THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 21, 1996 TAG: 9601210198
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE CARLSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: GREENVILLE, N.C. LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
Three frantic minutes by Old Dominion could not compensate for the 37 minutes that East Carolina outplayed the Monarchs Saturday.
The Pirates led by 16 points with six minutes left and by 13 with three minutes remaining. ODU sliced the lead to one, then failed to complete the comeback, losing 72-67 at Minges Coliseum.
``Longest three minutes of my life,'' East Carolina rookie coach Joe Dooley said.
ODU freshman Mark Poag will long remember the final ill-advised shot he took for a chance to win. ODU point guard Brion Dunlap cut the margin to 68-67 on a three-point play with 23.8 seconds remaining. The Monarchs got the ball back without a second ticking off the clock when ECU's Morris Grooms stepped over the end line before in-bounding the ball.
ECU called time, and ODU trailed by one and had the ball with the shot clock off.
``We wanted to go inside,'' ODU coach Jeff Capel said. ``We had gotten back into the game by taking the ball inside and taking it to the basket. (Poag) was really a decoy because we knew he was one of the perimeter players that they would honor defensively.''
But Poag took the ball along the baseline and put up a well-defended 12-foot turnaround jumper with 18 seconds to go.
``It was just a bad shot,'' said Poag, who admitted he lost track of the time. ``We wanted to get Mike (Byers) on a back-door cut or (Joe Bunn) down low.
``I just backed my man in. When it left my hand, I thought I made the shot, but it hit the iron. That's the breaks some times.''
Jonathan Kerner made a pair of free throws to give ECU a three-point lead. Mario Mullen - who had missed the previous five games with a bad back - threw up a 3-pointer while leaning into Deron Rippey. That missed the mark, and ODU was done.
``Mark just took the shot and hopefully within the next couple of years he'll realize that's not the proper shot at that particular time,'' Capel said. ``He's a freshman and he's got a lot of guts to take it. I like that aspect. But that was not what we were trying to get.''
The Monarchs (8-9, 3-2 Colonial Athletic Association) got in a hole by failing to establish their inside game. Bunn and Odell Hodge - the team's top two scorers - had a combined seven points at halftime. Capel said the perimeter players were not patient enough offensively.
``Early on we didn't do a good job of getting the ball inside,'' Bunn said. ``I was getting frustrated because I was coming open and not getting the rock.''
But Bunn and Dunlap (13 points, seven assists) got the Monarchs back in the game, Bunn scoring 15 of his team-high 17 in the second half.
ODU got rocked on the boards 39-25 and fell way behind in the first half when the Pirates (10-4, 3-2) ripped off an 18-1 run for a 36-21 lead. ODU went 8:39 without a field goal before a couple baskets in the final minute closed the halftime deficit to 10.
``I think they outcompeted us,'' Capel said. ``Nobody's been able to do that to us in a while. We backed down in the first half.''
The Monarchs got within seven early in the second half, then went on another field goal drought that lasted 6:39. ODU was down 59-43 with 6:13 to play following a technical on Capel for protesting what he thought should have been a goaltending call.
ODU was still down by 13 three minutes later when Bunn got ODU started with a three-point play with 2:48 left. Byers followed that with a fast-break layup, and Bunn scored ODU's six and seventh unanswered points in less than a minute with a basket inside at 1:52.
The Monarchs kept the heat on, forcing three Pirate in the final minute and making seven consecutive field goal tries until Poag's miss.
``It seemed we came out a little sluggish and didn't execute like we're supposed to,'' Dunlap said. ``The intensity wasn't there. It seems like we played in spurts at times and spurts did not get it done.'' by CNB