COLLEGE BASKETBALL ROUNDUP : Wallace Leads Syracuse Past No. 3 Arizona

Arizona couldn’t handle Syracuse’s John Wallace or figure out a way to deal with the Orangemen’s zone defense.

“We were very active in our zone,” Wallace said Saturday, after his 26-point, nine-rebound performance carried the No. 19 Orangemen to a 79-70 upset of No. 3 Arizona at Tucson.

“They started off having trouble with it, and weren’t hitting their shots, and there was no way we were going to go away from it until they started.”

Coach Jim Boeheim declined to say whether his team should be ranked in the Top Five despite its 9-0 record and domination of the Wildcats (8-1) at home.

“They’ll move us up just because we won a game on their homecourt, but I told the players it’s too early to get excited,” Boeheim said. “There’s 20 more games before we’ll even be able to think about what this one means.”

Syracuse led, 42-32, at halftime, and Arizona didn’t get any closer until the final minute.

Wallace scored 17 first-half points for the Orangemen.

Joseph Blair scored 18 points for Arizona.

No. 4 Kentucky 89, No. 25 Louisville 66--Tony Delk scored a season-high 30 points, including 12 in a row during a 14-1 run late in the first half that sparked Kentucky at Lexington, Ky.

Louisville (7-4) scored six consecutive points on Alvin Sims’ two dunks and Samaki Walker’s layup, closing an eight-point deficit to two with 3:34 to play in the half before Delk became hot for Kentucky (7-1).

Louisville eventually fell behind, 60-41, after Antoine Walker’s rebound basket with 10:40 to play and could not get closer than seven thereafter.

Sims led Louisville with 23 points.

No. 5 Memphis 96, Northeast Louisiana 76--Cedric Henderson had 30 points, including 24 in the first half, and five assists to lead Memphis at Memphis.

Henderson made 11 of 19 shots and was four of five from three-point range as the Tigers (7-0) finished with three players in double figures.

Paul Marshall led the Indians (1-6) with 19 points. Dennis Newton had 15 points and 10 rebounds and Alvin Edwards added 14 points.

No. 8 Connecticut 86, Fairfield 52--The Huskies outscored the Stags, 29-1, over the last 10 minutes of the first half and cruised the rest of the way at Storrs, Conn.

Ray Allen and Doron Sheffer combined for 33 points for Connecticut (8-1), which won its seventh in a row. Allen led the Huskies with 17 points and a career-high eight assists. Fairfield (6-2) was led by Greg Francis’ 16 points.

No. 10 Iowa 82, Morehead State 57--Russ Millard scored 12 points and Jess Settles added 11 and a career-high 17 rebounds at Iowa City to lead the Hawkeyes to their eighth consecutive victory.

Iowa (10-1) outrebounded the Eagles, 52-24.

Mark Kinnaird scored 25 of his 27 points in the first half for the Eagles (4-5). Kenyon Murray, Ryan Bowen and Chris Kingsbury each scored 10 points for Iowa.

No. 14 Illinois 83, No. 24 California 69--Kiwane Garris scored a season-high 23 points as the Illini built a 20-point first-half lead, then withstood an early second-half rally at Chicago.

Illinois’ 9-0 record is its best start since the 1989-90 season when it began 11-0.

Cal (4-2), which shot 37% and trailed, 41-30, in the first half, went on a 13-5 run and trimmed the deficit to 46-43 on a basket by Shareef Abdur-Rahim with 13:49 to play. But that was as close as the Bears could get.

Abdur-Rahim had a game-high 25 points, with 14 rebounds and two blocks.

OTHERS

Charles Gelatt made a jump-hook as the buzzer sounded to give DePaul (7-3) an 84-82 victory over Indiana (5-5) at Bloomington, Ind. It was the Hoosiers’ first nonconference loss at home since 1984. The lead changed hands 16 times in the second half--10 times in the final nine minutes. . . . Antonio Granger scored a career-high 20 points to lead six Boston College players in double figures as the Eagles coasted to a 106-67 victory over Hartford (1-7) at Newton, Mass. The Eagles (6-2) never trailed en route to Jim O’Brien’s 200th victory (against 199 losses) in 10 years as head coach. . . . Johnny Rhodes had a school-record nine steals and Maryland (5-3) recorded its 20th consecutive home victory by winning, 104-79, over American (4-4) at College Park, Md.

Zendon Hamilton scored 11 of his 14 points in the second half, including seven during a 22-6 run as St. John’s (4-3) posted a 66-47 victory over Fordham (1-5) at New York. Hamilton also had a game-high 10 rebounds. . . . Freshman Andrius Jurkunas made a three-point basket and a key block in overtime to lead Clemson (8-0) to a 66-52 overtime victory over Miami (6-2) at Miami. The Tigers outscored Miami, 14-0, in overtime. . . . Pat Bradley scored five consecutive points during a 14-2 run that helped Arkansas (6-3) post an 86-67 victory over Tennessee State (1-6) at Fayetteville, Ark. . . . Pittsburgh (4-3) scored 28 consecutive points early in the game and went on to post a 101-59 victory over Prairie View (3-7) at Pittsburgh.

Austin Bates came off the bench and scored a career-high 20 points to lead Vanderbilt (9-2) to a 70-56 victory over Middle Tennessee State (4-4) at Nashville, Tenn. . . . Mark Jones scored 17 of his game-high 19 points in the first half as Minnesota (6-4) ended a three-game losing streak with a 86-63 victory over Sacramento State (3-6) at Sacramento. . . . Phil Hickey made two free throws with five seconds left to give Notre Dame (3-4) a 72-70 victory over Xavier (3-5) at Cincinnati. . . . Providence (4-3) got 18 points from Austin Croshere and posted an 80-74 victory over Boston University (3-4) at Providence, R.I. . . . Senior reserve guard Todd Foster scored a career-high 21 points and Purdue (8-2) held off a final-minute rally to earn a 78-76 victory over Seton Hall (3-4) at East Rutherford, N.J. . . . Brian Green scored 29 points and Daniel Watts added 24 as Nevada (6-3) posted an 83-66 victory over San Diego (4-4) at San Diego.