ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 1, 1996 TAG: 9602010045
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: RANDY KING STAFF WRITER
Forget that all-points bulletin on the whereabouts of Shawn Good. Virginia Tech's point guard is alive and well again.
Finally resembling the player who was a catalyst for last season's National Invitation Tournament championship team, Good produced a highlight-reel performance in Tech's 74-48 blowout of UNC Greensboro on Wednesday night at Cassell Coliseum.
Good scored a season-high 14 points with five rebounds and three assists as the 13th-ranked Hokies improved to 15-2. The Spartans fell to 13-6.
No one played a bigger role in the Hokies' 15th straight home victory than Good. The 6-foot-3 jumping jack from Indiana brought the real goods with him on this night.
In a smorgasbord of moves that delighted the crowd of 7,434, Good hit a pair of rainbow 3-pointers, scored on an offensive stickback, a breakaway finger-roll, a resounding slam dunk, and a film-at-11, double-clutch 12-foot jumper made during the descent of one of his patented 40-inch vertical leaps.
Wednesday's game marked only the second time in 16 games this season Good has scored in double figures. That doesn't quite cut it for a guy who scored 10 or more points in all but eight of the Hokies' 35 games last season.
Good, whose scoring average had fallen from 12.9 a year ago to 6.8 before Wednesday, confessed it's nice to be marked off the missing-in-action list.
``I haven't played as well as I would have liked, and that's had to affect our play as a team,'' Good said. ``Everybody is an important part, and if everybody doesn't do their job, the team is going to slack a little bit. And that's what happened with us. I wasn't doing my job early on.''
Good has a couple of strong alibis for his slow start. After a great preseason, he pulled a groin muscle six minutes into the Hokies' Nov. 28 season opener against Coastal Carolina. He missed Tech's next game because of the injury.
Then, just when he was starting to get over that problem, he dislocated his left shoulder in early January.
``Physically, I just wasn't feeling good,'' Good said. ``I'd step on the court and I wouldn't feel like I was really running. I'd feel kind of stiff
``But now everything is coming back. The last couple of games is the best I've played all year. I'm trying to work back to last year's level.
``It's coming back. I don't think it's all [the] way back to where it was last year, but we're getting there.''
In Tech's three-game homestand, Good had 30 points, 13 assists and only two turnovers. Good's recent numbers have spelled relief for Tech coach Bill Foster.
``Shawn is playing now like we saw him play a year ago,'' Foster said. ``In defense of Shawn, the injury with the groin bothered him early and he kind of got out of sync.
``But the last four games, every game, he's kind of stepped it up to another level. He's really playing well again.''
So, apparently, are the Hokies. Tech had little trouble with a UNC Greensboro club that rolled into town with an eight-game winning streak.
Tech, which got 15 points from Ace Custis and 14 from Travis Jackson, scored the final seven points of the first half to take a 36-22 lead to the locker room.
The Spartans never got closer than 12 in the second half. UNCG shot a season-low 33 percent from the field (17-of-51) against Tech's stifling man-to-man defense. The Spartans, second in the nation in 3-point accuracy (45.2), were 6-for-17 from beyond the arc.
``Our defense for about 35 of the 40 minutes was the best we've played all year,'' Foster said.
NOTE: Please see microfilm for scores.
LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: GENE DALTON/Staff. Virginia Tech's Shawn Good heads upby CNBthe court after knocking the ball away from UNC Greensboro's Brian
Brunson on Wednesday night at Cassell Coliseum. color. KEYWORDS: BASKETBALL