COLLEGE BASKETBALL NATIONAL ROUNDUP : Seton Hall Finally Beats Syracuse, 86-76

Seton Hall redshirt freshman John Leahy couldn’t hide the smile as he answered the question he knew would be asked.

“Streak? What streak,” Leahy said Tuesday night after the 25th-ranked Pirates beat No. 10 Syracuse, 86-76, at East Rutherford, N.J., their first victory over the Orangemen in 23 games. “The only streak I know about is Seton Hall’s three-game winning streak in the Big East and our one-game winning streak over Syracuse.”

Leahy had the game’s big play, a four-point play with 4:57 left that gave the Pirates a 70-61 lead.

Leahy entered the game after Syracuse’s Conrad McRae had blocked a shot out of bounds. There were 10 seconds left on the 45-second shot clock, and Leahy inbounded the ball. After a scramble, Bryan Caver got the ball to Leahy in the corner and he shot it with two seconds on the shot clock. He was fouled on the three-point shot and added a free throw.

Syracuse, 16-4 overall and 8-4 in the conference, missed its first 10 shots and committed five turnovers, yet the Pirates (14-6, 6-5) were able to take a only 14-5 lead.

A Syracuse run off the transition game gave it a 37-36 halftime lead.

Seton Hall got the lead for the first time in the second half on a three-point play by Jerry Walker with 15:46 to play, the first of nine consecutive points Walker would score as the Pirates took a 50-44 lead with 14:21 left.

Georgia 64, No. 20 Louisiana State 62--Kendall Rhine scored 21 points and the Bulldogs withstood a rally and posted a Southeastern Conference upset at Baton Rouge, La.

The Tigers (14-6, 7-2) got their up-tempo game going only in spurts against the deliberate Bulldogs (11-9, 4-6).

Litterial Green, who finished with seven points, far below his average of 20 a game, made two free throws to put Georgia back in front, and the Bulldogs went on a 13-5 run to lead 60-53 with 4:31 to go. Rhine had six points in the run.

Shaquille O’Neal, LSU’s 7-foot-1 All-American center, fouled out with 6:11 to go. He had 19 points, nine rebounds and seven blocked shots.

OTHER GAMES

Deon Thomas scored 32 points, including Illinois’ first five in overtime, in a 76-71 Big Ten victory over Purdue at West Lafayette, Ind. Woody Austin led the Boilermakers with 22 points. . . . Chad Allen made four free throws in the last 15 seconds to carry Southern Methodist to a 44-38 Southwest Conference victory over Texas A&M; at Dallas in the lowest scoring game of the season for both teams. . . . Southern Illinois’ Kelvan Lawrence picked off an inbounds pass with three seconds to go to preserve a 65-64 victory night over Illinois State at Carbondale, Ill., giving the Salukis sole possession of first place in the Missouri Valley Conference.