North Carolina beats Maryland in 2 overtimes

Posted January 26, 2008 10:00 pm

Associated Press

In the days following a loss at top-ranked Connecticut, LaToya Pringle felt herself fighting through her quiet personality to become more demanding of her North Carolina teammates in practice.

But she figured she owed them a lot more than just words.

"If you're going to talk a game," she said, "you've got to back it up."

Pringle did that Saturday, scoring 12 of her career-high 31 points in the second overtime to help the third-ranked Tar Heels beat No. 4 Maryland 97-86 in Chapel Hill, N.C.

Erlana Larkins had 25 points and 18 rebounds for the Tar Heels (18-2, 5-0 Atlantic Coast Conference), who bounced back from Monday's loss to the Huskies with a thrilling home victory.

Pringle made the overtime-forcing 3-point play, finished 11-for-16 from the field, and pulled down 9 rebounds and blocked 3 shots in 40 minutes. She did all that despite taking an elbow to that cut open her lip midway through the second half, forcing her to change out of her bloodied No. 30 jersey and don the No. 55 with no name on the back.

"I don't think I'm comfortable with being vocal, but (after UConn) I kind of embraced it," she said. "I don't know what got into me. I've really been trying to motivate my team. If something's going wrong, I try to get it straight."

After Larkins knocked down 2 free throws for the lead just a few seconds into the second overtime, the 6-foot-3 Pringle went to work. She scored inside off a feed from Larkins and knocked down a jumper in the lane off a feed from Jessica Breland before scoring on a putback to make it 87-82 with 1:52 left.

Crystal Langhorne had 23 points to lead the Terrapins (22-2, 6-1).

Stanford 72, California 52: Candice Wiggins scored 28 points, JJ Hones made a career-high four 3-pointers, and No. 7 Stanford (17-3, 7-2) showed it won't give up its seven-year reign as Pac-10 champions easily, beating No. 8 California (17-3, 8-1) in Stanford, Calif.

Rutgers 63, Villanova 54: Epiphanny Prince scored 19 points and fifth-ranked Rutgers (17-2, 7-0 Big East) pulled away late to win its 12th straight game with a victory over visiting Villanova (12-8, 2-5).

Baylor 76, Nebraska 56: Angela Tisdale scored 15 of her 17 points before halftime when sixth-ranked Baylor (18-1, 6-0 Big 12) erased an early 10-point deficit and went on to beat visiting Nebraska (15-5, 4-2).