ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 31, 1997 TAG: 9701310066
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE
SOURCE: DOUG DOUGHTY STAFF WRITER
On a night when three of his Virginia teammates were in street clothes or otherwise hobbled by injuries, Harold Deane provided another lesson in playing with pain.
Deane, whose swollen right shin caused him to limp noticeably at times, scored a season-high 23 points Thursday night as the Cavaliers defeated Richmond 83-66 in men's basketball.
``Harold's not going to be 100-percent healed until maybe a month after the season,'' said UVa coach Jeff Jones, who never had enough of a cushion to substitute for his starters en masse.
After the Cavaliers stretched their lead to 59-34 with just under 10 minutes remaining, Jones brought Deane to the bench and it appeared that UVa's point guard might be able to spend the rest of the night with an icepack on his shin.
``I thought I was finished for the night,'' said Deane, who stands third in the ACC in minutes played with 36.2 per game, ``but Coach [Jones] felt he needed to put me back in. I was ready.''
Deane played 35 minutes, which was his shortest stint in the past eight games. He had played 309 of a possible 320 minutes during that stretch and has seldom looked sharper than he did Thursday night, when he was 8-of-13 from the field and did not have a turnover.
``Frankly, I think Harold Deane took the air out of us,'' said Richmond coach Bill Dooley, whose Spiders were coming off a 75-65 victory Monday night over James Madison. ``We just couldn't stop them consistently.''
As opposed to Tuesday night, when Curtis Staples scored 27 points and UVa did not have a second double-figure scorer in a 56-50 victory over North Carolina State, five players had 10 or more points Thursday and a sixth had eight.
That was despite the absence of leading scorer Courtney Alexander, who was sidelined for the second straight game with a sprained left ankle. Jones isn't sure if Alexander will play Saturday against Florida State.
``It's out of my hands,'' said Jones, indicating that Alexander made the call. ``I think it would have helped if he could have played a few minutes; that would have been my preference. I have no idea about Saturday.''
Jones had feared how his team might react to its first non-conference game in four weeks, but the Cavaliers did what they have been doing for nearly 20 years. It was UVa's 39th straight victory over in-state opposition at University Hall.
Richmond (7-10) had cut an 11-point halftime deficit to 41-33 before the Cavaliers went on a 12-0 run that included a pair of baskets by center Colin Ducharme, a freshman from Richmond. Ducharme finished with a season-high 14 points.
``What he hasn't done is capitalize on how people play him and our other post men,'' Jones said. ``Our opponents still react very aggressively to anything that our perimeter guys do. When that happens, our big guys have opportunities.''
The Cavaliers (14-6) also got a season-high 10 points from 7-foot-4 sophomore Chase Metheney, who also had five rebounds in 18 minutes. Metheney had missed three consecutive games with ankle and groin problems.
``For what potentially could have been a tough game for us to get up for, I was pleased with the effort,'' Jones said. ``Nothing against Richmond, but, sandwiched between two conference games, sometimes a non-conference game gets overlooked.''
Richmond and Virginia had identical field-goal percentages (46.3) and the Spiders outrebounded the Cavaliers 35-33. UVa won because it wasn't sloppy; the Cavaliers' five turnovers were a season low.
``It's an in-state rivalry and it's [Richmond] a school I almost went to,'' Deane said. ``So, I was up for the game and I think my teammates were as well.
``We have a goal here and that's to win four straight home games. We're happy to have three under our belts, but we know we've still got one pretty big one to go.''
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Virginia's Colin Ducharme (right) goes up overby CNBRichmond's Rick Edwards during their matchup at University Hall on
Thursday. color.