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UNC holds off Maryland

Reyshawn Terry, right, of the North Carolina Tar Heels dunks past teammate Tyler Hansbrough, left, and Travis Garrison of the Maryland Terrapins during second-half action at Comcast Center in College Park, Maryland, on Thursday. UNC defeated Maryland 77-62. PHOTO: AFP

Reyshawn Terry scored 20 points, David Noel had 19 points and 12 rebounds, and North Carolina used a relentless defense to shut down Maryland 77-62 on Thursday night.

Tyler Hansbrough had 15 points and eight rebounds for the Tar Heels (13-5, 4-3 Atlantic Coast Conference), who limited Maryland to 22 points in the second half.

Terry scored seven points during an 11-2 run that gave the defending national champions a 57-48 lead with 8:18 remaining. After Maryland closed to 57-54, a dunk by Terry, a 3-pointer by Danny Green and a basket by Hansbrough pushed the margin to 10.

Nik Caner-Medley scored 15 points for the Terrapins (14-6, 4-3), who came in averaging an ACC-best 82.7 points per game. Maryland shot only 35 percent from the floor and went 3-for-16 from 3-point range.

The loss stalled Gary Williams' bid to supplant Lefty Driesell as Maryland's winningest coach. Williams has been tied with Driesell at 348 wins since Jan. 25.

D.J. Strawberry, who was held scoreless Saturday in a loss at Temple, rebounded with 14 points against the Tar Heels. But all those points came in the first half.

North Carolina started the second half with an 8-2 run to take a 46-42, but two straight baskets by Caner-Medley tied it with 15:20 to go. Neither team scored again until Terry hit a 3-pointer with 13 minutes left, and the junior forward added a follow-shot to give the Tar Heels a five-point lead.

After Will Bowers scored for Maryland, Hansbrough made a tough layup in traffic, Terry hit a baseline jumper and Noel soared in for a dunk that made it 57-48.

Noel scored 15, Strawberry had 14, and a first half that featured nine lead-changes and four ties ended with the Terrapins up 40-38.

Both teams struggled at the outset. Maryland missed nine of 11 shots, but remained close because the Tar Heels committed five turnovers and made only two baskets over that span.

Mike Jones and Strawberry then hit successive 3-pointers in a 9-0 run that put the Terrapins up 14-8. With 12 minutes gone, North Carolina trailed 20-17 despite averaging a turnover a minute.

It was 28-25 before Hansbrough hit a baseline jumper, his first points of the game. Noel followed with a 3-pointer and Quentin Thomas added a layup to put the Tar Heels ahead by four.

Yao Ming edged Kobe Bryant as the top votegetter in fan balloting for the 55th NBA All-Star game, and Shaquille O'Neal became the fifth player in league history to earn 13 consecutive selections for the midseason showcase.

Yao and Tracy McGrady give the host Houston Rockets two starters in the Feb. 19 game. They were joined on the Western Conference squad by Bryant, San Antonio's Tim Duncan and reigning league MVP Steve Nash of Phoenix -- who will be a first-time All-Star starter.

Cleveland's LeBron James was the top Eastern Conference votegetter, edging O'Neal by 15,155 votes. It's the second straight All-Star trip for James, who says he's still drawing motivation from being snubbed during his rookie season.

"What happened two years ago, that really motivated me to come out and play even harder," James said.

Added Cleveland coach Mike Brown: "It's an honor to be around him, it's an honor to work with him and I'm excited for him and his family because he definitely deserves it."

Philadelphia's Allen Iverson, Indiana's Jermaine O'Neal and first-time All-Star starter Dwyane Wade of Miami rounded out the East's starting five.

"Hopefully, I can become a staple, like my teammate Shaq," Wade said. "I'm grateful that NBA fans think so highly of my game."

Jermaine O'Neal will miss the game with an injury; the Detroit Pistons' Rasheed Wallace finished third in the voting among East forwards, meaning he'll likely be a strong candidate for that starting spot. But no Pistons were voted into the starting lineup, despite the team's 38-6 record -- the NBA's best by a wide margin.

Yao edged Bryant by 71,107 votes for the top overall spot in the balloting, despite missing 21 games following surgery to clean out an infection in his left big toe. It's the fourth All-Star trip for the 2.29M center from China and the eighth for Bryant, who leads the NBA in scoring and had an 81-point effort -- the second-biggest night in NBA history -- last month in the Los Angeles Lakers' win over Toronto.

Yao finished with 2,342,738 votes; Bryant had 2,271,631 in the closest finish among the top two players in All-Star balloting since Vince Carter, then of Toronto, edged Miami's Alonzo Mourning by 33,385 votes in 2000.

Nash, meanwhile, is a first-time starter after improving the numbers that earned him MVP honors a year ago. Nash is averaging a career-high 19.1 points and an NBA-leading 11.3 assists this season, the first player since Magic Johnson in 1990-1991 to average as much in both categories.

He finished with 1,818,230 votes for the second Western guard spot behind Bryant. McGrady had 1,818,932 votes to lead the West's forwards, while Duncan had 1,518,796 -- 39,410 more than Minnesota's Kevin Garnett, who was a starter seven times in his first eight All-Star trips.

Detroit's Flip Saunders will coach the East and Dallas' Avery Johnson will coach the West. The All-Star reserves will be announced on Feb. 9.

James got 2,207,697 votes -- about 1 million more than Jermaine O'Neal for the other forward spot on the East roster. And although James said there may be a time when his excitement level over the All-Star Game dips a bit, he thanked the fans for their backing.

``Without them, there's no us,'' James said.

Iverson had 2,062,206 votes and Wade had 1,499,664 for the guard slots, and Shaquille O'Neal had 2,192,542 to easily outdistance Detroit's Ben Wallace for center.

When Epiphanny Prince broke the high school girls' scoring record with 113 points on Wednesday, she had more than basketball immortality on her mind.

Prince, a 5-foot-9 senior guard from Murry Bergtraum in Lower Manhattan, invoked the memory of Kobe Bryant's 81-point game on Jan. 22 for the Los Angeles Lakers in toppling Cheryl Miller's record of 105 points in 1982.

"When my teammates told me how many points I had after the third quarter, I was thinking about Kobe," Prince said on Thursday during a news conference at the school. "Kobe is my favorite player, and I thought I had a real chance to catch him, so that's what I did. Everyone was calling me 113 today in school."

Prince played all 32 minutes against Brandeis, scoring 59 points in the first half to give the Lady Blazers a 74-11 lead. She converted 54 of 60 shots from the field, including four 3-pointers, and one free throw in Bergtraum's 137-32 victory. Prince's hand was so hot that her opponents were laughing out loud.

"I was saying silly things to them during the game, making them laugh," said Prince, whose previous high was 51 points against Frederick Douglass on Dec. 15. "They're my friends, so they didn't feel bad about what was going on. The shots I was putting up were all going in. It was just one of those things."

Before the game, Prince complained to coach Ed Grezinsky about the caliber of competition in the Public Schools Athletic League. Bergtraum (19-1), ranked No. 2 in the country by USA Today, has won seven consecutive city championships and often overwhelms opponents. But Grezinsky demanded that Prince, who has signed a letter of intent to attend Rutgers, play hard and challenge herself.

Thursday, a brigade of reporters hovered around Prince, much as they did last year when she was accused of assaulting and menacing a 13-year-old girl. She was acquitted of those charges but was found guilty of harassment and was ordered to perform 15 days of community service.
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