College Basketball Roundup : Georgia Tech Avenges a Loss to Wake Forest and Comes Out on Top

Georgia Tech didn’t have revenge on its mind, just first place.

The Yellow Jackets, reversing an earlier defeat that caused them to sputter through January, trounced Wake Forest, 94-75, Sunday and climbed to the top of the Atlantic Coast Conference standings.

“We just wanted to win,” said John Salley, who scored 27 points.

Tech lost to Wake Forest, 68-45, on Jan. 5 after sweeping Arkansas, Washington and Maryland to capture the title in the Rainbow Classic in Hawaii in December.

“We’re trying to reach the peak we reached in Hawaii,” Salley said. “We came at them with the same intensity that they came at us with in Wake Forest.”

Tech Coach Bobby Cremins said: “At times we played some of our best basketball and at times it got sloppy.”

Mark Price and Yvon Joseph both added 18 points for Tech, while Bruce Dalrymple scored 14 points and Duane Ferrell 13.

Tech (18-4, 7-3) built a 47-27 halftime lead and increased it to 90-57 late in the game, shooting 59% from the floor.

Delaney Rudd scored 21 points for Wake Forest (13-8, 4-5) and Lee Garber added 17.

North Carolina 75, LSU 70--Kenny Smith made five free throws in the final 24 seconds and the Tar Heels turned back the Tigers at Baton Rouge, La.

Brad Daugherty scored nine of the last 21 points for the Tar Heels (18-5), including the go-ahead basket with one minute to play, after the lead changed hands five times and there were five ties in the second half.

LSU (14-7) led by as many as 10 points in the first half, but North Carolina cut that to 39-36 at halftime. The Tar Heels took their first lead of the game five minutes into the second half on a layup by Steve Hale.

Daugherty scored 19 points, Smith added 15 and Hale had 14.

Derrick Taylor had 16 points for LSU and Nikita Wilson added 15.

Texas Tech 91, Houston 80--Bubba Jennings scored 30 points and Quentin Anderson added 27 as the Red Raiders pulled away in the final minutes at Lubbock, Tex., to all but finish the Cougars’ hopes of a third straight Southwest Conference championship.

Tech (14-7, 6-4) led by two points with six minutes to play but broke away from the Cougars (14-9, 6-5) with a 14-1 burst that Jennings started with a three-point play.

Texas 66, Rice 65--Carlton Cooper and Karl Willock made two free throws each in the last 13 seconds and the Longhorns held off the Owls in an SWC game at Austin, Tex.

Rice (9-12, 2-9) hit 71% of its shots in the first half and built a 37-30 lead at intermission, but Texas (12-9, 5-6) caught up with 11:45 left and the lead changed hands eight times after that.

The Owls hit 19 of 22 shots from the free-throw line, but with the game tied, Tony Barnett missed the front end of a one-and-one with 2:15 left and Mike Wacker put Texas in front to stay with a basket 40 seconds later.

Marquette 72, SW Louisiana 64--Kerry Trotter scored 19 points and the Warriors snapped the Ragin’ Cajuns’ seven-game winning streak at Milwaukee.

Southwestern Louisiana (16-9) broke a 28-28 halftime tie with the first basket of the second half, but Marquette (13-7) broke away for a 13-2 run and a 41-32 lead with 13:28 left. Trotter scored five points in the streak and Walker Downing had four of his 17.

The Ragin’ Cajuns trimmed the margin to 55-51 on Drexal Allen’s two free throws with 6:26 to go. But Marquette’s Benny Moore scored two straight baskets and the Warriors were back in command.