Section B · Page 8
The University Daily Kansan
NCAA Tournament
Monday, MARCH 29, 1999
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Purdue rallies for second-half victory
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title.
"I thought earlier in the first half she was looking for a shot a little bit, but she was going to figure the game out," Duke coach Gail Goostenkors said of Figgs. "She used her quickness, her speed, her athleticism and really got to the basket."
White-McCarty and Figgs form what has been called the best women's backcourt in the country. Figgs quietly and competently played her game, while White-McCarty grabbed a lot of the attention in her home state — leading many of their teammates to call Figgs Purdue's unsung hero.
Figgs proved her worth during the Final Four. Against Louisiana Tech in the semifinals, Figgs scored 24 points, 18 in the first half. She also had 10 rebounds and went 5-of-7 on three-point shots.
The Final Four and the eventual national championship were the culmination of a turbulent tenure at Purdue for both Figgs and White-McCarty.
Both started as high school stand-outs. White-McCarty reached megastar status in the small town of West Lebanon, and was named
Miss Basketball in Indiana. Figgs was Miss Basketball in Kentucky.
Both chose Purdue, but after their freshman year, coach Lin Dunn was fired. Then sophomore-year coach Nell Fortner left to coach the U.S. Women's National Team.
Some players, including Duke's Nicole Erickson and Michele VanGorp, gave up on Purdue and transferred.
Figgs and White McCary stayed, and it paid off when Purdue assistant Carolyn Peck was named coach. Together, they began a two-year quest that ended at the San Jose Arena on Sunday.
Peck said that under Fortner, Figgs and White-McCarty made a commitment to winning at Purdue.
"When you saw that from them you knew this was going to be something special," Peck said.
White-McCarty was more steady Sunday night with 12 points, including eight in the first half, but left the game with about four minutes to go with a severe ankle sprain. As White-McCarty wailed in pain from the bench, Figgs made sure the Boilermakers staved focused.
"Steph and I have been through so much together," she said. "We dreamed about it, we talked about winning a national championship."
Purdue guard Stephanie White-McCarty leads her teammates off the court after the Boilermakers defeated the Jayhawks in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. McCarty scored 12 points and made two assists during the last night's championship game against the Duke Blue Devils. Photo by Augustus Anthony Piazza/KANSAN
Top-ranked teams ready for final game
The Associated Press
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — How fitting.
Way back in November, the seers of college basketball put Duke and Connecticut atop the preseason poll. On Monday night, those teams will decide the national championship.
No other schools held the No.1 ranking this season, and it's been 34 years since two teams in that position played for the title, with UCLA beating Michigan.
"To have the two of us playing for the national championship is terrific." Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski said.
Duke (37-1) has won 32 straight games, and another win would give it the NCAA record for victories in a season and its third championship of the '90s.
Krzzyzewski has taken the Blue Devils to the Final Four eight times since 1986, and on Monday he could become the
fourth coach with three or more championships.
His 48-12 tournament record also makes him the winningest active coach. Former North Carolina coach Dean Smith has the only better total. 65.
Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun, making his first Final Four appearance, is well aware of Krzyzewski's impressive credentials.
"When you talk about Final Fours, you're talking about Mike Krzyzewski," said Calhoun, who's in his 27th season as a head coach, the last 13 with the Huskies. "He's the coach for our generation."
Third-ranked Connecticut (33-2) hasn't exactly been a slouch in the '90s, either.
The Huskies have made seven regional semifinal appearances — tied for the most in that span — and three in regional championship games. The first of those was a 79-78 loss to Duke when Christian Laetner hit a jumper on an inbounds play at the buzzer in 1990
"Sometimes, for us, excellence hasn't been enough in the '90s," Calhoun said. Ever since the brackets were
announced two weeks ago, Connecticut has been looking ahead to the game most people saw as the tournament's best all along.
"We've played this game in our minds and now we get to a chance to do it," Huskies center Jake Voskuhl said.
Duke comes in off a 68-62 victory over second-ranked Michigan State in the semifinals, a tough game in which the
Blue Devils scored their fewest points this season.
