ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, January 11, 1996 TAG: 9601110118
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CLEMSON, S.C.
SOURCE: DOUG DOUGHTY STAFF WRITER
CLEMSON BEATS Virginia despite 39 points from guard Harold Deane.
The way Harold Deane was playing Wednesday night, Virginia didn't need much out of his teammates.
If the Cavaliers had merely been able to rebound Clemson's missed free throws, it might have helped.
But the Tigers, playing five freshmen at times, gave UVa a lesson in fundamentals and defeated the Cavaliers for the first time in eight tries, 89-79, at sold-out Littlejohn Coliseum.
Virginia wasted a career-high 39-point performance by Deane, a 6-foot-1 point guard who also had a team-high nine rebounds as the Cavaliers fell to 6-5 overall and 1-2 in the ACC.
``For a while, it was a very hard-fought contest, and then they wore us down mentally and physically,'' UVa coach Jeff Jones said. ``If the game would have gone on another 10 or 15 minutes, it just would have been worse.''
The 16th-ranked Tigers (11-0, 2-0) outrebounded Virginia 41-34, grabbing 19 offensive rebounds. North Carolina State had 23 offensive rebounds in a 73-69 loss to Virginia on Saturday.
``Off missed free throws alone, [the Tigers] must have gotten a dozen points,'' Jones said. ``They kept missing free throws, and I don't know what more we can do [as coaches].
``They beat us to balls; they shoved us under the basket. We just weren't tough enough. And, when you have a team with as much heart as Clemson has, you just cannot keep giving them extra opportunities.''
Clemson lost its most experienced player when junior point guard Merl Code suffered a knee injury and was helped off the floor with 14:14 remaining, but if the Tigers were rattled, they didn't show it.
Freshman Andrius Jurkunas hit a 3-pointer to tie the score at 45. Then, after UVa pushed its lead to 50-45, Jurkunas and another freshman, Terrell McIntyre, made back-to-back 3-pointers.
McIntyre finished with 18 points, all in the second half, to share Clemson scoring honors with sophomore Greg Buckner. Jurkunas added 16 points, including five 3-point field goals.
``I'd have to go back to early in the season when we were way, way up on somebody to remember a time when we've had five freshmen on the floor,'' second-year Clemson coach Rick Barnes said.
``But, at no point in time have we talked about freshmen, sophomores and juniors. We can't talk about seniors, because we don't have any.''
Virginia has a much more experienced team, although the Cavaliers' lone scholarship senior, fifth-year center Chris Alexander, was no factor again Wednesday night.
Alexander, who had three points and three rebounds against N.C. State, contributed one point and one rebound in 20 minutes. He also had four fouls for the second game in a row.
``Rebounding the other team's missed free throws ought to be a 90- or 95-percent play,'' Jones said. ``It wasn't big guys rebounding over smaller guys; it was big on big.
``With Harold playing the way we did, offense was not our problem. Our problem was defense and rebounding. If you had told me before the game that we would score 80 points, I would have said we'd win.''
Deane had eight 3-point field goals - one short of the school record - and easily surpassed his previous high of 28 points. The last UVa player to score 39 points was Richard Morgan in 1989; nobody has had 40 since Ralph Sampson in 1981.
NOTE: Please see microfilm for scores.
LENGTH: Medium: 69 linesby CNB