College Basketball Roundup : Connecticut Puts Syracuse in Cellar

Connecticut Coach Jim Calhoun, seeking the right balance for his club’s Monday night matchup against 11th-ranked Syracuse, stressed a slowdown on offense.

The Huskies, playing before a sellout crowd at the Hartford Civic Center, combined just enough offense with a tight defense to upset Syracuse, 68-62, sending the Orangemen into last place in the Big East Conference.

“For us, playing hard is the key thing,” Calhoun said. “If we try to set the tempo too much on offense, we stand around on defense. So we made ourselves press on defense and walk on offense.”

Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim, on the other hand, blamed his team’s loss on its lack of execution.

“The first 15 minutes we played probably as poorly as we’ve played since I’ve been at Syracuse,” he said after his club dropped to 14-4 overall and 1-4 in the conference.

The Huskies (10-4, 2-3), who forced 16 turnovers and limited the Orangemen to 22 of 54 shooting (40.7%), got 24 points from Cliff Robinson and 21 from Phil Gamble as they broke a 3-game conference losing streak.

Syracuse led only briefly in the game, scoring 15 of the first 19 points in the second half for a 39-35 lead with 14:35 left. But Gamble hit a 3-point basket and converted a 3-point play to put the Huskies in front for good.

Michigan 99, Ohio State 73--Glen Rice made five 3-point shots and scored 23 points as the sixth-ranked Wolverines coasted past the 16th-ranked Buckeyes at Ann Arbor, Mich.

Terry Mills also scored 23 points and Loy Vaught added 22 for Michigan (15-2, 3-1), which never trailed, opening a 20-12 lead in the first 6 minutes.

Ohio State (12-4, 2-2) cut the deficit to 27-26 on Jay Burson’s basket with 8:22 left in the first half, but that’s as close as the Buckeyes could get as Michigan opened a 50-35 halftime lead and never looked back.

Rumeal Robinson had 14 points and Sean Higgins 10 for Michigan.

Perry Carter scored 17 points for Ohio State, but Burson, averaging 23.9, had only 12.

The win was the Wolverines’ 14th straight at Crisler Arena.

Missouri 104, Virginia Tech 99--Byron Irvin scored 35 points as the eighth-ranked Tigers held off a late rally by the Hokies at Blacksburg, Va.

The Tigers (15-3), who led by as many as 20 points in the second half, also got 19 points from Anthony Peeler, 14 from Doug Smith and 11 from Lee Coward as they extended their winning streak to 6 games.

Virginia Tech got 36 points from Wally Lancaster, who hit five 3-point shots and extended to 61 his National Collegiate Athletic Assn. record of consecutive games in which he has scored a 3-point basket. The Hokies (6-8) suffered their fifth straight loss, the most since the 1954-55 team lost 18 straight.

Seton Hall 78, Villanova 61--Ramon Ramos scored 10 points in a decisive run as the 12th-ranked Pirates beat the Wildcats at the Meadowlands to move into first place in the Big East Conference.

Seton Hall (16-1, 4-1) holds a half-game lead over Providence, marking the first time the Pirates have been alone in first place this late in the season.

The Pirates, who got 22 points from John Morton, forced the Wildcats into 17 first-half turnovers and took control with a 23-11 spurt that began late in the first half and continued into second half.

Villanova, (10-7, 2-3), closed to 25-21 before Ramos took over. The 6-foot 8-inch center, who missed the Pirates’ last game with an eye injury, scored the final 4 points of the first half and 6 of Seton Hall’s first 8 in the second half, giving the Pirates a 38-27 edge with 17:10 left.

Stanford 93, Miami (Fla.) 59--Howard Wright scored 21 points, including 11 straight at the outset of the second half, to lead the No. 20 Cardinal to a nonconference victory over the Hurricanes at Palo Alto.

Wright, who also had 8 rebounds, made all 7 of his shots in the second half as Stanford broke away from a 37-30 halftime lead to go ahead by 15 points midway through the second half. Center Eric Reveno scored 6 points during a 12-4 Stanford spurt.

Stanford (13-3) outscored the Hurricanes, 33-10, in the final 12 minutes.

Adam Keefe, who grabbed 8 rebounds, and Reveno each added 16 points for the Cardinal and Todd Lichti, who scored 12 points, tied the school record he set last year by hitting his 35th consecutive free throw.

UC Santa Barbara 69, San Jose State 48--Carrick DeHart scored 12 points in the first 7 1/2 minutes of the second half to led the Gauchos past the Spartans in a Big West Conference game at San Jose.

Santa Barbara has won 4 of 5 conference games and 12 in 13 overall.

San Jose, suffering its worst conference start in Coach Bill Berry’s 10 years, dropped its fifth straight and is 5-11.

DeHart scored 22 points.

New Mexico State 53, Fresno State 50--James Anderson scored 14 points as the Aggies defeated the Bulldogs in a Big West Conference game at Fresno.

Fresno State (8-6, 3-2) had a chance to send the game into overtime, but a 3-point shot by Jervis Cole missed as time ran out. Cole, averaging 18 points a game, was poked in the eye in the first half and scored only 7.

New Mexico State (10-6, 3-3) led by 9 points in the first half before Fresno State cut the margin to 32-28 at halftime. The Bulldogs took a 42-41 lead midway through the second half, but Anderson’s basket started a 6-point run and the Aggies never trailed again.