"We came out of that game in good health and it certainly was a very
physical game," said Krzyezwski, who decided not to have the team practice yesterday. Instead, the team went over some scouting material.
Win or lose, the Blue Devils will end their season on the same floor they did last year.
They lost to eventual national champion Kentucky in the South Regional final at Tropicana field after leading by 17 points in the second half.
"In UConn being the only other team ranked No. 1 in the nation and a lot of people saying that's the best team, it's a great way to finish the year," he said.
added that not a whole lot was needed.
Duke, which leads the nation in scoring at 92.3 per game, is also No.1 in margin of victory (25.4), just off its NCAA tournament average of 25.2
Duke's Trajan Langdon said that loss had provided some motivation, but he
"Duke's not a difficult team to prepare for," Calhoun said, "they're a difficult team to play."
The fact that Duke is the heavy favorite doesn't seem to matter to Connecticut, which beat Ohio State 64-58 in the semifinals.
"At 33-2, we've been a pretty good team ourselves. We have been brilliant at times. We have been pragmatic at times. We have survived at times," Calhoun said.
"Very few teams have been afforded the opportunity to have the kind of season Duke has had," he said. "Be that as it may, the game comes down to 40 minutes Monday night, not what some folks think it should be, would be, could be. It comes down to two teams that won 70 basketball games this season."
Trajan Langdon's shooting, defense spark Duke win
The Associated Press
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — He did what the good ones always do when things go bad. Trajan Langdon let the game find him.
For the first two-thirds of Saturday night's semifinal, Duke's best player was more a rumor than a fact. He passed up his own shots and defended like a devil in blue instead. He crashed the boards and chased loose balls into the seats. He threw passes that split the seams in the Michigan State zone like a man freed from a yearlong diet.
With eight minutes left and the Spartans surging to within three points of a tie, Langdon
caught the ball on the right side behind the 3-point arc and let fly a jump shot. It
Michigan State, playing a more physical brand of defense than Duke's football team was likely to encounter in the fall, pulled within 51-48 after Charlie Bell drained two free throws and some of the color out of Krzzyzewski's face.
It didn't matter. The result was the same.
was the same one that he'd taken a thousand times on frozen playgrounds in Alaska, except then he was still a schoolboy, stuck wearing gloves and a coat.
There were eight minutes to go, no easy shots to be had, and Duke's dominating big man, Elton Brand, was on the bench with his fourth foul. The huge rebounding edge the Blue Devils enjoyed in the first half while building a 32-20 lead was melting even faster than their confidence. A trio of Spartan defenders had taken turns sticking to Langdon like his shadow.
"Coach told me to stay aggressive and my teammates did,
too," he said. "I waited five years for this. I'm excited."
Even the most magical of seasons can be undone by the smallest doubts, and what Langdon had done by stepping up in the biggest moment suddenly became contagious.
"You never saw any worry in their eyes," Michigan State's A.J. Granger said afterward.
And in short order, Langdon slipped into the background as Blue Devil guards William Avery and then Chris Carrawell, and then Brand, inserted back in the game, took turns taking over.
It wasn't pretty, but it captured Langdon's effort on the night even better than the 3-point basket could have.
Langdon's ankle has been a problem since junior high school and he reinjured it as recently as the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament several weeks ago. It was so bad that for days, Langdon kept a compress sent to him by a Tlingit medicine man taped to the ankle, hoping to reduce his recovery time.
That he would risk reinjuring it again in the closing minutes of a game the Blue Devils already owned says everything about how much Langdon was determined to take the next step.
"Expect it? This is what I wanted to do the first day I got to Duke," he said. "This is what I always wanted. But expect it? Never."
In the other semifinal game, Connecticut held off Ohio State and defeated the Buckeyes, 64-58.
Richard Hamilton gave Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun the kind of Final Four performance he's been dreaming about all these year, and UConn stopped Ohio State's run of upsets.
Crushed by heartbreaking losses so many times, Calhoun was delighted to finally get a shot at his first national title.
"That sounds awfully good," Calhoun said, soaking in the words "championship game." "Can you say it again please?"
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