Colleges

Hammonds recalls Tech's advantage of advance plans

Georgia Tech's Tom Hammonds will never forget the play that he and his teammates, especially Duane Ferrell, saw coming.

By BRIAN LANDMAN
Published March 6, 2007

TAMPA - Georgia Tech's Tom Hammonds will never forget the play that he and his teammates, especially Duane Ferrell, saw coming.

The Yellow Jackets and Maryland were tied at 62 in the waning seconds of an ACC tournament semifinal on March 8, 1986 at the Greensboro Coliseum, but the Terrapins had the ball.

Tech assistant Perry Clark drew up a play he'd seen the Terps run in an earlier game: an inbounds pass to forward Len Bias so that the ACC's top player could do his thing.

Hammonds, the ACC's top freshman, might have been on Bias but, "he had lit me up and they had to switch me off of him," he said with a laugh. Bias, the future ill-fated first-rounder of the Boston Celtics, had a game-high 20 points. Ferrell guarded him.

"We were denying everybody on the inbounds play and they threw a soft lob in and Duane stole it around midcourt and dribbled in and dunked it to win the game," Hammonds said breathlessly as if watching it unfold all over again 21 years later.

Hammonds scored a team-high 16 on 8 of 12 shooting and had three rebounds.

"We played Duke in the finals and lost a heartbreaker (68-67)," said Hammonds, who played in the pros and now owns a professional drag racing team. "But my freshman year (was special). At one point (early February), North Carolina was No. 1, we were No. 2 and Duke was No. 4. That game against Maryland and Len Bias is my favorite tournament memory."

[Last modified March 6, 2007, 00:47:17]