College Basketball Roundup : Driesell Runs Up 500th Win, 91-38

Lefty Driesell, drenched in victory champagne, was in a jovial postgame mood for the first time in two weeks.

“We need to schedule more games like that next year,” the Maryland coach said after the Terrapins defeated undermanned Towson State, 91-38, in an intrastate mismatch Thursday night at College Park, Md.

It was Driesell’s 500th career victory.

“I’m glad it’s over,” Driesell said of his well-publicized and frustrating quest for No. 500. “I was tired of hearing ‘499’ every time we played on the road.”

Maryland had lost four straight Atlantic Coast Conference games over the last two weeks.

“I never won any game myself,” Driesell said when asked about the significance of winning 500. “My players have won them, and I’ve enjoyed working with them. You have to take the bad with the good.”

Driesell denied he was trying to run up the score by playing each of his starters at least 23 minutes. He contended that the Terrapins needed work on their pressing game.

Towson State Coach Terry Truax, who graduated from Maryland in 1968, a year before Driesell arrived, said he could understand that Driesell was trying to regain some lost confidence for the Terps.

Adrian Branch scored 20 points for the Terrapins (20-10), who got 29 points from their bench as all 11 players scored. Towson State is now 7-18.

Driesell became the sixth active coach to post 500 victories in Division I competition and the 17th on the all-time list. In 25 years at Davidson and Maryland, his teams have won 20 or more games in a season 16 times.

Georgia 86, Auburn 84--With five seconds left, Donald Harty hit a 15-foot jump shot after a steal to give the Bulldogs, ranked 18th by Associated Press, a Southeastern Conference victory at Auburn, Ala.

Hartry’s basket came after freshman Cedric Henderson deflected a pass to Hartry for the winning basket. Auburn’s Chuck Person failed on a 30-foot shot at the buzzer.

Auburn had taken an 84-81 lead with 41 seconds remaining on a pair of free throws by Frank Ford and appeared to have the game in control when Ford made a steal. However, after Ford missed a layup at the other end, freshman Jeff Moore attempted to tip in the missed shot for the Tigers and got stuck with a technical foul for hanging on the rim.

Joe Ward hit the technical foul shot with 30 seconds left and, after a timeout, sank a 15-foot jumper from the foul line to tie the score at 84 with 15 seconds to play.

Auburn called a timeout to set up a final shot but had the ball stripped away by Henderson, with Hartry scooping it up and scoring the game-winner.

Ohio State 86, Purdue 68--Brad Sellers, responding to his first start in three games, scored 18 points as the Buckeyes won the Big Ten game at Columbus, Ohio. The 7-foot Sellers, who had been benched for inconsistent play against Indiana and Northeastern last week, also had nine rebounds and five shot blocks.

The Buckeyes are 16-7, 8-5. Purdue is 17-7, 8-6.

Illinois 66, Indiana 50--Bruce Douglas scored a game-high 21 points as the Illini, ranked 14th and 16th in the wire-service polls, won the Big Ten game at Bloomington, Ind.

The Illini (21-7, 9-5) hit 50% of their shots, while Indiana (14-9, 6-7), ranked fourth in the nation in field-goal percentage (54.4%) coming into the game, hit a dismal 42.6%.

Virginia Commonwealth 85, Western Kentucky 62--At Richmond, Va., Rolando Lamb and Calvin Duncan each scored 20 points to lead Virginia Commonwealth (21-4, 11-2). The Rams, ranked 17th and 18th in the polls, are tied with Alabama Birmingham for first place in the Sun Belt Conference. The Hilltoppers are 14-12, 5-8.

Minnesota 74, Northwestern 48--John Shasky and George Williams each scored 17 points to lead the Gophers (13-10, 6-7) in the Big Ten game at Evanston, Ill. Northwestern is 5-19, 1-13.

Louisiana Tech 73, Lamar 65--Karl Malone had 22 points and 16 rebounds as Louisiana Tech, ranked No. 10, won a Southland Conference game at Ruston, La. Tech is 23-2, 9-1 and tied for the conference lead with McNeese State. Lamar is 14-10, 6-4.

Hawaii 69, San Diego State 68--William Colston made two free throws with 20 seconds left at San Diego to lead Hawaii (9-16, 5-10) to the Western Athletic Conference upset over the Aztecs (21-6, 11-4).