half of the Devils' tries came in the last 2 1/2 minutes when the Boilermakers were trying to play catch-up.
"Halfway through the first half we had a chance to take control of the game," said Keady, who was seeking his first coaching Final Four date. "Then all of a sudden the bottom falls out. We just couldn't make things happen.
"We wanted to keep them off the foul line, and you see the difference. Hats off to Duke. They did a great job on Glenn and Cuonzo.
"You've got to find a way to win, and we just couldn't do it."
Purdue (29-5), which had shot better than 52 percent in five of its past seven games, managed only 41.3 percent against the Blue Devils. It was even on the backboards, although Duke stayed in the game in the first half with its offensive rebounding.
"Duke came out and did a great job defensively on us, a better job than we did on our defensive end," said guard Matt Waddell, who led the Boilermakers with 16 points. "They turned it up a notch later in the game, something we weren't able to do."
Capel and Lang scored game highs of 19 points.
Keywords:
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by CNB