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.