ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 1, 1996 TAG: 9603010056
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: LYNCHBURG
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
RADFORD DOESN'T EVEN get past the first round this time, falling 55-52 to Charleston Southern.
Radford University's Big South Conference tournament semifinal jinx won't be troubling the Highlanders this year.
Radford would have had to make it to the semifinal round to be jinxed for a seventh consecutive year.
Charleston Southern saw to it that wouldn't be the case when it halted the Highlanders' season with a 55-52 victory Thursday in the opening round of the tournament at Liberty University's Vines Center.
Charleston Southern plays top-seeded North Carolina-Greensboro, a 78-67 opening-round victor over Coastal Carolina, in a semifinal at 6 p.m. today.
The Highlanders (14-13) hadn't been sent home from the tournament this early since North Carolina-Asheville dispatched them to the bus 62-58 in the opening round on March 2, 1989.
This time, Radford had a chance to tie the score and send the game into an extra period, but Jason Lansdown's 3-point attempt with a few seconds left was coughed out by an unyielding cylinder.
``I got a good look at it,'' said Lansdown, who played his last game for the Highlanders. ``I thought it was going in.''
You would have thought Radford would hit some free throws in this game, considering the Highlanders made 73.9 percent of their attempts during the regular season. You would have thought incorrectly.
Although the Highlanders made nine of 15 shots from the line, they missed six of their last seven, including their final five. All that banging and clanging came in the last 7:10.
Never more than four points separated the teams during that stretch. It was striking that the Buccaneers (15-12), the defending tournament champions, missed five of seven free throws in the first half but made 14 of 18 after intermission.
Point guard Erroll McPherson gave Charleston Southern the three-point lead that, as it turned out, Radford couldn't rally from when he buried a pair of free throws with 12 seconds left. McPherson, a junior who sets up a good foot behind the line because he says he is more comfortable there, canned four of five free throws and scored a team-high 18 points.
``It isn't any secret that Erroll wasn't a very good shooter his first two years here,'' said Bucs coach Gary Edwards, who came close to wearing out the knees of his snazzy trousers as he crawled and gestured on the bench. ``But there is nobody in the conference who has spent more time between the end of last season and the beginning of this one in the gym working on his shot, both free throw and from the floor.''
Fellow Bucs guard Brett Larrick chipped in 14 points, seven rebounds and four steals, which went a long way toward making up for the offensive disappearance of regular-season MVP T.L. Latson, who was crowded, bumped and bothered into a six-point, five rebound afternoon. The 6-foot-7 senior averaged a league-leading 18.9 points per game to go with 6.8 rebounds and came into the game with 1,499 points in his career.
Against Radford, which he had torched for 43 points in two regular-season victories, Latson went 2-for-13 from the floor.
``We got him frustrated and off his game a little bit,'' said Lansdown, who had a share in a defense against Latson that was as rugged as the law allowed and then some.
Lansdown, Radford's only senior starter and its leading scorer, had a difficult last game. He scored 10 points, six off his average, and had a team-leading seven turnovers, a figure mitigated somewhat by his team-leading five assists. He missed seven of 11 from the floor and three of five at the line.
Anthony Walker led the team with 19 points, which made him no less unhappy at game's end.
``We beat ourselves,'' he said.
Ron Bradley, Radford's coach, preferred to dwell on Charleston Southern's good deeds.
``They did a tremendous job of getting around our screens and not giving our guards the chances they'd been getting this year to get open,'' he said.
Even if the results weren't always what the teams were after, the effort on both sides was consistent.
``We feel like survivors,'' Edwards said. ``Not victors, not conquerors. Nothing like that.''
NOTE: Please see microfilm for scores.
LENGTH: Medium: 83 linesby CNB