North Carolina Regains Top Spot

North Carolina and Duke, which share one of college basketball’s greatest rivalries, continued sharing the No. 1 spot in the AP poll.

They met last week in a 1-vs.-2 showdown and North Carolina’s 97-73 victory moved the Tar Heels back into the top spot Monday.

Duke was No. 1 for two weeks before its loss to Michigan opened the way for North Carolina to take the top spot for five weeks. When the Tar Heels lost to Maryland, Duke moved back into No. 1 for three weeks, until this latest switch.

North Carolina (24-1), which followed the victory over Duke with a 107-100 double-overtime victory over Georgia Tech, received 68 of 70 first-place votes and 1,748 points from the national media panel.

Duke (21-2), which rebounded from the loss with a 65-49 victory over North Carolina State on Sunday, had 1,624 points, 16 more than Arizona (21-3), which had the other first-place votes.

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Three New Mexico basketball players, including leading scorer Clayton Shields, were riding in a vehicle from which a gunshot was fired early Sunday in downtown Albuquerque, police said Monday.

Nobody was injured and no arrests were made, officers said.

According to a police report, Shields and teammates Damion Walker and Roland Hannah were riding in the car shortly after 2 a.m. Sunday. The incident occurred five hours after No. 11 New Mexico defeated Colorado State, 77-62.

The police report said Kevin Ned, a former New Mexico football player who also was in the vehicle, told officers he fired one shot from a .22-caliber pistol. Police who heard the shot stopped the vehicle with Walker at the wheel.

During a search of the vehicle, police also found a loaded 9-millimeter Glock pistol. Officers said Shields told them that weapon was his.

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Nevada Las Vegas center Keon Clark was suspended indefinitely for violating team rules, the school announced.

Clark, a senior, was suspended for 11 games by the NCAA earlier this season because he accepted a trip to Florida from a registered sports agent. UNLV would not say what rules Clark violated.

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Junior guard Marcus Bullard, who was a key player on Mississippi State’s Final Four team in 1996 before spending nearly a year in prison for pistol-whipping another student, quit the NAIA-division Auburn Montgomery basketball team.

The Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser reported in its Tuesday editions that Bullard was arrested early Sunday morning in his dormitory room and charged with second-degree unlawful possession of marijuana.

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Tennessee held its customary spot at No. 1 in the Associated Press women’s poll, which for the first time in more than four years didn’t include Georgia.

Georgia, which went to the Final Four in 1995 and 1996, dropped out of the Top 25 after Sunday’s 90-77 loss at Alabama.