For Immediate Release February 20, 2000
Maroons To Play for ODAC Title
Strickland Has 20 Points, Eight Steals in Win Over W&L
Roanoke vs. Washington & Lee Box Score
SALEM, VA--Led by 20 points from junior Jason Strickland (Charlottesville, VA/Covenant) the Roanoke College men’s basketball defeated the Washington & Lee Generals on Sunday afternoon in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference men’s basketball tournament. The Maroons will now play Hampden-Sydney College, an 83-60 winner over Virginia Wesleyan, in Monday’s championship contest. The Maroons are now 22-4 on the season and will be playing in their first conference championship since 1996. In addition to his game-high 20 points, Strickland tied a tournament record with eight steals in the game, just one short of a school record. The junior also went 8-of-9 from the field and had a game-high eight rebounds.
Washington & Lee had a two-point halftime lead, 29-27, but saw the Maroons step up the defensive pressure in the second half, turning the ball over 14 times in the closing stanza. Just 19 seconds into the second half, Strickland recorded one of his eight steals, spurring a two-on-one break which ended in a Paris Butler (Springfield, VA/West Springfield) layup to tie the score at 29. W&L scored the next five points, but the Maroons went on a 10-0 run to take a five-point advantage of their own. The Maroons scored six of their points during the run in the span of just 32 seconds. After Butler and Ramsey Hathway (Charlottesville, VA/Albemarle) started the run, the Maroons stole the ball on three consecutive inbound attempts by the Generals, converting each into two points. Strickland had two of the steals and two of the layups.
The Generals were able to tie the score two more times during the second half, but the Maroons used another 10-0 streak, this coming between the 8:27 and 7:07 marks. Roanoke was able to push the lead out to as many as 10 points before W&L hit two field goals in the waning seconds of the game.
W&L and its ‘slowdown’ offense had the lead for the majority of the first half, taking as much as a six point lead. The Generals had an outstanding shooting half, hitting 55.6 percent of their field goal attempts. Despite their shooting, the Generals had just a two-point lead heading into the break. The Maroons took eight more shots from the field than W&L in the first half, and 20 more in the entire game. The Generals had 18 field goals in the game, eight coming from behind the three-point line.
The win was an historic one for RC head coach Page Moir - it was the 200th of his career. Now in his 11th season, Moir is 200-94. He is the third coach in RC history, joining Buddy Hackman and Ed Green, to have 200 wins at the school.
The Maroons now will play Hampden-Sydney College at 7:00 pm in the Salem Civic Center for the 2000 ODAC championship. This will be RC’s first appearance in the title game since 1996. The Tigers are the three-time defending conference champions and are currently 26-0 and ranked number-one in the country.