NCAA BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT : Southeast Regional at Cincinnati : Villanova Gets Past Illini; Kentucky Pulls Away From Maryland

Mark Plansky, the only holdover from Villanova’s championship team in 1985, and Pat Enright, a walk-on who had been cut twice , provided an improbable ending in a National Collegiate Athletic Assn. Southeast Regional second-round game Sunday at Riverfront Coliseum.

Villanova, on the verge of being blown away several times by Illinois, a more athletic team but not necessarily a more skilled one, beat the Illini, 66-63, in the closing seconds.

In the other semifinal game, favored Kentucky, the No. 2-seeded team in the Southeast, broke a 76-76 tie in the last three minutes and went on to beat Maryland, 90-81.

So Villanova (23-12), a team of overachievers, will be matched against Kentucky (27-5) in a Southeast Regional semifinal game Thursday in Birmingham, Ala.

Villanova is the last surviving Big East Conference team in the tournament as five others have all been eliminated.

Survival courses must be in the curriculum at Villanova, which trailed Illinois by 13 points early in the second half and was still behind, 60-53, with 1:53 remaining.

But Illinois then missed on the front end of three one-and-one attempts.

Villanova closed in.

Enright, a 5-foot 11-inch guard who had missed on what he called a terrible three-point attempt earlier, found the range from 22 feet with 32 seconds remaining as Villanova went ahead, 62-61.

Illinois (23-10) regained the lead on forward Ken Battle’s power move in the lane and was fouled, but he missed the free throw with 14 seconds to play.

That figured, as Illinois is the worst free-throw shooting team in the Big Ten and made only 3 of its last 13 foul shots Sunday.

Plansky, a 6-7 senior forward, whose three-point shooting kept Villanova in the game late in the second half, then faked Illinois guard Kendall Gill into fouling him with only four seconds left.

“If he didn’t go for the fake, I go up with another one (shot),” Plansky said. “They were saying to me earlier that ‘he has no chance of making a shot’ and were in my face. They’re better athletes than I am.”

Plansky didn’t get off his shot, but he went to the free throw line as he intended and made both foul shots.

That was the game as the subsequent inbounds pass by Illinois center Jens Kujawa, a native of West Germany, was intercepted by Villanova forward Rodney Taylor, who was then fouled and wrapped up the game by making two free throws in the final second.

Enright was glowing after the game, saying: “It’s the ultimate dream for a walk-on.”

Villanova Coach Rollie Massimino smiled at his undersized guard and added: “It’s the ultimate dream for a coach.”

Then Massimino, whose Villanova team upset Georgetown in the 1985 title game, didn’t spare the superlatives.

“This is one of the finest efforts I’ve ever witnessed as a coach, or a spectator,” he said. “Our motto going into this game was to earn the right to get to the final 16. These kids went out and practiced the last two days in the vicinity of seven to eight hours. It is one of the best teams I’ve ever been associated with.

“As for Plansky, if you need a big shot, or a big play, he’ll get the job done.”

Massimino has had better teams, but he said the present one is special, pointing out that there are six walk-ons on his roster.

“That’s mind-boggling,” the Villanova coach said.

It was also mind-boggling inasmuch as Villanova was outscored, 23-5, in the last 10 minutes of the first half to trail at halftime, 30-20.

Illinois Coach Len Henson said that his team is remiss in the skilled area such as free-throw shooting but tries to make up for that deficiency with hustle and good defense.

His team made only 10 of 23 free throws, while Villanova was 19 of 27 from the line.

Moreover, Illinois is possibly one of the worst three-point shooting teams in the country, only 19.4% in Big Ten competition, and simply doesn’t take many long-distance shots.

Illinois attempted only 2 three-pointers Sunday, making 1, while Villanova was 7 of 15 from the three-point line. Plansky was 3 of 7 and guard Kenny Wilson was 3 of 6. The three-point shot has drastically changed strategy in the college game today, but Illinois isn’t the type of team to take advantage of it.

Coming into the Villanova game, Illinois had made only 3 of 14 three-point shots in 10 previous games and 2 of those were in a loss to Purdue.

Henson kept repeating that his team has no control over the free-throw shooting phase of the game and, when someone suggested that Illinois choked, he disagreed.

“We’re just not a skilled shooting team,” he said. “I don’t like that word ‘choke’. That’s not a good way to describe us.”

Gill, who fouled Plansky in the final four seconds, said that the call could have gone either way.

“He jumped right into me,” Gill said, adding, “I’ve never seen a team shoot like that at the end of a game.”

Even though Maryland freshman center Brian Williams, the former Santa Monica St. Monica High School star, performed like a seasoned player by scoring 20 points, Kentucky’s skilled backcourt combination of Rex Chapman and Ed Davender were the determining factor in a fast-paced, well-played game.

Chapman, the Southeast Conference player of the year, didn’t perform to his credentials, though, in the first half as he was only 1 of 6 from both the free-throw line and the field.

However, Kentucky Coach Eddie Sutton said that Chapman hit some big-time shots in the second half. That he did as he finished with 23 points, while making 3 of 7 three-point shots and even contributed a key, four-point play.

Davender, the less-publicized point guard, also had 23 points along with 8 rebounds. The starting guards played the entire 40 minutes.

Nonetheless, Maryland (18-13) wouldn’t fold and, when guard Keith Gatlin hit a three-point shot with 3:14 left, the teams were tied, 76-76.

After a timeout, Kentucky prevailed. Forward Winston Bennett made a layup, then stole the ball from Maryland forward Derrick Lewis.

Chapman hit from outside for a four-point lead and forward Eric Manual made both ends of a one-and-one after Maryland guard Tyron McCoy missed a three-point shot.

Davender put the Terrapins away in the final 37 seconds by converting six straight free throws.

There was a Southern California flavor to the game as Williams was matched for a while against freshman center LeRon Ellis, the former Santa Ana Mater Dei star, who opted for Kentucky, even though his father, Leroy, is an assistant coach at USC.

Ellis scored four points and blocked three shots while playing 15 minutes.

“I let him get the best of me again,” said Williams, referring to a Southern Section 5-A playoff game last year at the Sports Arena.

Williams said he had a chance to tie the game between St. Monica and Mater Dei in the final five seconds, but missed a free throw after scoring a basket. So Mater Dei won, 48-47.

However, Williams was a big-time player like Chapman before a partisan crowd of 16,562.

Sutton calls Riverfront Coliseum “Rupp Arena North”--and for good reason. It’s located only 80 miles north of Kentucky’s campus in Lexington.