Gidney Scores 26 in Livingstone Victory

BY ED DUPREE
SALISBURY POST

Rodney Gidney put his talents on display at Trent Gym for the first time this weekend, and Livingstone College basketball fans can be glad he'll be playing three years for the Blue Bears.

Gidney, a 6-foot-6 sophomore from Shelby, scored 26 points and pulled down 11 rebounds Saturday night to spark Coach Charles McCullough's Bears to a 72-66 CIAA victory over Bowie State. Gidney had scored 20 points and grabbed seven rebounds in Friday night's home opener, a loss to Voorhees.

"We needed it; we was due one,'' said Gidney. "We let two get away from us. ... We just finally got together as a team and played 40 minutes hard as a team. That's the biggest thing that was missing our first five games,'' he added.

His double-double performance?

"I'm not worried about more or less individual stats. I'm just worried about us getting together as a team and playing defense as a team and getting together to run the offense,'' he replied.

Gidney is a junior academically, but the 1994 Shelby High School graduate used up only one year of eligibility while playing as a freshman at Central Piedmont Community College during the 1994-95 school year.

"Rodney, when he's patient, he is capable of doing this all season,'' said McCullough. "He did it last week against St. Paul's. That's one of the biggest teams in the league. He played well against them all night. I thought we should have beaten them, but we didn't. ... He's been playing solid, controlling the boards as well as scoring at will just about.''

Livingstone lost that CIAA opener to St. Paul's 85-82 last Saturday night, so the win over Bowie evens the conference mark at 1-1.

"We needed that one,'' said McCullough. "We've been known not to play well at home, but to play read good on the road. This team is a good road team.''

Although Gidney had a big game and veteran senior guard Derrick Wyche contributed 19 points and six rebounds, McCullough thought a key player in the game was sophomore Frank White, who made his first start at point guard. White had nine points, four steals, three assists and only three turnovers.

"Our point guard play had not been very good all season long, but Frank White did a good job,'' said McCullough. "He started kind of slow, but picked up and took charge.''

It was the first start for the 6-footer from Houston, Tex., because he had been in McCullough's dog house.

"He almost started the season at home,'' said the Livingstone coach. "He missed some practice sessions. He was with us, not in good standing, but he was in uniform. He didn't start and didn't play very much.''

Livingstone had 20 turnovers on Friday night when White didn't start but played 17 minutes. The Bears cut the turnovers in half with 10 on Saturday while White was running the offense for 39 minutes.

"We moved the ball a lot more. We hadn't been using the shot clock very much during the season. We had been shooting with too much time left on the clock. ... We lost two close games, one to Savannah State (80-78), the very first game we played and the game last week against St. Paul's. These were games I thought we should have won with better guard play. I think the way Frank controlled the flow of the game, if he had been playing with us, they may have come out a little differently,'' McCullough added.

The Bears' six-point margin of victory over Bowie (0-1 in the CIAA, 1-4 overall) was misleading, because Livingstone had a 10-point lead of 68-58 after a Gidney free throw with 39 seconds to play. The Bulldogs made two 3-pointers after that and trailed only 70-66 when they called a time out with two seconds to go. When play resumed, Wyche was quickly fouled, and he converted two of the Bears' nine free throws in the final 3:44.

Livingstone trailed briefly in the first half and led only 33-32 at halftime. It was still close at 50-all with 12 minutes to play, but the Bears gradually pulled out to lead by 10.

NOTES: Livingstone has a big clash with CIAA rival Virginia Union at Trent Gym at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, then plays another CIAA team, Winston-Salem State, in the first round of the CF Parks/Catawba Classic at Catawba's Goodman Gym on Friday. ... Bowie State has three North Carolina products on its roster, and two of them started last night - junior guard Lee Black of Concord High and freshman guard Anthony Nelson of Winston-Salem's Carver High, where Salisbury native Ricky Holt is the head coach. Freshman Antoine Barnes of Carver also saw action. Nelson scored 11 points, Barnes hit two free throws and Black was scoreless. ... Che Evans led the Bulldogs' scoring and rebounding with 17 points and 11 boards, and Derek Hopkins had 11 points.