NCAA BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT : Favored Temple, Duke Give the 1-2 Punch to Would-Be Cinderellas

Rhode Island and Richmond, those two upstarts of the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. East Regional, played with varying effectiveness Thursday night, but in the end, the Rams and the Spiders both were sent home, leaving this regional to Temple and Duke.

Duke (27-6) struggled against Rhode Island but came away with a 73-72 victory in a regional semifinal game before a crowd of 19,591 at the Meadowlands Arena.

Carlton Owens made a three-point shot with seven seconds left, which cut Duke’s lead to one, but Duke quickly pushed the ball upcourt before Rhode Island could foul, and time ran out for Rhody, as the school is affectionately called.

The East Regional has deviated greatly from prescribed form in the first two rounds, particularly considering Rhode Island’s and Richmond’s upset victories.

But the final will be just as the tournament selection committee conceived it--top-seeded Temple, which easily beat Richmond, 69-47, in the other semifinal, against second-seeded Duke Saturday for a berth in the Final Four.

Rhode Island had trailed by seven with a bit more than two minutes to play, and was behind by four with 50 seconds left when Duke’s Kevin Strickland missed the back-end of a one-and-one.

Duke’s Robert Brickey got the rebound, and nine seconds later, Strickland was back at the line, only to miss another free throw.

Rhode Island’s Kenny Green scored with 27 seconds remaining, making it 71-69. But Brickey, at the line with 13 seconds left, made two shots for a 73-69 lead. Owens then made the three-pointer, but Rhode Island had used its timeouts and was unable to foul Duke in the final seconds.

“We wanted to be out there to the final seconds, and we were,” Rhode Island Coach Tom Penders said. “All I can say is that we stayed in this thing to the end. They had to drag us off the floor.”

Rhode Island (28-7), little noticed before the tournament, upset Missouri and Syracuse in the first two rounds. By the regional semifinals, the Rams, who were dealt three of their losses this season by Atlantic 10 Conference rival Temple, were no longer a secret.

“I’m very pleased with this win, of course,” Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “We beat a very good Rhode Island team--a very difficult team to defend.”

It was not a brilliant win for the Blue Devils, who had a 13-point lead in the first six minutes of the game but squandered it. A Rhode Island spurt at the outset of the second half turned a one-point halftime deficit into a five-point lead, but it didn’t last.

Duke, which has struggled offensively at times this season, made only 45% of its shots against Rhode Island, with a number of the misses from close range.

“They got us out of sync, then we came back together to take the lead,” Krzyzewski said. “We came back, and we were together at the end, when it mattered. You’re not always going to play perfect basketball--I don’t know if you ever play perfect basketball--but we were playing winning basketball, and that’s something that’s going to stick with you.”

As has been the case much of the season, Duke can credit this win to defense.

Partial proof of the effectiveness of that defense could be found in Rhode Island’s three-point shooting. The Rams have attempted an average of 9.7 three-pointers a game this season, but against Duke, Rhode Island attempted three and made only one. One of the attempts was a long-distance heave at the first-half buzzer and another was Owens’ successful attempt with seven seconds left, also from well beyond the line.

Duke’s mission on defense was to slow Rhode Island’s guards--Owens and Tom Garrick, both of whom have averaged more than 20 points a game. That was, of course, not much of a secret. Last week, when Krzyzewski received a telegram saying, with an air of mystery, “Watch Rhode Island’s guards,” it broke him up. “Thanks, Sherlock,” was his response.

But the Blue Devils did watch those guards, using a man-to-man defense in the first half and going to a matchup zone during the second half--a rare move for Duke. The Blue Devil defenders pushed Owens and Garrick well beyond the three-point line, and inside players were careful to pick up the Ram guards when they penetrated.

“They played team defense,” Garrick said. “Individually, they’re just basic defensive players, but once you penetrate, two or three other players come up and reach and slap at the ball.”

The Duke-Rhode Island game was a foul-filled affair, with the teams combining for 43 fouls, and 7 of 10 starters finishing with four.

The most-noted call was on Rhode Island’s Green, when he was whistled for an intentional foul against Danny Ferry under the boards. Green asserted that Ferry threw an elbow beforehand, and Ferry said he “didn’t know” what happened.

In any case, Ferry made one of two free throws, tying the score at 55-55, and Duke scored on the ensuing possession, never to trail again.

Unlike the Duke-Rhode Island shootout, Temple’s game against Richmond was not close after the first half.

Perhaps the most impressive statistic was this: Temple committed just five turnovers.

The Owls (32-1) are known for the care they take with the ball--they averaged just 9.1 turnovers a game this season--but five was tremendously impressive.

“I guess a perfect game would be no turnovers,” forward Mike Vreeswyk said. “We keep having turnovers, so there’s always room for improvement.”

Richmond Coach Dick Tarrant was not one to dispute Temple’s status as the No. 1 team.

“I think we’ve lost to a very, very good basketball team,” Tarrant said. “They’re certainly the best we’ve played.”

Temple led at halftime, 32-26, and pulled ahead by 11 on Howard Evans’ driving layup six minutes into the second half. The final margin was the Owls’ biggest lead.

Tarrant, whose team entered the game with a 51% shooting record, said he figured the Spiders would need to shoot close to 60% to win.

“I told the team that Temple is beatable, but that they had to be a little bit off and we had to be really on,” he said.

Richmond (26-7) made just 37.5% of its shots, well below its average.

Ken Atkinson scored 15 points and Peter Woolfolk added 12 for the Spiders.

Temple, by contrast, made 51.9% of its shots. Mark Macon, the Owls’ freshman guard, scored 24 points, and Vreeswyk added 11.

“I think we were rushing at the beginning,” Evans said. “We were trying to blow Richmond out with one shot. In this tournament, you have to do it gradually, taking each minute at a time.”

Atkinson said he sensed a certain cockiness about the Temple team, and Tarrant agreed.

“Even if it had been 50-49, you have a sense they knew they could take Richmond,” Tarrant said.

Said Evans: “I think we have to have a certain confidence to play at this level.”

East Regional Notes

Duke’s John Smith, who scored 12 first-half points for the Blue Devils, did not play in the second half because of an injured right hand, which Krzyzewski said trainers believe is broken. . . . Temple’s Howard Evans, who had not practiced for several days because of back spasms, played 40 minutes, scoring 11 points and commiting 1 turnover.