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Cowboys lasso cold WolfpackOklahoma State’s foul shots end careers of ‘Fire Ice’By LEONARD LAYE Knight-Ridder News ServiceCOLLEGE PARK, Md.—The ice melted. The fire went out. And North Carolina State’s basketball team went home.It was that simple and that frustrating Saturday in Cole Field House. The Wolfpack, a speedboat team trapped in a rowboat race, sputtered to the end of the season with a 73-64 loss to Oklahoma State in the second round of the NCAA East Regional tournament.“It’s very difficult, because we were in a good bracket, we were playing (in familiar surroundings) at Maryland and we thought we could make a good run,” said N.C. State’s Rodney Monroe.Instead, the Wolfpack became the second ACC team to fall from the tournament, finishing with a 20-11 record and leaving the Cowboys of the Big Eight to move on to next week’s regional semifinal against Temple.The loss closed the careers of Monroe and Chris Corchiani, senior guards who had been nicknamed Fire (Monroe) and Ice (Corchiani) for their styles of play in a season of several individual school, conference and NCAA records.Saturday, it was Oklahoma State guards Sean Sutton, Darwyn Alexander and Corey Williams taking the bows after controlling the game’s pace and applying a bruising physical defense to take their Wolfpack counterparts out of their game.Monroe, the ACC’s leading scorer with a 27.2 averageNCAA RESULTSEAST REGIONALTemple 77, Richmond 64 Okla. St. 73, N.C. State 64SOUTHEAST REGIONALKansas 77, Pittsburgh 66 Indiana 82, Florida State 60MIDWEST REGIONALDuke 85, Iowa 70 Connecticut 66, Xavier 50WEST REGIONALArizona 76, BYU 61 Seton Hall 81, Creighton 69and a 45 percent shooter, hat his worst day of the season. Nine of his 19 points came at the free-throw line and he hit just 25 percent (four of 16) for the game and only 12.5 percent (one of eight) in the second half.Corchiani, the NCAA’s all-time assists leader, had 15 points and six assists but turned the ball over seven times and got in foul trouble that robbed his breakneck game of its zest.“They did a nice job defensively on us and controlled tempo,” said N.C. State coach Les Robinson. “When you hold the ball 20, 25 or 30 seconds (before running the offense for a shot), it gets that team that likes to run a little antsy.”The Wolfpack was never able to find high gear. The Cowboys, playing man-to-man defense and putting a lot of perimeter pressure on top N.C. State shooters Monroe, Corchiani and Tom Gugliotta, set the pattern in the opening minutes.But it was a stretch late inthe first half and early in the second that was fatal to the Wolfpack. With one minute 54 seconds to play in the half, N.C. State went up five.Oklahoma State scored eight unanswered points inthe last 1:27 of the half, then got 11 more without response from the Wolfpack as the final period began. The result was a 48-34 Cowboys lead.Corchiani got his secondand third fouls in those last 87 seconds of the first half, then picked up his fourth with 14:09 remaining. He still played all but three of the game’s 40 minutes but wasn’t very effective.The Associated PressDarwyn Alexander and Oklahoma State outscrap N.C. State for the second-round win.
Newspaper Details
Burlington Times News
Burlington, North Carolina, US
Sun, Mar 17, 1991
Page 9
Full Page
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MD, USA 25 May 2024
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