SPORTSWIRE: O'Bannon pours in 37 as Bruins tame Blue Devils

Brunson lights up GW; Hoyas win Big East showdown; Sixers lose; Penny slams Bulls The Bruins (21-2) are expected to move into the top spot Monday for the first time since January 1994, when they held that position for one week. Chants of ''We're No. 1! We're No. 1'' rang throughout Pauley Pavilion with four minutes remaining. UCLA (21-2) is coming off its best stretch of the season, having won five games in 11 days, including home victories against both Arizona schools that solidified its Pac-10 Conference lead. Ed O'Bannon took over the game during a critical stretch midway through the second half when Duke had closed within four points. O'Bannon scored 11 of the Bruins' next 15, giving them a 76-63 lead with 5 minutes, 48 seconds to play. The Blue Devils (12-15) once got to 65-62 on Trajan Langdon's three-pointer with 10:17 remaining, but UCLA quickly built its advantage to 10. · Temple 76, George Washington 60 WASHINGTON -- Rick Brunson scored a career-high 36 points and had 11 rebounds yesterday as Temple held on in the closing minutes for a 76-60 victory over George Washington. Brunson also tied an Atlantic 10 Conference record for three-point baskets with nine. The Owls (17-8 overall, 10-5 in the A-10) have won three straight and eight of their last nine, and moved into a second place tie with Gerge Washington with one game remaining for each club. Temple never trailed, roaring out to a 24-14 lead with 8:30 left in the first half, and increased that advantage to 40-25 at intermission. After the lead grew to 48-30 with 13:37 remaining in the game on a basket by Derrick Battie, the Colonials (18-11, 10-5) began their comeback bid, going on a 22-9 run to pull within 57-52 on a short jumperby Vaughn Jones with 5:14 left to play. However, Brunson's record-tying three-pointer with 4:46 remaining choked off the rally, and Levan Alston followed with a pair of free throws with 4:15 left to increase the lead to 62-52. The Owls outscored George Washington 12-6 over the next 3:06 to wrap up the victory. · Georgetown 81, No. 17 Syracuse 78 SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- For one game, at least, the old Othella Harrington was back. Harrington scored a season-high 27 points, including 12 in a key eight-minute span, as Georgetown registered its second upset of the week -- an 81-78 victory over slumping No. 17 Syracuse yesterday. Syracuse (18-7, 11-5 Big East), blew a 14-point first-half lead but came back to take a 71-68 lead with 3:52 to play after falling behind by 11 in the second half. But Allen Iverson scored on a layup and then came back down court to hit a four-foot jumper that put Georgetown ahead 72-71. After Iverson's scores, Georgetown (17-7, 10-6) pushed its lead to 78-73 on Jerome Williams' underhand layup with 1 minute to play. · No. 10 Wake Forest 66, No. 11 Virginia 63 WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- Scooter Banks scored 14 of his 15 points in the second half, and made two clutch plays in the stretch as No. 10 Wake Forest took a 66-63 victory over No. 11 Virginia yesterday. The Demon Deacons (19-5, 10-4) drew to one game behind Maryland and North Carolina for first place in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Virginia (19-7, 11-4) fell out of a first-place tie with the Tar Heels and the Terrapins, trailing those teams by one-half game. Banks' binge helped stave off a Virginia comeback in which the Cavaliers get a brief lead at 42-41 on a Jason Williford basket at 14:04. Randolph Childress got a jumper and Tim Duncan, who had 20 points and 15 rebounds, got a driving dunk and the Demon Deacons never trailed again. From there, Banks scored 10 of Wake Forest's next 14 points, but Virginia battled to 64-63 after a Harold Deane three-pointer with 1:24 to play. After Childress, the Cavaliers worked for the last shot. Deane drove the lane but had the ball stripped by Banks. Curtis Staples recovered tbe ball, but fired up a jumper that was short. Duncan grabbed the rebound. Tony Rutland hit two free throws for the final margin. Knicks 104, 76ers 99 NEW YORK -- Patrick Ewing had 32 points, 18 rebounds and four blocked shots last night, and the New York Knicks found their intensity in the second half in rallying past the Philadelphia 76ers 104-99. Ewing had his fourth straight 30-point game as the Knicks, who have won 15 of their last 20, got a lift from the return of power forward Charles Oakley. Oakley had surgery on a dislocated toe Dec. 27 and played for the first time since Christmas. Charles Smith added 14 points for New York, while Hubert Davis had 13 and Anthony Mason had 15 rebounds and 12 points. Oakley, activated from the injury list before the game, got a big cheer from the Madison Square Garden crowd when he entered the game with 2:25 left in the first quarter. He finished with seven points on 3-for-8 shooting and had nine rebounds. After a flat first half, the Knicks came out hard in the second half and led by as many as 15 points in the final quarter. The 76ers, who have been hit hard by injuries and have lost eight of their last nine, got Clarence Weatherspoon and B.J. Tyler back. Weatherspoon, who had been out with a sprained right ankle, led Philadelphia with 26 points in 41 minutes. Sharone Wright added 13 before fouling out with 5:06 to play. · Magic 105, Bulls 103 ORLANDO, Fla. -- With Shaquille O'Neal serving a one-game suspension, Anfernee Hardaway moved centerstage for the Orlando Magic yesterday and delivered his most compelling performance of the season. The All-Star guard's breakaway dunk with less than a second remaining capped a career-high, 39-point effort as Orlando rallied for a 105-103 victory over the Chicago Bulls. O'Neal, the NBA's leading scorer, sat out after being suspended without pay for an altercation with Boston's Eric Montross on Friday night. The Magic also played without Horace Grant (back spasms) and lost starter Donald Royal to an ankle sprain in the first quarter. Hardaway came through, though, making 17 of 25 shots. He picked up a loose ball just above Chicago's foul line and raced to the other end to score the winning points with seven-tenths of a second left on the clock. Nick Anderson made the play possible, slapping the ball away from Chicago's Toni Kukoc, who broke free for a layup with 7.1 seconds left only to be denied what would been a go-ahead basket because the Bulls' Scottie Pippen had called a timeout just before Kukoc took a pass from Pete Myers. Orlando trailed the entire second half, squandering three opportunities to tie the game before Dennis Scott made two free throws to make it 103-103 with 27 seconds left. The Bulls ran 19 seconds off the shot clock before calling the timeout that cost them the chance to take the lead. Unseeded Thomas Enqvist followed his upset of No. 2 Andre Agassi with a comeback win yesterday over defending champion Michael Chang to win the U.S. Indoor tennis tournament at the Spectrum. The 20-year-old Swede picked up $110,000 for his fourth career title, losing the first set 0-6 before coming back to win the final two, 6-4, 6-0. Coming off his three-set, 2 1/2-hour defeat of Agassi in the semifinals, Enqvist looked stiff in the first set. His high-octane serve was erratic and his groundstrokes were flat. Enqvist showed some life to open the second set by serving four aces at more than 115 miles an hour in the first game. He followed with two breaks and held to take a 5-0 lead. Chang broke back twice, survived three set points in the eighth game and got to 5-4.

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