THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 18, 1995 TAG: 9503180363
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Bob Molinaro
DATELINE: ALBANY, N.Y. LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
The last rebound went to Petey Sessoms. He should keep the ball and have it bronzed in memory of the night he outplayed a second-team All-American, the best in the Big East.
You couldn't have blamed Sessoms for taking that ball and heaving it to the rafters of the Knick Arena. Players today do wilder things after less spectacular games.
But when the final buzzer sounded Friday night on Old Dominion's three-overtime, NCAA tournament victory, Sessoms took the ball and flipped it to an official. Just flipped it. Then he sauntered over to the Villanova bench and sought out a few Wildcats for handshakes.
No wild celebrations. No fist in the air. Just a toss of the ball, and a slow walk to the losers' bench.
Maybe Sessoms had nothing left for celebrating after playing 53 minutes of a 55-minute game.
Or maybe he knew something the rest of us didn't.
``Why didn't I do something crazy?'' Sessoms said. ``Maybe because we didn't look at it like we upset anybody.''
Mind games preceded ODU's mindbending performance against a Villanova team that was thought by many to have an excellence shot at the Final Four.
``Petey came in with something to prove,'' said teammate David Harvey. ``He proved it tonight.''
He proved, if nothing else, that he could play three overtimes without an obvious drop-off in drive.
He scored a game-high 35, but just as remarkably, he muzzled Kerry Kittles, who worked hard for 22 points.
``I used my quickness and my height advantage to bother his shot,'' Sessoms said. ``I think I did.''
If Kittles was bothered, Villanova looked out of sync for much of the night. ODU can take credit for that. The Monarchs played Villanova's game and played it better.
``The Big East is a physical conference,'' Harvey said. ``Everytime somebody came across the lane, I made sure to put a body on them.''
Said Mike Jones, who hit the big shots that Sessoms didn't: ``They're a lot bigger and more physical than we are. We made a conscious effort to be as physical as they are.
``If this had been a CAA game, the whistle would have been blowing like crazy out there. But the refs let us play that way. The longer the game went, the more we got used to it. By the end of the game, we were pushing them around.''
Pushing around a big team from the Big East. Who would have thought?
At times, it looked as if 'Nova was playing with a lump in its throat as big as the Liberty Bell. To their credit, the Wildcats dug as deep as ODU to extend the game far into the night.
But as hard as 'Nova played, it couldn't make ODU crack.
``Coach Capel has taught us,'' said Jones, ``that the time to hold together as a team is when things aren't going well.''
Things couldn't be going better for ODU today. This is easily the biggest upset of the young tournament. Villanova had just come off a victory over Connecticut, the No. 2 seed in the West.
Without raising his voice, or a fist, Sessoms made it clear what this moment meant to him.
``This is definitely the biggest game of my life,'' he said later in a surprising quiet ODU locker room. ``I just wanted to play this game like it was the last game of my life.''
Because of Sessoms, it wasn't even the final game of ODU's weekend. by CNB