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THE NCAA PLAYOFI
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By LONZA HARDY JR.
Staff Writer
If the Atlanta Braves are "America's
baseball team" and the Dallas
Cowboys "America's football team,"
then the Alcorn State Braves deserve to
be "America's college basketball
team."
Nobody on the collegiate circuit can
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long, with so little as the Braves. The
team's performance in the 1984 NCAA ?
championship playoffs only lent only
credence to that fact.
After earning the right to represent
the Southwestern Athletic Conference
in the NCAA playoffs by virtue of winning
the league's postseason tournament,
Alcorn set out to do what no
team from a predominantly black
school had ever done on the Division I
level - win more than one NCAA
Tournament game in a season. And
t that record the Braves held themselves.
winning one of two NCAA tourney appearances
in 1980 and one of two
games in 1983.
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nament records, Alcorn had to get to
the NCAA Tournament, which seemed
very distant earlier in the year.
"We were very happy to make it to
the tournament because we had so
much bad luck this year," Alcorn
Coach Davey L. Whitney reflected.
"Considering our 5-6 record after Jan.
7, I thought we made a tremendous
surge at the end of the year. We went
16-4 over the last three months of the
season."
Scene One of Alcorn State's quest to
0 make history was in Dayton, Ohio, the
site of the team's preliminary-round
game against Houston Baptist University.
It was the first meeting ever between
the two schools and an introduction
the HBLKHuskies would probably
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Houston Baptist, sporting a 6-foot-8
African center named Anicet
Lavodrama, and noted for being
smaller but sometimes just as tough as
Houston's Akeem Olajuwon, won the
battle over the much quicker Braves
for much of the opening half, scoring
the game's first basket on a layup. The
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room at halftime.
The second half, however, was a tale
of the tape as the slower Huskies simply
found themselves chasing the Braves
up and down the court.
The precarious two-point Alcorn
halftime lead had quickly swollen to
four points on a jumper by all-SWAC
forward Aaron Brandon, to 11 points
on a layup by Terry Parker, and eventually
to 21 points on a free throw by
Eddie Archie.
When the footrace was over, Alcorn
had won easily, 79-60.
"1 think the thing that turned things
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Alcorn's David Claybon soars for a U
around in the second half is that we <
played real aggressive defense," 1
Whitney said. "We forced them into
things they didn't want to do. >
"We told our kids before the game <
that we didn't believe they (Houston <
Baptist) could blow us out, but that we <
did believe that we could blow them /
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lyup against out-quicked Houston
sut. They don't play the type of ball to
slow people out."
Houston Baptist Coach Gene Iba,
.vhose team ended its season at 24-7,
agreed that the Braves' quickness, both
defensively and offensively, was the
determining factor, adding that
Mcorn's tournament experience also
lea's Team'
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Baptist (photo by Joe Daniels).
showed.
? "I believe that Alcorn's tournament
experience was a major factor," Iba
said. "We didn't play our game, plus
the pressure of the tournament and our
lack of tournament experience did play
a role. But Dave Whitney does as good
a job of coaching as anyone in the na