Jan. 14, 1997
Thomas Leads Wildcats Past Irish
NOTRE DAME, Ind. — Freshman Tim Thomas scored 18 points as No. 16 Villanovasnapped a two-game Big East Conference losing streak with a68-57 victory over slumping Notre Dame.
Alvin Williams added 16 points for the Wildcats (13-3, 4-2 BigEast), who lost last week to Providence and Miami.
Pat Garrity scored 17 points to lead Notre Dame (7-7, 1-5),which suffered its fourth straight loss. The Fighting Irishhave lost four of their past five meetings with Villanova.
Notre Dame trailed 33-24 at halftime, but Garrity had sevenpoints in a 20-12 run that opened the second half to cut thedeficit to 45-44 with 11:19 left.
“We made a good comeback in the second half,” Notre Dame coachJohn MacLeod said. “It gave us a kick-start, but we could notcapitalize. We hung right in there, but we missed a ton of freethrows.”
The Wildcats responded with a 16-1 run behind seven points fromWilliams, opening their largest lead at 61-45 on JohnCelestand’s layup with 5:33 left. Notre Dame would get no closerthan nine points after that.
“We knew they were going to make their runs,” Thomas said. “Theycut the lead and we knew we had to just get back in it.”
Villanova used a 13-1 run late in the first half to turn an18-16 lead into a 31-17 bulge with 2:54 left.
Thomas grabbed 14 rebounds and Chuck Kornegay added 11 forhelping the Wildcats, who shot 41 percent (24-for-58) from thefield and held a 52-35 rebounding advantage.
Villanova held Garrity, the Big East’s leading scorer at 22.1points per game, to just 3-of-8 shooting from the field. As ateam, the Irish shot just 33 percent (18-for-54) and a dismal16-for-31 (51 percent) from the line.
“Kornegay does a great job on that type of player game in andgame out,” Villanova coach Steve Lappas said. “Pat is a greatinside-outside player, but we felt that Chuck could hold his ownagainst a player like Garrity.”
VILLANOVA (68) fg ft rb min m-a m-a o-t a pf tpThomas 33 5-14 7-10 3-14 3 3 18Kornegay 24 1-4 3-6 5-11 0 4 5Lawson 30 5-7 0-0 2-8 1 3 10Celestand 34 4-11 0-3 1-4 2 2 8Williams 35 4-11 7-9 1-2 5 3 16Allen 15 2-3 0-0 3-7 1 4 4Lynch 14 2-4 0-0 0-0 0 0 5Brown 7 0-2 0-0 0-2 0 2 0Bigus 8 1-2 0-2 0-1 0 1 2_______________________________________________TOTALS 200 24-58 17-30 15-49 12 22 68_______________________________________________Percentages: FG-.414, FT-.567. 3-Point Goals:3-14, .214 (Thomas 1-6, Celestand 0-2, Williams1-4, Lynch 1-2). Team rebounds: 3. Blocked shots:8 (Thomas 2, Lawson 2, Celestand 2, Williams,Bigus). Turnovers: 17 (Allen 3, Lawson 3, Thomas3, Celestand 2, Williams 2, Bigus, Brown,Kornegay, Lynch). Steals: 9 (Thomas 5, Brown,Kornegay, Lawson, Williams).NOTRE DAME (57) fg ft rb min m-a m-a o-t a pf tpManner 23 2-6 4-6 1-5 0 1 8Garrity 29 3-8 9-12 1-4 2 4 17Young 16 1-2 0-0 2-3 1 4 2White 32 2-10 1-3 1-5 6 2 5Miller 28 3-8 0-0 0-3 0 3 8Lalazarian 5 1-3 0-1 0-0 0 0 2Bell 16 3-7 1-2 1-3 1 1 8Dillon 11 1-1 0-1 0-0 0 3 2Gotsch 18 1-4 0-2 1-4 0 1 2Friel 9 0-3 1-3 0-0 1 1 1Hickey 13 1-2 0-1 3-4 0 2 2_______________________________________________TOTALS 200 18-54 16-31 10-31 11 22 57_______________________________________________Percentages: FG-.333, FT-.516. 3-Point Goals:5-20, .250 (Garrity 2-5, White 0-5, Miller 2-5,Bell 1-3, Friel 0-2). Team rebounds: 4. Blockedshots: 1 (Garrity). Turnovers: 15 (White 4,Garrity 3, Bell 2, Dillon 2, Friel, Gotsch,Young). Steals: 10 (Dillon 3, White 3, Manner 2,Young 2).__________________________________Villanova 33 35 - 68Notre Dame 24 33 - 57__________________________________Technical fouls: Villanova 2 (Thomas, Team). A:11,059. Officials: Jodi Silvester, Larry Rose,Mike Kitts.