COLLEGE BASKETBALL ROUNDUP : No. 18 Michigan Knocks Off No. 2 Indiana

With five freshman starters, no one expected No. 18 Michigan to be very consistent this season. And they haven’t been.

But when they are on, the young Wolverines can be very good.

They showed that early in the season by taking top-ranked Duke to overtime, and again Sunday at Ann Arbor, Mich., by beating No. 2 Indiana, 68-60.

The loss dropped the Hoosiers (22-5, 13-3) into a first-place with Ohio State in the Big Ten.

The victory probably ensures an NCAA bid for Michigan (18-8, 9-7), which had lost two in a row.

Michigan’s freshmen blistered Indiana with a 16-2 run for a 20-6 lead. Jimmy King scored 10 points during the run, including two three-pointers.

Michigan led, 37-29, at halftime, but the Hoosiers scored the first 11 points of the second half, five by Alan Henderson, to take a 40-37 lead. But a three-pointer by Michigan’s Michael Talley put Michigan back on top to stay, 51-48, with 8:21 to play.

King finished with 18 points for Michigan, and Chris Webber had 11 points and 18 rebounds.

No. 1 Duke 89, No. 16 North Carolina 77--Christian Laettner scored 26 points in his last game before his home crowd, and the Blue Devils won an Atlantic Coast Conference game at Durham, N.C.

Laettner didn’t score for the first 14 minutes, but then made five consecutive three-pointers.

North Carolina stayed close to the Blue Devils (25-2, 14-2 ACC) by choking off the middle, and it held a 71-69 with 7:14 to play.

After a 7-0 run by Duke made the score 76-71, North Carolina’s Hubert Davis, who finished with a personal-best 35 points, made a jumper at 4:10 to get Tar Heels (19-8, 9-7) within 76-73. But they drew no closer in losing for the fifth time in six games.

Bobby Hurley sank three three-pointers to open the game and finished with 19 points. Thomas Hill added 18. Grant Hill returned for Duke after sitting out three games because of a sprained ankle and scored eight points.

No. 3 Kansas 97, No. 11 Missouri 89--The Jayhawks, the Big Eight’s worst free throw-shooting team, made a season-best 31 of 36 in beating the Tigers in a Big Eight game at Lawrence, Kan.

Kansas (23-4, 11-3), which had already clinched the conference regular-season title, swept the Tigers (20-7, 8-6) for a second consecutive year.

Missouri’s Anthony Peeler, the highest scoring guard in school history, closed out the regular season of his senior year with a career-high 43 points.

His fifth three-pointer cut Kansas’ lead to 91-89 with 45 seconds to play. But with 25 seconds left, Rex Walters made two free throws for a 93-89 Kansas lead.

After the game, Kansas Coach Roy Williams put an arm around Peeler. “I grabbed him and told him I’d been fortunate enough to work with Michael Jordan, James Worthy, Sam Perkins . . . and that was as good an exhibition I’d ever seen at any time,” said Williams, a former assistant at North Carolina.

Villanova 76, No. 24 Syracuse 56--Villanova sustained its late-season run at an NCAA bid with its sixth consecutive victory in a Big East game at Syracuse, N.Y.

Villanova (14-13, 11-7) will play Syracuse (18-9, 10-8) again Friday in the quarterfinals of the Big East tournament. The Wildcats need a victory to stay over .500, a prerequisite for the NCAA tournament.

Syracuse, which shot 22% in the first half and went scoreless for more than eight minutes, lost for the sixth time in its last eight games.

Lawrence Moten had 15 points to become Syracuse’s all-time leading freshman scorer. He has 500 points in 27 games, surpassing the 494 Billy Owens scored in 1988-1989.

OTHER GAMES

Albert Burditt tied a school record with six blocked shots and scored 15 points as Texas (21-10, 11-3) defeated Texas A&M;, 86-63, at Austin, Tex., to earn a share of the Southwest Conference title with Houston. The Longhorns, who defeated the Cougars twice this season, will be seeded No. 1 in the SWC tournament. The Longhorns and Aggies (6-21, 2-12) will meet again Friday in the opening round. Burditt, a 6-8 sophomore, increased his school record of blocked shots in a year to 69. . . . Matt Geiger scored 22 points and freshman Travis Best 21 and Georgia Tech (20-10, 8-8) never trailed during a 101-82 Atlantic Coast Conference victory over Clemson (14-13, 4-12) at Atlanta. Chris Whitney had seven three-pointers and 26 points for Clemson.

In conference tournament play, No. 25 Massachusetts (26-4) won its 10th in a row by beating Rutgers, 106-94, in the quarterfinals of the Atlantic 10 tournament at Philadelphia. Jim McCoy scored 25 for the Minutemen, who face Rhode Island (20-8) in a semifinal game tonight. Temple plays West Virginia in the other semifinal. . . . In the championship game of the Sun Belt tournament at Biloxi, Miss., Southwestern Louisiana (20-10) beat Louisiana Tech, 75-71, as Todd Hill scored 24. . . . East Tennessee State (23-6) won its fourth consecutive Southern Conference tournament with a 74-62 victory over Tennessee Chattanooga (23-7). . . . Tulsa (17-12) upset top-seeded Southern Illinois, 82-79, in the semifinals of the Missouri Valley Conference tournament at St. Louis. Southern Illinois (22-7) was the MVC’s regular season co-champion. In the other semifinal, Southwest Missouri State (22-7) beat Illinois State, 61-58, in overtime. . . . Popeye Jones scored 22 points as Murray State (17-12) beat Eastern Kentucky, 81-60, at Lexington, Ky., to earn the Ohio Valley Conference’s berth in the NCAA tournament.

League scoring leader Ricardo Leonard had a season-low eight points, but he put Old Dominion (14-14) ahead to stay and the Monarchs beat top-seeded Richmond, 62-58, in the semifinals of the Colonial Athletic Assn. tournament at Richmond, Va. The Spiders (22-7) had won eight games in a row and beaten Old Dominion in both regular-season meetings. In the other semifinal, William David had 21 points as James Madison gave Lefty Driesell his 600th college coaching victory by overpowering American, 81-57.