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US( Carolina'l on 'drear Carolina's Tom Riker has been selected for the first team of the 1972 All-America college basketball team, chosen by the National Association of Basketball Coaches. Riker, a 6-10 senior forward, joins the elite five which includes center Bill Walton and guard Henry Bibby from UCLA, Ed Ratleff of of Long Beach State and Louisville's Jim Price. Riker has played in 24 of the 25 Gamecocks contests so far this season and is the leading scorer, 19.3 ppg, and second leading rebounder, 10.4 rpg, on the team. Good s Kevin Joyce tosses in an Creighton. The Gamecocks basket for vital points in Wedn Creigh ton< general corl By BILL GRANT Sports Writer After watching his team drop a 81-64 decision to the USC Gamecocks, Creighton head coach Eddie Sutton came up with a post game statement that is the general consensus of most of his peers. "South Carolina is just a great team, they every bit deserve their national rankings. We've played some some good teams this year and Carolina is as good as anyone we've faced," said Sutton. The Bluejay slate contains such national powerhouses as Brigham Young, St. Johns, Ohio State, Jacksonville and Marquette. "This was not really one of the best efforts of our season," Sutton continued. "We tried to go out there and get an early lead and force them out of their zone. "I think one of the big keys to the game was our filure to on,a., takes s Riker a team' Among his best games this year was Riker's 42 point performance against Fordham, in New York's Madison Square Garden, and his 34 point game against Northern Illinois, in Chicago Stadium. The All-America led the Gamecocks in scoring in nine different contests and was the top rebounder for the team on 13 occasions, including his high of 17 rebounds against Stet son. The big left-hander, who Gamecock coach Frank McGuire acclaims as the "best pro prospect," is expected to be picked high in the pro basketball drafts. Tom c trategy underneath layup against continually drove under the esday night's win. :oach Sutto esensus aboi Joyce (Kevin) and Carver (Bob). c We had to get some outside help to g contain them and that opened up c the inside for Traylor (Danny). g Also, USC played fine defensively, r1 especially on Gene Harmon. l2 When your leading scorer only gets eight shots off, somebody's playing ti defense. But even when we got the a shots off, we shot poorly," said the E three year veteran of the coaching ranks. Harmon, averaging 16.3 si prior to the contest, hit on four of C his eight shots for eight points. g u "I don't know of any better guard combination in the country B than Joyce and Winters (Brian). 01 Joyce is just the complete s4 ballplayer and Winters is going to P e a great one. And Carver plays e: great defensivley," said Sutton in 4 admiration of USC's various back- li :ourt combinations. a Asked what he thought of C Carolina's chances in the up- t4 late-sea 51 - Tom Price All-America Baseball slate toda By STEVE PARKER Asst. Sports Editor Carolina's baseball Gamecocks open their season this afternoon in a home contest beginning at 3:00 against North Carolina State. Righthanded senior Larry Er baugh will be pitching the season opener for USC. "He's our leading pitcher. He earned the spot," said coach Bobby Richardson. "Erbaugh is always a faster starter than the other pitchers, if he's in spring training for a week he's ready to go nine innings. In fact, he already has worked nine innings in a couple of the squad games," said Richardson. "It's an honor to be pitching the first game," said Erbaugh, "It's what I've been working for all I spring." Erbaugh continued, "I'm in t shape, I can go nine innings." f Erbaugh also spoke of the North Carolina State team he will be < pitching against. "They're always j TI holdst Lt USC oming NCAA Championships, utton replied, "they have a hance to go along way. Once you et in the tournament, its just a tatter of which team executes est on that given night." The loss just about killed any toughts Creighton entertained for p n NIT tournament bid. The fi luejay record now stands at 14-10. tI 'We have no chance now,"Sutton 83 aid, "if we had beaten South C arolina and won our final two ames, we might have been put I: rider consideration." C But the future is bright for the ti luejays, a youthful squad with ily three members of this years to ;uad juniors, with