ACC Games Are Becoming Whistle Stops

Maryland’s excitable coach, Gary Williams, spent five minutes 51 seconds of Thursday night’s Atlantic Coast Conference game against top-ranked Duke pacing the sideline.

Williams spent the rest of the game at Durham, N.C., listening to his No. 23 Terrapins’ 86-59 loss on the radio in the locker room after being ejected.

What Williams had seen--and had later heard--was another ACC game in which officials played a major role.

One night after Clemson was called for an ACC-record 41 fouls in a nine-point loss to No. 2 North Carolina at Chapel Hill, N.C., Maryland received four technicals in the first seven minutes, including the two that led to Williams’ ejection. Forty-nine fouls were called in the game.

“It’s really a bad feeling because you ask your players to work really hard and do a lot of things for the good of the team and obviously what I did wasn’t for the good of the team,” Williams said. “I feel bad but I also feel frustrated because of the situation.”

Maryland, 12-7 overall and 5-4 in the ACC, was behind 18-10 when Williams exited.

The technicals led to 13 points and helped Duke (19-1, 8-0) take a 37-12 lead which was increased to 57-30 by halftime.

Earlier this week, a letter was sent to member schools from the ACC office in Greensboro, N.C., warning about recent “unacceptable” bench and court behavior. Officials Larry Rose, Sam Croft and Zelton Steed carried out that warning to the letter Thursday night.

“[The officials] are definitely trying to clean it up,” Duke’s Ricky Price said. “There were no warnings, they were just throwing Ts. Fortunately, the coaches and the captains told us to keep our mouths shut and just play and if there was a bad call, just suck it up and run down the court.

“I saw that Clemson-Carolina game and all those fouls called, but I have never seen anything like this in my life. I’m just glad I’m on the team that capitalized on all the points.”

The first Maryland technical was called by Rose against Sarunas Jasikevicius for arguing a non-foul call on a screen. Seconds later, Williams got a technical for abusive language.

“I warned Gary three times about cursing and he continued,” Rose said. “[The first technical] was the result of excessive language and being out of the coaching box.”

Trajan Langdon made four free throws, and less than a minute later Williams thrown out of the game by Croft for arguing a call.

Assistant Billy Hahn took over for Williams, but the Blue Devils went on a 19-2 run and the Terrapins never recovered. In 1995, Maryland defeated Duke after Hahn had taken over for Williams when he had pneumonia.

The victory was the 10th in a row for Duke and its 17th straight at home. The Blue Devils are also off to the second-best start in school history to the 1991-92 national championship team that began 21-1.

No. 3 Utah 62, Texas El Paso 56--Andre Miller scored all of his 14 points in the second half to lead the struggling Utes (18-0, 6-0) past the Miners (11-7, 2-4) in a Western Athletic Conference game at Salt Lake City.

With No. 4 Stanford’s loss to No. 6 Arizona, Utah is the only unbeaten Division I team. The Utes also set a school record for consecutive victories and increased their home-court streak to 17.

In a ceremony before the game, Utah retired Keith Van Horn’s No. 44. Van Horn, now with the New Jersey Nets, is the career scoring leader for Utah and the WAC.

Michael Doleac, Utah’s leading scorer this season, had 20 points.

No. 10 Purdue 89, No. 19 Michigan 82--The Boilermakers (18-4, 6-2) attempted 16 more free throws than in Wolverines (15-6, 5-3) in compiling a decisive 21-6 scoring advantage from the line that proved decisive in the Big Ten game at Ann Arbor, Mich.

Purdue has made more free throws (416) than its opponents have attempted (390) this season.

Michigan shot 50.7% but committed 23 turnovers and was able to attempt only eight free throws, making six. Purdue had 13 turnovers.

Jaraan Cornell had 28 points as one of four double-figure scorers for Purdue, which trails Big Ten leader Michigan State by one game.

No. 14 New Mexico 72, Brigham Young 54--The Lobos (15-3, 5-1) used an 8-0 run to take a 28-23 halftime lead, then made 60% of their shots in the second half of the WAC game at Provo, Utah.

Clayton Shields had 24 points for New Mexico, which plays Utah at Albuquerque on Sunday.

Brigham Young (6-14, 1-5) shot 37% for the game and its leading scorer Ron Selleaze had 10 points--seven below his average.

No. 18 Cincinnati 67, Louisville 61--The Bearcats (16-3, 7-1) made 10 of their first 12 shots, then overcame poor free-throw shooting (four for 15) in the final minutes to defeat the Cardinals (8-13, 2-5) in the Conference USA game at Cincinnati.

Louisville, which is having its worst season since 1990-91 when it was 14-16, shot 36% and had 22 turnovers.

Michael Horton had seven of Cincinnati’s school-record 16 steals.

Massachusetts 74, No. 21 Rhode Island 57--Ajmal Basit came off the bench to score 15 points and grab a career-high 19 rebounds as the Minutemen (15-5, 7-0) increased their winning streak to nine in the Atlantic 10 game at Providence, R.I.

Massachusetts’ top two big men, Tyrone Weeks and Lari Ketner, each picked up his fourth foul in the first five minutes of the second half, but the 6-foot-9 Basit filled in brilliantly in playing a season-high 34 minutes.

Monty Mack had a game-high 22 points for the Minutemen, who have defeated the Rams (13-5, 5-2) the last 10 games.

OTHER GAMES

Geno Carlisle had 20 points to lead California (8-8, 4-4) to an 82-77 Pacific 10 victory over Arizona State (13-8, 3-5) at Berkeley. Mike Batiste had 15 points and 16 rebounds for Arizona State. . . . Bonzi Wells had 39 points for Ball State (15-3, 9-1) in a 90-82 Mid-American Conference victory over Marshall (7-10, 3-7) at Muncie, Ind. Carlton King had 36 points for Marshall. . . . Michael Olowokandi had 31 points and 15 rebounds for Pacific (12-8, 5-2) in a 76-63 Big West Conference victory over Idaho (9-8, 3-4) at Moscow, Idaho.