The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, March 06, 1975, Page Page 8, Image 8
USC rolls,
BY BILLY COX
Of The Gamecock staff
Against Georgia Tech on
Saturday night, Carolina put on a
performance that left the people in
the stands muttering in dismay.
NCAA-no way. NIT-first round
loss. Three days ago the real
Gamecocks stood up as they belted
Villanova, 93-70. USC threw a
party that evoked a standing
ovation from the crowd for the last
five minutes of the contest.
In a topsy-turvy season that saw
Carolina knocked off of its 'Top
Five' pedestal early in the cam
paign and scrambling for the right
combination, Frank McGuires'
troops could have picked no better
way to close it out. The
Gamecocks gave the 9-18 Wildcats
indigestion in every imaginable
way: pinpoint passing on the
tailends of sizzling fast breaks, a
zone jammed so tight that a worm
on a diet couldn't have slid
through, a game of volleyball on
the offensive boards, and
Napoleonic leadership from an
unsung senior guard.
Jimmy Walsh closed out his last
game in the Carolina Coliseum
with an artistic floor game and
eight assists. "I've got no regrets
at all," he confided as he summed
up his career. "I can't express my
appreciation enough to the fans,
the students, and the guys I've
been playing with for all these
years. Everybody's been great to
me."
Walsh didn't even bother to take
a shot during his finale, despite the
crowd's urging him to put it up.
"Well, scoring's not really my
bag," he explained. "My job is to
set up the offense, and if I can do
that, things are usually going
pretty good. I really dig winning,"
he said. .
Walsh was the main man in
generating the excitement that
boosted USC's regular season
record to 18-8. He helped slice up
Villanova's man-to-man early by
hitting Alex English on the roll or
feeding Mike Dunleavy for back
door snowbirds. "Yeah, Jimmy
and I work really well together,"
Dunleavy revealed. "We've
played together so often that we
know exactly what we've gotta
do."
English finished with 24 points on
ten of 17 shots from the field, with
Dunleavy notching 23, at an 11-of
17 clip.
The match was never really in
doubt. Carolina raced to an 8-2
lead on a Dunleavy jumper from
the key, and stretched it to 21-8 at
the 10:07 mark on another
Brooklyn bomb.
Nate Davis got in on the act and
scored five of his 17 points within a
12-second span late in the first half
to run it up to 40-19. The only sour
note struck when frontliner Bob
Mathias collapsed with 7 minutes
to go with a badly sprained ankle in
the middle of a blocked shot
scramble.
The Wildcats employed a frantic
press at the end of the first period
and the start of the second to
outscore Carolina 14-4, cutting the
margin to 44-33 on a Keith Herron
shot with 17:35 left in the game.
But with English flicking in his
patented turn-around sky shots,
Dunleavy coasting through the
lane, and Tom Boswell (laboring
under a minor foot injury) clogging
up the middle, the Wildcats were
out of butane.
Villanova also forgot about
Chuck Sherwood, a sparingly used
6-10 reserve who seemed deter
past Wildc
remember who he was. The
sophomore center, in only 11
minutes laying time, dumped in
10 points and snared eight
rebounds in his finest performance
as a Gamecock.
NCAA invitations are expected
to be extended to all qualifying
schools toda . Assessed Dunleavy,
Carolina guard Mike Dunleavy st
NCAA selection committee to choc
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"We're looking really good now. I
just hope we can keep it going."
In the past, a victory like this
was only icing on the cake in
preparation for a trip to the
regionals. Now, the only thing
Dunleavy and his teammates can
do is wait.
Russell Jeffcoat
ems to be expressing a plea to the
ie his team for their tournament.
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