The Daily Tar Heel from Chapel Hill, North Carolina • Page 10

Eastern Conference Central Division Western Conference Midwest Division Western Conference Pacific Division Team New York Philadelphia Boston Washington New Jersey Miami NBA Eastern Conference Atlantic Division Pet. GB Detroit 49 15 .708 Utah 46 19 .708 LA Lakers 48 16 39 25 .609 Chicago 41 22 .651 7.5 San Antonio 46 21 .667 3 Portland 46 18 40 26 .606 Milwaukee 35 28 .548 10.5 Dallas 34 28 .548 10.5 Phoenix .44 19 37 26 .587 1.5 Atlanta 31 33 .484 18 Denver 34 30 .531 11.5 Seattle 32 31 24 41 .369 15.5 Indiana 31 34 .477 18.5 Houston 31 33 .484 14.5 Golden State 29 34 15 48 .238 23.5 Cleveland 29 34 .460 19.5 Minnesota 17 46 .270 28 LA Clippers 26 38 15 51 .227 25 Orlando 16 48 .250 33 Charlotte 10 52 .161 34.5 Sacramento 20 44 .750 .719 2 .698 3.5 .508 15.5 .460 18.5 .406 22 .313 28 Complete 1990 NCAA tourney bracket, page 7 10The Daily Tar HeelMonday, March 19, 1990 etter omieir ttom meyer IMC beats OU IB Heels in Sweet Sixteen for 10th straight season yy Of Fox's game-winning play, two coaches whose approaches mesh sort of like bulls and china shops once again had different viewpoints. "I'm not going to sit here and talk about it," said Tubbs, whose feud with the media is approaching comical proportions. "Hell, we just didn't stop it. We can sit here and talk about it all week, but that's not going to change anything." Sure, Billy.

Have a nice trip back to Norman the golf is good there this time of year. Smith was a little more willing to elaborate. "I first drew it up for Rick to get the first pass, but we switched it just before we went out," he said. "He got a great screen from King (Rice). The play is usually designed for a three, so I reminded him before the play that we only needed one.

He took it to the basket beautifully." As for the Sooners who had all but guaranteed an Oklahoma victory during pregame press conferences Sm ith said, "We hadn't thought of Dallas, and maybe Oklahoma had. But they didn't play like that." No, they didn't. The high-flying Sooners were slowed considerably by UNC's patient offense but eventually took one of their few leads in the last minute of play. OU center William Davis bulled his way inside for a layup to tie the game at 76 and was fouled on the play by the Tar Heels' Madden. Davis converted the ensuing free throw to put Oklahoma up 77-76 with 39 seconds to play.

The Sooners' 6-foot-6 senior center, who single-handedly kept his team in the game in the first half, led OU's half-court attack with 22 points and a game-high 14 rebounds. The Tar Heels ran the clock down with the ball in the hands of point guard King Rice, who put some new life back into UNC's dormant Four Corners offense over the last eight minutes of See HEELS, page 7 By DAVE GLENN Senior Writer AUSTIN, Texas The best way to climb to the top of the mountain is to knock off the King of the Hill. And better Sooner than never. That's exactly what the eighth-seeded Tar Heels did Saturday against the No. 1 team in the nation, Billy Tubbs' bad-boy Oklahoma Sooners.

RickFox's fadeaway five-footer beat the buzzer to eliminate the Sooners, 79-77, from the NCAA Midwest Regional before a bipartisan crowd of 15,884 at the University of Texas' Frank Erwin Center. With the victory, North Carolina advanced to the NCAA's Sweet 16 for an astounding 1 Oth consecutive year in a season that has been more up and down than any in recent memory. The Tar Heels upped their record to 21-12 while Oklahoma dropped to 27-5. But UNC's uncharacteristic total of 12 losses is but a distant memory; a sparkling 2-0 tournament record is all that really matters now. The Tar Heels, who defeated Southwest Missouri State 83-70 in a first-round matchup last Thursday, now head to Dallas where they will face the fourth-seeded Arkansas Razorbacks on Thursday.

