Virginia Commonwealth

Brandon Rozzell led four players in double figures and Virginia Commonwealth made 12 three-pointers to stun Georgetown with a 74-56 win that showed any remaining doubters the Rams do, indeed, belong in the NCAA tournament. Rozzell tied his career high with six three-pointers and finished with 26 points, while Joey Rodriguez had 17 points and seven assists. Bradford Burgess and Jamie Skeen added 12 each. It is the first time the 11th-seeded Rams (25-11) have won more than one game in the NCAA tournament, and they'll now play third-seeded Purdue on Sunday in the Southwest Regional.

Gabriela Marginean had 15 points, including a game-winning 14-foot jumper with just under 3 seconds remaining to give host Drexel (12-6, 6-1) a 55-53 victory over Virginia Commonwealth (13-6, 6-1) in a Colonial Athletic Assocation game. At George Washington, Kay-Kay Allums' 21 points led the Colonials (4-14, 1-4) to a 58-50 win over La Salle in an Atlantic 10 Conference game. Nadia Duncan's 15 led La Salle (5-15, 0-5 A-10).

What: NCAA Tournament, Final Four When: Tomorrow, 6:09 p.m. Where: Reliant Stadium, Houston TV: CBS3 Radio: ESPN (97.3-FM, 97.5-FM, 950) How they got here: Butler defeated No. 9 Old Dominion, 60-58; No. 1 Pittsburgh, 71-70; No. 4 Wisconsin, 61-54; and No. 2 Florida, 74-71 (OT). VCU defeated No. 11 USC, 59-46; No. 6 Georgetown, 74-56; No. 3 Purdue, 94-76; No. 10 Florida State, 72-71 (OT); and No. 1 Kansas, 71-61. Coaches: Butler's Brad Stevens (116-24); VCU's Shaka Smart (55-20)

Five Metro Conference schools have drawn up a plan to kick out Virginia Commonwealth and Virginia Tech, according to a letter faxed to Virginia Commonwealth's president. Originally, North Carolina-Charlotte, Tulane, Southern Mississippi and South Florida were expected to resign from the Metro to form part of a new conference. Instead, they "tentatively plan" to expel the Virginia schools and add Cincinnati, Memphis, De Paul, Marquette, St. Louis, Alabama-Birmingham and Houston to form an expanded Metro for the 1995-96 seasons, the letter said.

Marc Jackson is coming home in just about the strictest sense of the phrase. Jackson, a 6-9 center out of Roman Catholic, said last night that he had completed the process of transferring from Virginia Commonwealth to Temple. He lives near the intersection of Germantown Avenue and Huntingdon Street in North Philadelphia, a short walk from Temple's campus. After sitting out this coming basketball season, Jackson will have three years of eligibility remaining. "I was very unhappy at Virginia Commonwealth.

Norristown High point guard Malinda Fife signed a letter of intent yesterday to play college basketball at Virginia Commonwealth. Fife, a transfer from Engineering and Science who will be playing her first year with the Eagles, averaged 19.5 points, 6.7 assists, eight rebounds, and four steals a season ago. Fife needs 189 points to reach 1,000 for her career. Engineering and Science captured the 1996-97 Public League championship. The 5-foot-5 Fife selected VCU over Hofstra, Rider and Delaware State.

CHARLESTON, S.C. - The College of Charleston's basketball court will be renamed TD Arena under a licensing agreement with TD Bank. The building had been Carolina First Arena. However, Carolina First was purchased by TD Bank last year. TD Bank will pay the school $600,000 for the naming rights through June 30, 2018. The College of Charleston had previously received $412,500 from Carolina First for naming rights. College president P. George Benson says the school is proud to have the sponsorship from the respected bank.

It has been some kind of week for Temple's women's basketball team. And yesterday, it was also some kind of afternoon for the Owls' Margarete Rougier. The senior forward scored 36 points in Temple's 84-62 victory over visiting Canisius. That put her within an eyelash of the McGonigle Hall women's record. The mark, held by former Owl all-American Marilyn Stephens and former Rutgers' star Regina Howard, is 37. The overall Temple record is 41, by Stephens. More important, Temple (3-2)

Top-seeded Erica O'Neill of Syracuse yielded only five games in two matches to move into the round of 16 at the Rolex Women's Eastern Regional Intercollegiate Tennis Championship yesterday at Penn's Levy Pavilion. O'Neill defeated Megan Coakley of William and Mary, 6-2, 6-0, in the second round and beat Gabriela Hricko of Harvard in the third, 6-1, 6-2. O'Neill faces Kerry Stakem of Boston University this morning, Stakem having won one match in three sets and another in straight sets.

