NCAA SOUTHEAST REGIONAL : Trying to Be Like Mike, North Carolina Wins

Seeking to be lookalikes of one of their more famous alumni, some of North Carolina’s heads were bare. For a change, the Tar Heel cupboard wasn’t.

Serge Zwikker came off North Carolina’s usually unproductive bench to alter Murray State’s game plan and shots with his 7-foot-2 stature, rallying the second-seeded Tar Heels to an 80-70 victory Friday.

Zwikker scored a career-high 19 points and the recently shorn Jerry Stackhouse sliced through the Racers’ full-court pressure defense for 25, enabling the Tar Heels to withstand Rasheed Wallace’s ineffectiveness and a six-point second-half deficit.

“They all wanted to be (Michael) Jordans,” Coach Dean Smith said of his newly shaven Tar Heels. “What they don’t realize is (the balding) Jordan has no choice.”

North Carolina (25-5) also got help when a three-point halftime deficit, 44-41, was cut to 42-41 after officials talked in their locker room and decided that a shot by Murray Sate’s William Moore, initially counted, had been launched after the buzzer.

When Wallace couldn’t go any longer on his sprained left ankle early in the second half, Smith had to go to Zwikker, the seldom-effective reserve center who hadn’t scored more than eight points in any of his last 24 games.

Zwikker and Stackhouse combined for 25 of the Tar Heels’ 39 second-half points and led an 8-0 run that finally put away Murray State (21-9).

Iowa State 64, Florida 61--Julius Michalik made his last five shots and led a 13-2 game-ending run that sent home Florida, a Final Four team last season.

Florida (17-13) led, 59-51, before collapsing.

Michalik, a 6-foot-10 forward from Slovakia, hit two three-point baskets in that run--including one that gave Iowa State a 62-61 lead with 1:01 to play--and finished with 17 points for the seventh-seeded Cyclones (23-10).

The Gators’ Dan Cross missed two three-point shots in the closing seconds.

No. 22 Georgetown 68, Xavier 63--Allen Iverson has changed nearly everything about Hoya basketball in his freshman season. Maybe he’ll change their luck in the tournament, too.

Iverson and Eric Myles kept Georgetown from getting buried in the first half before the Hoyas’ size and depth wore down player-depleted Xavier.

Georgetown (20-9) hasn’t advanced past the second round since 1989.

Iverson scored 16 points despite playing most of the second half in foul trouble. When he went out, Myles stepped in to hit four three-point shots for 12 points--he averages only 5.6--after Xavier opened a 28-21 first-half lead.

The Musketeers (23-5) played much of the first half on emotion after Coach Skip Prosser refused to use seniors Pete Sears and DeWaun Rose, who were involved in a bar fight last week.

Sears and Rose both face charges in the case but have pleaded innocent.

Sears, who averages 12.9, had started all but one Xavier game and Rose, a grad student who left a public relations job to rejoin the Musketeers after Prosser was hired.