NCAA SOUTHEAST REGIONAL : Arizona State Takes Heed, Avoids Letdown

MEMPHIS, Tenn. —  Sometimes the answer isn’t just concentrating on the task at hand but on the tasks of others. Sometimes you can profit by their misery.

Arizona State Coach Bill Frieder had been warning his players that 12th-seeded teams have a history of causing problems in the NCAA tournament, and then 12th-seeded Miami of Ohio beat fifth-seeded Arizona and 13th-seed Manhattan upset fourth-seeded Oklahoma.

Enough said.

“All that happened before our game reminded them that what I’d been telling them would happen,” Frieder said after Arizona State had beaten Ball State, 81-66, at the Southeast Regional. “We had them convinced that they had five players in the Final Four. You don’t have to be too intelligent to know Ball State had good players.”

Just not enough good players.

Fifth-seeded Arizona State (23-8) trailed only once in the early minutes and opened up a 23-5 lead on a dunk by Mario Bennett with 11:48 left. The Sun Devils will play Manhattan Saturday in the second round.

The Sun Devils used their quickness and pressed Ball State (19-11), forcing the Cardinals to turn the ball over seven times over the first 7 1/2 minutes. Ball State also missed six of its first eight shots.

Ron Riley, playing with a bad back, led Arizona State with 24 points, and Bennett finished with 21.

Steve Payne led Ball State with 15 points.

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Kentucky 113, Mount St. Mary’s 67--After 41 years as a coach, Jim Phelan knew what to expect from Kentucky. He also knew his Mount St. Mary’s team would be defenseless to stop it.

“It was what I was afraid of,” Phelan said after losing in the first round of the Southeast Regional. “It’s basically a step up in class.”

A step way up. The Wildcats (26-4) had five players finish in double figures, led by Tony Delk with 20 and Walter McCarty with 17. They outshot Mount St. Mary’s, 57% to 33%, and outrebounded them, 56-38, to advance to Saturday’s second round against Tulane. Mount St. Mary’s finished 17-13.

The 113 points were the most in 97 NCAA tournament games for Kentucky.

Phelan, making his NCAA Division I tournament debut, saw the Mountaineers take a 5-2 lead in the first 90 seconds. But then Kentucky scored 15 straight points and kept right on going.

“It was just a case of too many horses,” Phelan said.

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Tulane 76, Brigham Young 70--Perry Clark needed an edge against the eighth-seeded Cougars, and his ninth-seeded Green Wave defense came through once again by grabbing a couple of steals en route to a 13-4 run after halftime, erasing a one-point deficit and going on to victory.

“I really thought our defense got us going,” Clark said. “That’s really where we get our start is with our defense.”

Brigham Young (22-10) stayed with the Green Wave (23-9) throughout, but hurt itself by losing 14 of 18 turnovers on steals.

Kim Lewis led the Green Wave with 22 points and four steals. Kenneth Roberts led Brigham Young with 20 points.