North Carolina Beats Wyoming

Melvin Scott scored a career-high 20 points and Raymond Felton had 14 assists to lead North Carolina past Wyoming, 90-74, in the second round of the NIT Monday night at Chapel Hill, N.C.

North Carolina (19-15) is trying to reach 20 wins for the 32nd time in the last 33 years. The Tar Heels went 8-20 last season, the worst record in school history, ending a streak of 27 straight trips to the NCAA tournament.

Donta Richardson scored 20 for Wyoming (21-11).

In other NIT games: Mike Sweetney had 26 points and grabbed 11 rebounds to lead Georgetown (17-14) to a 67-58 victory over Providence (18-14) at Providence, R.I.... B.J. Elder’s turnaround jumper with three-tenths of a second left lifted Georgia Tech (16-14) to a 79-78 victory over Iowa (17-14) at Iowa City.... Marcus Hatten scored 30 points to help St. John’s (18-13) rally from an eight-point second-half deficit in a 73-63 victory over Virginia (16-16) at New York.... Maurice Hargrow scored 22 points and Ben Johnson had 18 to lead Minnesota (18-12) to an 84-70 victory over Hawaii (19-12) at Minneapolis.

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Texas sophomore T.J. Ford and Connecticut junior Diana Taurasi won the Naismith Awards as the top college basketball players in the country.

Ford, a 5-foot-10 guard, leads the Longhorns in scoring (15.0), assists (7.4), and steals (1.96) per game.

Taurasi, a 6-foot guard from Chino, leads the Huskies with 16.5 points, 4.7 assists and 1.2 blocks per game this season.

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New Mexico sophomore center Chad Bell quit the team, saying he wants to transfer to a school where he will get more playing time.

The 6-foot-11 Bell played about 11 minutes a game this season and averaged 1.5 points and 1.6 rebounds. His best statistic was 24 blocked shots. Bell is from Inglewood and played at Westchester High.

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Murray State coach Tevester Anderson retired after five seasons with the Racers. Anderson, 66, went 103-52 and led Murray State to two Ohio Valley Conference championships and two NCAA tournament appearances.