Tar Heels' victory mighty tall order

Tyler Hansbrough stormed down the lane with that familiar, focused "Psycho T" look in his eye. Nobody was going to stop him -- not even the tallest player in college basketball.

Hansbrough scored 23 points and started top-ranked North Carolina's decisive rally with a momentum-shifting dunk over 7-foot-7 Kenny George in a 93-81 victory over visiting North Carolina-Asheville on Wednesday night.

"Everybody on the team is like, 'Who's going to try to dunk (on George)?' " Hansbrough said. "It definitely was in the back of my mind."

Wayne Ellington scored 19 points, Ty Lawson had 17 and reserve Danny Green had 12 of his 14 in the first half for North Carolina (16-0), which never trailed in completing its first perfect nonconference regular season since 1998 and just its fifth in 50 years.

"The nonconference schedule's over with now -- congratulations," North Carolina coach Roy Williams said. "Now we've got 15 straight (Atlantic Coast Conference) games where we've got to raise the level of our play."

Bryan Smithson had 25 points and K.J. Garland added 16 for UNC Asheville (11-4).

Memphis 99, E. Carolina 58: Freshman Derrick Rose scored 19 points, and No. 2 Memphis (14-0, 1-0) overcame a somewhat lackluster start to beat visiting East Carolina (6-8, 0-1) in the Conference USA opener for both teams. Darrell Jenkins and John Fields both had 11 points for the Pirates.

Tenn. 85, Mississippi 83: Tyler Smith hit a layup with 4.2 seconds to play, and host No. 8 Tennessee (13-1, 1-0) handed No. 16 Mississippi (13-1, 0-1) its first loss of the season in the Southeastern Conference opener for both teams.

Tyler Smith and JaJuan Smith both had 21 points for Tennessee, while Chris Warren led Mississippi with 24 points.

Ohio St. 79, Iowa 48: David Lighty and Othello Hunter each scored 14 points to lead host Ohio State (12-3, 3-0, Big Ten) past Iowa, pushing the Buckeyes' winning streak to eight. Tony Freeman scored a game-high 21 points for Iowa (7-9, 0-3).