3/21/03
No. 5 Texas 82, UNC Asheville 61
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| T.J. Ford |
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Sophomore guard T.J. Ford dished out a UT NCAA tournament single-game record 11 assists, but it was one of his two baskets that set the tone in Texas' run away 82-61 victory over North Carolina Asheville on Friday. Ford grabbed the game's opening tip, sprinted down court for an easy layup and the Longhorns never stopped running in its round one win of the NCAA Tournament in Birmingham, Ala.
"We really wanted to come out and get our run game going," said Rick Barnes, who has guided Texas to a school-best five straight NCAA tournaments since taking over the Horns program in 1998-99. "We knew that UNC Asheville would be a patient team. They would want to run their offense. We wanted to push the ball and control the pace of the game."
Entering the tourney as a No. 1 seed for the first time in 21 all-time NCAA tournament appearances, Texas did just that in overwhelming 16th-seeded North Carolina Asheville in their opening victory in round one of South Regional competition. The 21-point victory was the largest winning margin for the Horns in a NCAA tourney game, surpassing it's previous high of 18 points in a 65-47 win over Texas Western (now UTEP) in 1963.
Ford was at the forefront the whole way. The 5-foot-10 sophomore showed why he has already been named the nation's player of the year by four news outlets (Sports Illustrated, The Sporting News, ESPN.com and CBS Sportsline), zipping passes from all angles. He skipped the ball down low from just over halfcourt for one basket, flipped it over his shoulder in transition for another hoop and around his back to set up another score as the Horns hit 11 of their first 17 shots and jumped out to a 24-8 lead less than nine minutes into the game.
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| James Thomas |
"He's a tremendous athlete and what I call a high octane player," said UNC Asheville head coach Eddie Biedenbach. "Anytime you have a player like him, it's going to cause problems for the opposing team."
Ford wasn't the only Longhorn making things tough on the Bulldogs as six different players scored Texas' first six baskets as they jumped ahead 12-2 in the games first four minutes. By the time eight-minutes had wound off the game clock, Texas had seen nine different players score points and had a 16-point advantage.
Ford's 11 assists eclipsed Ivan Wagner's UT NCAA tourney game record of 10 set against Indiana State in 2000. He also corralled seven rebounds, once keeping his dribble alive despite being knocked off of his feet.
Brian Boddicker came off the bench to score 14 points and grabbed 12 rebounds in posting his first career double-double. He pulled down nine boards in the second-half alone.
Brandon Mouton added an NCAA tournament personal-best 15 points. Despite being sidelined for nearly nine minutes of the second half after drawing his third foul, James Thomas provided 13 points and six boards in 19 minutes of action.
The Longhorns (23-6), who hadn't played in a week since falling to a hot-shooting Texas Tech squad in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 tournament, advanced to the second round in Birmingham.
Texas improved its all-time record to 10-3 in NCAA tourney first round games since the event expanded to 64 teams in 1985. Barnes, who is headed to the second round for the third time in the last four years, is now 4-4 in NCAA tourney games at Texas.
Texas next faces No. 9 seed Purdue (19-10), an 80-56 winner over eighth-seeded LSU on Friday, in the second game of Sunday's session. That game is set to tip off 30 minutes after the first contest, a 1:20 p.m. (Central), on Sunday.
Asheville (15-17) earned the opportunity to play UT with a victory over Texas Southern in Tuesday night's play-in game.
Down 29-10, the Bulldogs did not fold. UNCA went on an 18-12 run over the final 8:33 of the first half and scored the first basket of the second-half to pull within eight points (36-28).
That was as close as the Big South Conference Tournament Champions would get as Texas' depth, which saw 10 players score and four tally double-digit points, was too much. The Longhorn bench outscored the Bulldogs' 38-6 and posted a 23-8 rebounding advantage. Barnes' Horns connected on 16 of 29 shots (55.2%) and out-rebounded UNCA 24-7 en route to scoring 46 second-half points.
Despite the disappointment, UNC Asheville still found ways to have some fun. Guard Andre Smith dunked on an alley-oop, then split the Texas defense for another slam. Smith was called for a technical after hanging on the rim, but he managed a big smile.
The coaches also were smiling at the end too, with Texas' Rick Barnes warmly embracing Biedenbach, his mentor.
Barnes was only 23, packing boxes, substitute teaching and working at his dad's hosiery mill when Biedenbach hired him in 1978 as a volunteer assistant at Davidson. They've remained good friends - after Biedenbach guided the Bulldogs to a surprising Big South tournament title, one of the first congratulatory calls he got was from Barnes.
"This was a hard game," Barnes said. "I think everyone knows what Eddie means to me. I said coming into the tournament that I would be pulling for him and in the play-in game, I did. But today we both had jobs to do."
Consider the first job completed with task number two set for Sunday.
"I told the guys when the bracket was announced on Sunday that we needed to focus only on this four-team tournament," Barnes added. "You have to win game one, which we did, and then concentrate on game two to win the mini-tourney."
With it's first win of the 2003 NCAA tournament complete, Texas now will set it's sites on a Purdue program that knocked Barnes' Horns out of the 1999 NCAA tournament. A win would be a Longhorn first as it would lead UT into the "Sweet 16" in back-to-back years for the first time in school history.