no seniors. MI lus a talented freshmen team is ai cpected to help out the varsity or ith added height to the forward fo ne. "In two years (when USC in id Creighton meet again in w: maha) we'll have an oustanding he am, maybe nationalyn ed."m Bn son ho Carolina MAC chd By JIM HERSH Sports Writer Carolina was one of eight in dependent teams to receive an at large berth to the NCAA basketball play-offs, Wednesday. The Gamecocks, 21-4, will meet the winner of the Middle Atlantic Conference play-offs, March 11 at William & Mary College in Williamsburg, Va. Lafayette, Rider, St. Joseph's and Temple will play for the MAC cham pionship, today and tomorrow in Philadelphia. The winner of the Carolina- MAC champion first round game will move into the NCAA Eastern semi finals at Morgantown, W.Va. and meet the ACC play-off champion, March 16, with the winner of that game advancing to the Eastern iarmecoci y in homo tough, and I'm sure they'll be tough this year also. I played summer ball with a couple of their guys and they were real good." Richardson echoed the thoughts >f Erbaugh, "They're a good ball :lub. Their coach, Sam Esposito, who used to play second base for he White Sox, likes to hit and run and run the bases. We can expect a running game from State. "They had a good year -ecruiting," Richardson con inued, "They recruited two boys, lick Richardson, a first baseman md Mike Dempsey, a righthanded itcher, who are real good. We hought we had both of them here, )ut they ended up going to State. Ve actually had Dempsey signed o a grant-in-aid but released him vhen he said he really wanted to go o State. They will both be starting or them." Richardson then evaluated his wn squad. "We are ready to ilay. Our pitching in particular as looked real good. We could be ust a little better in our hitting, but dat should come around as we tart the season. "We are going to have a running Pour lead I in 84-75 co: The Carolina Biddies, behind a reformnance that saw four players nish in double figures, defeated ie College of Charleston Maroons, 1-75, Wednesday night at the oliseum. The Biddie record now stands at t-9, while the College of '1 harleston freshman suffered a ceir second setback in 16 contests. v Carolina fell behind quickly due the hot outside shooting of the p aroons' 6-2 forward, Steve Jones, ti ad their own ineffective shooting. f< vever, the Biddies took the lead b r good as Clyde Agnew dropped g a short jumper from the foul line tU th 9:36 remaining in the initial hi If t make the score 17-15. The 1i ddies were unable to sub-. nors to face impions finals, March 18. In another Eastern first round game, the Southern Conference play-off will meet Villanova, an independent with an 18-6 record, March 11 at Princeton, N.J. The Southern Conference champ will be decided in a three-day tour nament, which began yesterday and will be completed tomorrow. The University of Pennsylvania, champion of the Ivy League, will meet independent Providence, 17 5, in the other first round Eastern game, at St. John's University in New York City. The winner of the Southern Conference- Villanova and Penn sylvania-Providence games will play in the other semi-final game in the Eastern regionals, with the winner to the finals of the East. s egin opener ball club, that's the way we have to score. The people who come out and watch our games this year will Richardson see alot of running; we'll do a lot of hit and running and I think that's real exciting," said Richardson. "We're solid on defense. We've got a great defensive ball club." First baseman Hank Small will not open the season, due to injuries which will force him to the bench for a few games. "Bob Kleinknecht will be starting in his place. Kleinknecht is an excellent defensive player and he won't hurt us at all," said Richardson. 3 iddies nquest ;tantially increase their lead and he half ended with them ahead 4-37. The Maroons mounted their last erious threat early in the second ialf as they cut the USC margin to our with 12:10 remaining. 'ommy Cox then poured six points nd the edge was back up to ten rith ten minutes left in the game. Cox paced the Biddies with 25 flints. However the spark of the mam came from non-scholarship >rward John Kelly, coming off the ench, hit on nine if fourteen field a1 attempts and one toss from e charity stripe, for a season gh 19 points. Agnew also added Itallies while Jimmy Walsh nished with 12.