COLLEGE BASKETBALL / NATIONAL ROUNDUP : Stith Misses, Florida St. Survives

Bryant Stith is the leading free-throw shooter in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

The Virginia guard had made 85.6% of his foul shots entering Thursday night’s game against No. 23 Florida State at Charlottesville, Va.

Virginia, therefore, was confident when Stith went to the free throw line for two shots with the Cavaliers trailing, 64-63, with two seconds left.

Stith, however, missed both shots, allowing Florida State to escape with its sixth ACC road victory.

“I thought I had a pretty good stroke,” said Stith, who scored 16 points. “But the first one went a little bit long, so I tried to take something off of the second, and it went off the front of the rim.”

“You look at these games and wonder how we pull them out sometimes,” said Florida State Coach Pat Kennedy, whose team improved its record to 17-6 and 9-4 in the ACC.

Bob Sura gave Florida State a 63-62 lead when he stole a pass by Cory Alexander and drove the length of the court for a lay-up with 59 seconds left. Sura made one free throw with 22 seconds remaining, and Junior Burrough of Virginia (11-9, 4-5) also made a foul shot at the 13-second mark.

The Cavaliers fouled Charlie Ward one second later, but he missed the front end of a one-and-one. Virginia got the rebound and moved down the court where Stith was fouled attempting a 15-foot jump shot.

No. 14 Tulane 76, No. 22 North Carolina Charlotte 68--David Whitmore, a former All-Southern Section player at Playa del Rey St. Bernard, scored four of his 12 points during an 11-0 run early in the second half to lead the Green Wave to victory at Charlotte, N.C.

Tulane (19-2, 7-0) was trailing, 43-40, when Anthony Reed started the run with a jump shot with 17:07 left.

North Carolina Charlotte (16-5, 4-2) pulled to within 63-60, but scored only four points over the last five minutes.

New Mexico 68, No. 21 Texas El Paso 56--Willie Banks scored 22 points to lead the Lobos to the Western Athletic Conference victory at Albuquerque.

New Mexico (14-9, 8-3) has won three consecutive games and is tied with UTEP (18-4, 8-3) and Brigham Young for the WAC lead.

David Van Dyke scored 23 points and had 15 rebounds for UTEP.

OTHER GAMES

Lucius Davis scored 25 points to lead UC Santa Barbara (15-5, 8-3) to a 77-61 Big West Conference victory over Fresno State (14-10, 5-7) at Fresno. . . . Cliff Reed scored 21 points and Eric Traylor added 13 as New Mexico State (16-4, 8-3) held off Pacific (8-12, 4-7) for a 75-67 Big West Conference victory at Las Cruces, N.M.

Five Wyoming players scored in double figures as the Cowboys (12-10, 4-6) spoiled the coaching debut of Jim Harrick Jr. with a 92-66 Western Athletic Conference victory over San Diego State (2-20, 0-10) at Laramie, Wyo. Harrick, 27, replaced Jim Brandenburg Tuesday on the heels of what is now a 15-game losing streak for the Aztecs. . . . Mark Heslop of Brigham Young (17-4, 8-3) scored all of his 15 points in the second half of the Cougars’ 68-60 victory over Air Force (7-15, 1-9) at Air Force Academy, Colo.

Aaron Atkinson scored 19 points to lead Colorado State (11-12, 5-4) to a 69-59 WAC victory over Hawaii (12-9, 5-5) at Ft. Collins, Colo. . . . Walt Williams of Maryland (10-11, 3-8) scored 27 points, offsetting a 32-point effort by Tom Gugliotta of North Carolina State (9-14, 3-7) as the Terrapins beat the Wolfpack, 77-74, in an Atlantic Coast Conference game at College Park, Md.

Gary Alexander of Louisville (14-7, 4-4) scored 15 points and made a go-ahead layup with six seconds left to give the Cardinals a 69-66 Metro Conference victory over South Florida (13-8, 2-5) at Tampa. . . . Mik Kilgore made two free throws with 26 seconds left to give Temple (13-8) a 65-63 nonconference victory over Memphis State (13-7) at Memphis.