The UNC-Arkansas victor will take on the winner of a Xavier-Texas matchup in the regional final for a trip to the Final Four in Denver. "The hardest way to do it is to beat the No. 1 -seeded team in the entire country," said North Carolina head coach Dean Smith. "You have to hand it to our players. I thought they played with poise.

"We have so much respect for this group of young men that has gone through so much. They've held together; they've been there to practice every day. This, personally, is a special time to see them come through against an excellent Oklahoma team." Fox, who canned five of seven three-pointers on the day, led the Tar Heels with 23 points. Pete Chilcutt added 17 points and Kevin Madden 12 for UNC. I "shrift Rick Fox was all smiles Saturday after DTHDavid Surowiecki give UNC a dramatic 79-77 upset win Fox's bank caps clutch late-game team effort By DAVE GLENN Senior Writer AUSTIN, Texas Unbelievable.

Absolutely unbelievable. The Scenario: Saturday, March 17. Midwest Regional. The unranked 20-1 2 Tar Heels sneak into town to take on the No. 1 team in the nation, the 27-4 Oklahoma Sooners.

The Story: Good vs. Evil. The choir boys against the renegades. The text-bookers against the freelancers. Discipline vs.

run-and-gun. Diplomatic Dean Smith vs. boisterous Billy Tubbs. Slow it down vs. speed it up.

The Final Seconds: Score tied at 77. UNC's Scott Williams and George Lynch on the bench after fouling out. Rick Fox in and out of the game with four fouls. The unlikely lineup of King Rice, Pete Chilcutt, Kevin Madden, Hubert Davis and Fox in the game against an Oklahoma squad that had lost only twice in its last 1 7 games to then-No. 1 Kansas and then-No.

2 Missouri. It couldn't have happened. It shouldn't have happened. It happened. The Final Play: Rice inbounds to Davis.

Davis passes crosscourt to Fox far out on the right wing. A Fox pump-fake from treyland leaves the Sooners' Smokey McCovery searching for an essential part of his athletic attire somewhere in another zip code. Fox drives the right baseline, knifes through a triangle of defenders and lets go with an off-balance shot as he falls backward toward the foul line. He lets the ball go on his downward flight. It goes up, kisses the glass and drops softly through the net with one second to play.

It's over. The Final Score: UNC 79, Oklahoma 77. How fitting on a day that saw the penultimate team effort from UNC that Fox's basket wouldn't have amounted to a hill of enchiladas without the timely contributions of his coconspirators. People will forget that the Tar Heels actually trailed in this game in the final 40 seconds after holding the lead for the previous 12 minutes. Call it the ultimate gut check.

Ten seconds to play. UNC down by one at 77-76. Rice, fouled by McCovery after saving a difficult pass from Chilcutt, at the charity stripe shooting a ohe-and-one. "When I got fouled, I winked at Coach (Phil) Ford and told him they were going in," said Rice, who had missed two technical foul shots earlier in the half. "Then they called the timeout.

When I stepped up to the line, I actually thought about Carolina-Duke last year (when Rice missed a crucial free throw). I just said, 'I'm not missing and it went in." But Rice's second shot was too strong. That's when Madden and Chilcutt stepped in. Madden outjumped his man and managed to tip the ball back toward the free throw line. Several players lunged for it, and Chilcutt managed to bat the ball off a startled Jackie Jones and out of bounds with eight seconds remaining.

"Kevin really made a great play to keep it alive," Rice said. "If he didn't, they still had enough time to try for a winning shot." But the Tar Heels did, and they executed it perfectly. Rice inbounded to Davis on the left wing, then headed to the other side of the court to set a screen for Fox. Chilcutt and Madden screened for each other in the low post, drawing the attention of the Sooners' big men. Davis is now running the show.

"I was supposed to get the ball from King and look to penetrate," Davis said. "If they gave me the shot, I was supposed to take it. But the main thing was to look for Rick on the right side." Fox comes cleanly off of a perfect pick from Rice. And the rest, as they say, is history. On this day, five men together couldn't be stopped.