Virginia Commonwealth more than held its own inside against bigger and stronger Southern Cal to beat the Trojans, 59-46, Wednesday night in the finale of the NCAA's inaugural "First Four" tournament games in Dayton, Ohio. The 11th-seeded teams traded elbows and punishing defenses all night, but the Rams (24-11) pulled away down the stretch to earn the chance to face sixth-seeded Georgetown (21-10) in a Southwest Regional game Friday in Chicago. Jamie Skeen led the Rams with 16 points.

The final top 25 teams in the USA Today-ESPN men's college basketball poll, with first-place votes in parentheses, records through Sunday, total points based on 25 points for a first-place vote through one point for a 25th-place vote, and previous ranking: Rec   Pts   Pr 1. Kentucky (30) 32-2   774   1    2. Syracuse 31-2   730   2    3. Missouri (1) 30-4   715   5    4. Michigan St. 27-7   660   8    5. N. Carolina 29-5   652   4    6. Kansas 27-6   586   3    7. Ohio State 27-7   578   7    8. Duke 27-6   557   6    9. Murray State 30-1   502   10    10. Baylor 27-7   481   11    11. Marquette 25-7   452   9    12. Florida State 24-9   442   17    13. Wisconsin 24-9   348   12    14. Michigan 24-9   319   13    15. Georgetown 23-8   307   14    16. St. Mary's 27-5   268   18    17. Indiana 25-8   252   15    18. Louisville 26-9   245   –    19. Wichita St. 27-5   231   16    20. Creighton 28-5   199   22    21. Florida 23-10   189   19    22. New Mexico 27-6   125   –    23. San Diego St. 26-7   99   21    24. ...

RICHMOND, Va. - Frantz Massenat expends much energy running the Drexel offense, but on this day more was needed. Massenat, who went from averaging 5.5 points a game as a freshman to an all-conference player just one year later, put together an extraordinary two-way effort on Sunday that catapulted the Dragons to the Colonial Athletic Association championship game. In addition to scoring 20 points and delivering four assists, the 6-foot-4 point guard did a masterful defensive job on Old Dominion's chief offensive threat as the top-seeded Dragons defeated the No. 4-seeded Monarchs, 68-51, in a semifinal at the Richmond Coliseum.

RICHMOND, Va. - Northwestern is said to be just in the NCAA Tournament field or just out, depending upon what time it is and which way the last breeze blew. The Wildcats have played 11 games against teams ranked in the nation's top 50. They have won one of them. One. A rouge. Yet Drexel sits, despite a 19-game winning streak, still wondering. South Florida, guardian of the Big East's southern flank, is said to be one of the last four teams in, too. The Bulls have played nine games against top 50 teams.

The special memories came rushing back to Marc Jackson and Matt Maloney as they returned to the Palestra Tuesday to join the latest class to be inducted into the Philadelphia Big 5 Hall of Fame. For Jackson, who was born and raised in Philadelphia, played at Temple and spent two of his 13 professional seasons with the 76ers, it was as a kid sneaking into the Palestra through a number of passageways just so he could play basketball. "When I got here today, I'm thinking, 'Do I come in the front door?

ON PAPER, there seemingly isn't much that separates the basketball teams representing Drexel and Virginia Commonwealth. On the court, the same holds true. Two of the nation's more tenacious defensive squads took turns trading the lead, elbows and three-pointers in a slugfest of Colonial Athletic Association contenders that had a near-sellout crowd of 2,532 in the Daskalakis Athletic Center rocking with each crashing body, each subtle shift in momentum. In the end, Drexel (10-5, 2-2)

La Salle senior guard Earl Pettis has a dislocated left middle finger and will see a team doctor on Monday, team spokesman Kevin Bonner said. The injury happened after intercepting a pass Saturday in the first half of La Salle's 82-70 win at the Palestra. Pettis went coast-to-coast on a layup and was fouled by Rider's Eddie Mitchell with 14 minutes, 6 seconds left in the first half. Immediately after the bucket, Pettis collapsed clutching his hand. A television replay showed that Pettis had actually injured the hand on the steal and he dribbled the length of the court before noticing his finger was dislocated.

CHARLESTON, S.C. - The College of Charleston's basketball court will be renamed TD Arena under a licensing agreement with TD Bank. The building had been Carolina First Arena. However, Carolina First was purchased by TD Bank last year. TD Bank will pay the school $600,000 for the naming rights through June 30, 2018. The College of Charleston had previously received $412,500 from Carolina First for naming rights. College president P. George Benson says the school is proud to have the sponsorship from the respected bank.

HOUSTON - Butler showed Saturday night how accustomed it was to playing the style of physical and aggressive basketball needed to go far in the NCAA tournament, and now stands one game away from a national championship for the second straight season. The Bulldogs rode their 1-2 punch of guard Shelvin Mack and forward Matt Howard time and again in the second half and ended the Cinderella run of Virginia Commonwealth, knocking out the 11th seed, 70-62, in the first game of a national semifinal doubleheader at Reliant Stadium.