ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 13, 1997 TAG: 9702130059
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WINSTON-SALEM, N.C.
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITER
Blame it on Ric Flair.
The ACC basketball game Wednesday night at Joel Memorial Coliseum was played in a sleeper hold.
"We never stopped fighting,'' appropriately said Clemson coach Rick Barnes, after No.2 Wake Forest outlasted the seventh-ranked Tigers 55-49.
Flair, the pro wrestling legend, sat on the second row of Wake Forest's bench as a guest of the Demon Deacons. Undoubtedly, he saw nothing as pretty as himself, except the defense.
It was a game only the paparazzi would have loved. A half-hour before tipoff, Flair was signing autographs at one end of the floor while Dick Vitale was doing the same at the other.
"It was pretty ugly,'' Barnes said.
He meant the game, not the signings.
Both teams didn't just miss good shots. They missed great ones. They also couldn't make free-throw attempts when they desperately needed them.
Wake's .325 field-goal percentage was its worst in a victory this season. Clemson was worse, at .280, slightly better than the .273 nadir the Tigers reached in a Super Bowl Sunday loss at North Carolina.
"We did everything pretty well except shoot the ball,'' said Clemson's Greg Buckner, who belied his 16-point average with a 2-of-11 shooting night.
With a chance to throw the ACC lead into a three-way tie, Clemson (19-5 overall, 7-4 ACC) couldn't score enough to make it happen.
"I guess we've been in tougher games before,'' said Wake coach Dave Odom. "I just don't remember one.''
The Demon Deacons reached a school-record fifth straight 20-victory season despite making only five second-half field goals, including only one by the man who coaxed Odom to allow Flair on the bench, All-America center Tim Duncan.
Duncan, the NBA's overwhelming top prospect, also shot free throws like Shaquille O'Neal, when they counted most, down the stretch.
"We hung in there and survived,'' Odom said.
The victory left second-ranked Wake (20-2, 9-2) with a half-game lead over Duke atop the ACC.
"I think what's happening is this league is so visible, especially to each other, that I'm sure Rick Barnes can call our play before we run it, and I'm sure our situation as it relates to Clemson is the same,'' Odom said.
"The defense is great, and add to that the posturing as we head toward the tournament, with the overexposure to each other, and maybe the pressure begins to build.''
In the first half, the officials did allow grappling in the post, diminishing Duncan's opportunities. Clemson backup center Harold Jamison, once recruited for football by the Tigers and Florida State, made his presence felt.
However, by the time the Deacons reached the bonus almost 15 minutes into the half, they hadn't been whistled for a foul.
Barnes took every opportunity to jaw at the least-experienced official in the crew, Bryan Kersey, but what the Tigers needed most was to hang onto the ball.
Clemson had 10 turnovers in the first 16 minutes. Wake, the ACC's best shooting team, hit only eight of 24 shots in the first 20 minutes. The second half was worse. The Deacons were 5-of-16, a torrid 31 percent compared to Clemson's 17.9 (5-of-28).
In the first 13 minutes of the final half, there were four field goals, two apiece. Clemson didn't have a field goal in its first 16 possessions; Wake had two in its first 18.
When Jamison's hoop-and-harm three-point play tied the score at 35, it was because Wake had kept sending the visitors to the stripe.
"They stayed in the game like that,'' said Wake forward Ricky Peral.
Clemson's misfiring lowered Wake's field-goal percentage defense for the season to .343, better than Marquette's NCAA record of .358 in 1993-94. Only once in 22 games - a Duke victory - has a Deacons opponent shot better than 40 percent.
That defensive instruction didn't come from Flair.
"He didn't talk to us during the game,'' Peral said. "I don't think he wanted to distract us.''
There could have been another reason Flair was speechless. He went to a basketball game, and a wrestling match broke out.
"He had to like this kind of game,'' Odom said. "He didn't ask to go in, but I expected him to at any time.''
NOTE: Please see microfilm for scores.
LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Wake Forest center Tim Duncan heads up the floorby CNBafter grabbing a rebound in the first half Wednesday night against
Clemson. color.