COLLEGE BASKETBALL ROUNDUP : Smith Wins No. 759 With Tar Heels

North Carolina Coach Dean Smith moved into a tie for third place on the victory list Tuesday night with No. 759 as the No. 6 Tar Heels beat Maryland, 77-63, at College Park, Md.

North Carolina overcame an early 11-point deficit to move half a game ahead of Florida State atop the Atlantic Coast Conference standings. Eric Montross led the Tar Heels (19-3, 8-2) with 17 points and George Lynch had 12.

Exree Hipp scored 16 for Maryland (10-10, 1-9), which has lost nine of its last 11 games.

Smith, 61, pulled even with former Coach Ed Diddle, who won 759 games in 42 seasons with Western Kentucky, and moved within eight of second-place Hank Iba. The NCAA list includes head coaches with at least 10 years at Division I schools.

No. 19 Seton Hall 91, No. 17 Pittsburgh 73--The usual names in a Seton Hall victory had off nights, so Arturas Karnishovas and Luther Wright stepped in.

As Terry Dehere and Jerry Walker struggled, Karnishovas had a career-high 32 points and Wright’s 16 points were his most ever in a Big East Conference game as the Pirates won at East Rutherford, N.J.

Karnishovas, who was nine for 13 from the field, finished with 13 rebounds and Wright had nine as the Pirates finished with a 49-38 rebounding lead.

Seton Hall (17-6, 7-4) won despite the performance of Dehere, who made one of nine shots during the first half, and Walker, who missed all six of his shots during the first half.

The Panthers (14-5, 7-5) were led by Jerry McCullough’s 15 points and Eric Mobley’s 10 points and 12 rebounds.

OTHER GAMES

Donyell Marshall, Kevin Ollie and Donny Marshall had 16 points each and Scott Burrell added 15 as Connecticut (10-8, 5-6) defeated Villanova (7-11, 3-8), 82-62, in a Big East Conference game at Storrs, Conn. . . . Shawnelle Scott scored 15 points, going seven for 10 from the field, to help keep St. John’s (13-6, 8-3) atop the Big East with a 73-64 victory over Providence (10-9, 3-8) at Providence, R.I. . . . Monty Williams scored a career-high 32 points, including 21 during the first half, to lead Notre Dame (9-11) to a 79-69 victory over Dayton (3-18) at Dayton, Ohio. . . Tom Kleinschmidt scored a career-high 35 points to lead DePaul (12-10) to a 90-79 victory over Detroit Mercy (12-7) at Rosemont, Ill. . . . Tim Mason triggered a second-half rally with seven points during an 11-2 run and Southern Methodist (8-1, 15-5) strengthened its grip on first place in the Southwest Conference with a 78-75 victory over Texas Tech (11-8, 3-5) at Dallas.