ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 23, 1997 TAG: 9702250055
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
On George Washington's birthday, while visiting Thomas Jefferson's University, Dave Odom could not tell a lie.
``Really, winning was not the thing we had to do today,'' the Wake Forest basketball coach said.
For Virginia, it was. The Cavaliers couldn't chop down Tim Duncan, however, and Wake left University Hall feeling better about itself Saturday with a 66-60 victory.
Even in its circular hoops home, Virginia is backed into a corner. It seems likely that if the Cavaliers want an NCAA Tournament bid, they must beat Virginia Tech on Tuesday in Richmond, then stop Maryland a week from today at U-Hall.
Or, they probably would need to win two ACC tournament games over teams they haven't been able to conquer all season.
In sixth place in the league race, Virginia (16-11 overall, 6-9 ACC) is 1-8 against the top five - the losses by an average margin of double digits - with the Terrapins left.
The Demon Deacons (21-4, 10-4) had lost three of five, and Odom was looking only for ``a step back toward self-respectability,'' and to stay just behind Duke and ahead of charging North Carolina.
Duncan provided that and more. On a day when he erased U-Hall spectator Ralph Sampson's ACC career record for blocks (465 now), the 6-foot-10 Virgin Islander turned in a Hugh Downs performance - a ``20/20.''
``I think I can play better than today,'' Duncan said after his 21-point, 23-rebound performance. ``I think we can play better.''
Virginia doesn't want to see it. The Cavaliers tried to cope with the best player in college hoops, but couldn't. Duncan's 23 rebounds were a career high, and the rest of the Deacons were just good enough.
Freshman Colin Ducharme did a creditable job battling Duncan, and 7-4 Chase Metheney came off the bench to exchange a few elbows with the future No.1 NBA draft pick. UVa coach Jeff Jones even tried Aussie hit man Craig McAndrew a bit.
As usual, UVa's problem wasn't its defense. For the Cavaliers, offense is a chore, unless Curtis Staples frees himself for a jumper - where are the screens? - or Norman Nolan goes to the offensive glass.
In the eight losses to ACC teams ahead of them in the standings, the Cavaliers have shot a combined .373 percent from the field. Still with a chance in the final seconds Saturday, the Cavaliers' worst shooter - hobbled point guard Harold Deane - was doing the misfiring.
``It's not the end of the world,'' Jones said.
No, but the road sign to the NIT may be just around the next turn. If Virginia has a break, it's that the Cavaliers will be playing the Terps at home, and coach Gary Williams' club has lost five of its past eight and must visit first-place Duke on Thursday.
A 6-10 league record isn't going to get an NCAA berth, unless Virginia can prove it is another Iowa State, which in 1992 curiously got the last bid to the Large Lambada with a 5-9 Big Eight record, 16 Division I regular-season victories and a No.54 ranking in the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI).
Those Cyclones did win a Big Eight Conference tournament game and even pulled an NCAA upset of North Carolina-Charlotte. The Cavaliers have a top-30 RPI and a top-10 schedule, but who have they beaten?
Virginia is 2-9 against Associated Press ranked teams. The Cavs will have no impressive victories on an opponent's floor. Their only ACC win of consequence was a January triumph over the suddenly bubbling Tar Heels, then stuck at the start of the ACC chase.
Other than that, Jones' team must go back to its 2-0 start in Maui - over South Carolina and Massachusetts - for big wins. That not only takes a long memory, but those victories also raised false hopes in the Cavaliers, who were picked to finish in the bottom half of the ACC.
Odom, with five consecutive seasons of at least 21 victories at Wake, can concern himself with such semantics as his veteran team ``giving the impression we're in control when really we're not.''
Another of Terry Holland's former UVa assistants doesn't have that luxury. While Odom's club is preparing for the NCAA Tournament, Jones' team is simply struggling to get there.
There's no question the Cavaliers' coach hears the critics who remember last season's 12-15 record and don't think the current Cavaliers have the right stuff, either.
Virginia hasn't gone two seasons in a row without either an NCAA bid or a 20-victory season since the late Bill Gibson's last coaching year and Holland's first (1973-74 and '74-75) - just before the program's one and only ACC tournament championship.
No question, March madness - one way or another - will begin one week from today for the Cavaliers.
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