College Basketball Roundup : Duke Defense Does In North Carolina, 70-69

The strength of recent Duke basketball teams has been defense, and it was defense that Blue Devil Coach Mike Krzyzewski credited for his team’s handling of second-ranked North Carolina and, especially, Jeff Lebo.

Billy King held the Tar Heel guard, who was averaging 14 points a game, to eight points as Lebo made only 2 of 14 shots. The one he missed at the end of the game was particularly important in the ninth-ranked Blue Devils’ 70-69 Atlantic Coast Conference victory at Chapel Hill, N.C., Thursday night.

Danny Ferry hit a free throw with 52 seconds left to give Duke the one-point lead. But the final seconds for the Blue Devils were agonizing.

Duke threw the ball out of bounds with 16 seconds left. Pete Chilcutt’s shot with five seconds left fell short, and Duke’s Robert Brickey blocked Lebo’s shot from the corner with two seconds left.

Lebo also missed a three-pointer with 30 seconds remaining, and Chilcutt couldn’t convert the tap-in.

The Tar Heels, who trailed, 55-44, with 12:53 left, tied the score at 69-69 with 1:24 left. The Tar Heels had chipped away at the Duke lead by going inside to J. R. Reid, who scored 14 of North Carolina’s final 16 points.

Kevin Strickland scored 22 points for Duke (11-2, 2-1 in the ACC), and Ferry scored 19. Reid led North Carolina (13-2, 2-1) with 27 points--17 in the second half--and Scott Williams had 14.

Temple 71, Massachusetts 52--The third-ranked Owls, one of the nation’s two unbeaten Division I teams (BYU is the other), won their 14th straight game at Philadelphia.

The streak is the best start in Temple history, bettering the 13-0 start by the 1955-56 team that went 27-4 and finished third in the NCAA tournament. The Owls also improved their Atlantic 10 record to 8-0.

Tim Perry scored 16 points, had 9 rebounds and blocked 5 shots for Temple. The Minutemen are 7-7 and 2-5.

Michigan 65, Wisconsin 54--Glen Rice scored 22 of his 30 points in the first half to help the eighth-ranked Wolverines build a 17-point lead and go on to earn the Big Ten victory at Ann Arbor.

The Wolverines (15-2, 4-1) limited Trent Jackson, who was averaging 19.6 points, to just 2 field goals in each half. He scored 9 points. Wisconsin (8-7, 2-3) has lost 17 straight to Michigan.

Iowa 93, Illinois 79--Roy Marble scored 26 points and B. J. Armstrong added 21 as the 19th-ranked Hawkeyes defeated the 13th-ranked Illini in a Big Ten game at Iowa City.

Iowa (12-5, 3-2) built a 41-25 lead with 4:54 left in the first half with a 19-2 run started on a three-point goal by Al Lorenzen and ended on a three-pointer by Jeff Moe. Illinois (13-4, 3-2) never got closer than nine points.

Notre Dame 67, Pennsylvania 48--David Rivers scored 11 of his 19 points from the free-throw line, where the Irish held a 25-8 advantage, at South Bend, Ind.

Penn pulled within 36-31 with 16:42 left, but Notre Dame (10-4) outscored the Quakers, 17-9, in the next 8:21 and took a 53-40 lead. Sean Connor scored six points in that run. Penn is 2-9.

Wyoming 81, Hawaii 61--Fennis Dembo and Eric Leckner sparked an 18-2 second-half run as the 17th-ranked Cowboys eased past the Rainbows in a Western Athletic Conference game at Laramie, Wyo.

Dembo led all scorers with 32 points and had 13 rebounds, while Leckner added 17 as Wyoming (13-3, 2-3) bounced back from an 83-67 loss to BYU last weekend. Hawaii (2-14, 1-4) has lost 27 consecutive road games.

BYU 81, Texas El Paso 71--Michael Smith scored 20 points and pulled down 8 rebounds to lead the 12th-ranked Cougars past the Miners into first place in the Western Athletic Conference.

BYU is 13-0 overall and 4-0 in the WAC. The loss was the first at home for Texas El Paso (15-3, 4-1) since BYU beat the Miners last January. The loss also snapped their nine-game winning streak.

Bradley 99, Southern Illinois 93--Major college scoring leader Hersey Hawkins became Bradley’s career leader with a 42-point performance as the Braves beat the Salukis in a Missouri Valley Conference game at Peoria, Ill.

Hawkins, who entered the game averaging 37.4 points a game, surpassed Mitchell Anderson’s total of 2,341 points. The 6-foot 3-inch senior guard finished the night with 2,374 points.