Just ask Oklahoma. Hfoos et UNC record wee off I 1 fx sinking a buzzer-beating bank shot to inning's final tally came when Maurer raced home on a single by Cy Richardson that skidded past the Rider shortstop. By the time Holbrook fouled to the catcher to end the inning, North Carolina had built-up a 7-3 lead. Rider managed a minor comeback in the seventh inning, when two Broncos' runs cut the Tar Heels' lead to two. Edwards drew a base on balls and scored on Joe Cerasi's double.

Cerasi came home on a groundout by Gavin to the shortstop. Again the Tar Heels responded with another big inning, scoring four runs in the seventh. Maurer, catcher Don Leshnock and Richardson all walked to load the bases for Holbrook, who pushed a sacrifice fly to leftfield, scoring Maurer. Green then reached first on another error by the Rider shortstop which enabled Leshnock and Richardson to come home. When a pitch got away from the Bronco catcher, Green scored the Tar Heels final run.

The rally finally ended when Chris Cox grounded out to third with the bases loaded. The Broncos scored two more runs in the eighth inning but could not muster more of an attack. With two men on base, Woodall struck out three straight batters to end the inning and the Broncos' hopes. "I am appreciative that we won," UNC head coach Mike Roberts said. "Our defensive play was not as good as it should be.

We are swinging the bat well and our pitching is strong. We are not concentrating in the field and we are making a lot of small mistakes. We can't do that if we are going to win the close games." Before this game, North Carolina andRider had to finish Saturday's game that was postponed due to rain after the third inning with North Carolina leading 1-0. Leshnock had two RBI's with a double and a triple, and Maurer and Estroff both had two-run home runs to lead the Tar Heels to a 1 2-4 win. Senior pitcher Jim Dougherty picked up the win by going seven innings and giving up only one run on five hits.

Rich Fernandez came in to close out the game, holding the Broncos scoreless for two innings. By H. BROCK PAGE Staff Writer North Carolina rallied for five runs in the fifth inning and went on to win 12-7 over Rider in Sunday's baseball game at Boshamer Stadium. UNC's senior pitcher Michael Hoog picked up his 24th career victory, tying Roger Williams and Scott Bankhead for the school record. Hoog went six innings, striking out eight batters and giving up three runs.

Junior Brad Woodall moved from the outfield to the mound to record the save. "It's nice to get it (the record) out of the way," Hoog said. "Now, I can just get on with the rest of the season. I was going on three days rest and I was a little tired. There wasn't much on my fastball so we changed speeds a lot.

I made one mistake on a change-up that let them get a 3-2 lead." That mistake came in the top of the fifth inning with the Tar Heels holding a 2-0 lead. With one out, Rider's Joe La Cagnina and Robert VanZile both singled. After Hoog fanned the next batter, Mel Edwards took hold of Hoog's change-up and lined the ball into the gap for a two-run double. The next Bronco received a base on balls, and Tom Gavin hit another double to score Edwards, giving Rider a 3-2 lead. North Carolina came right back with their own big fifth inning and took the lead for good.

Designated hitter Chad Holbrook started the rally by drawing a base on balls. Center-fielder Kurt Green reached first on an error by the shortstop as Holbrook advanced to third. Woodall drew another walk to load the bases. The next batter was first baseman Steve Estroff, who had a .400 average and had hit a home run in each of his last three games. Instead of swinging away, Estroff laid down a sacrifice bunt to bring Holbrook home.

After leftfielder Todd Nichols was issued an intentional walk to load the bases again, third basemen Darren Villani grounded out to the shortstop, picking up the RBI as Woodall scored. Shortstop Ron Maurer then sent a grounder between the third baseman and the shortstop for a two-run single as Holbrook and Nichols scored. The ffy UNC's Ron Maurer prepares to tag A r. out Rider's Joe Cerasi on a first-inning Ik rrnvifli 'Sxd DTHEvanEile pickoff play in Sunday's 12-7 win i.