U.S./World Sports category, Page 352

DES MOINES, Iowa — It seems as though coach Tom Izzo has Michigan State poised to make a Final Four run nearly every year. The Spartans need to focus on surviving the first weekend this time around. It has been four years since Michigan State (28-6) made it to the...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — As the Kentucky Wildcats went through a casual shootaround the day before their opening game of the NCAA Tournament, complete with a blaring band and thousands of blue-clad fans watching every move, something was missing. Their best player. PJ Washington, a rare sophomore amid John Calipari’s latest...

HARTFORD, Conn. — Villanova is coming into the NCAA Tournament this year from an unfamiliar angle. The defending national champions bring the cache that comes with two NCAA titles in the last three seasons, along with a couple of key senior leaders who have a wealth of postseason experience and,...

SALT LAKE CITY — Gonzaga enters the NCAA Tournament after a loss for one of the rare times under coach Mark Few. The dominant team in the West Coast Conference for two decades, the Zags lost to Saint Mary’s in the conference title game last week in Las Vegas. The...

DAYTON, Ohio — North Dakota State is one of the best free-throw shooting teams in the country, and that’s what it came down to at the end of the Bison’s First Four win over North Carolina Central. Vinnie Shahid sank three foul shots in the last 8 seconds to secure...

The NCAA Tournament somehow seems to be getting better every year, almost as if each bracket is extending from the previous one. Last year brought one of the maddest of Marches, starting with Maryland-Baltimore County becoming the first No. 16 seed to beat a 1 — poor Virginia — to...

HARTFORD, Conn. — Murray State’s Ja Morant and Marquette’s Markus Howard have much in common: Point guards, prolific scorers, conference players of the year, All-America contenders. And, apparently, promptness. Morant and Howard struck up a friendship last summer at NBA All-Star Chris Paul’s camp for elite guards. “We were the...

Greg Bulsak and Nick Kiussis spent the minutes leading up to 3 p.m. March 12 repeatedly refreshing the NCAA wrestling website on their phones. Sammy Krivus kept himself busy by lifting weights. Ultimately, all three wrestlers received the news they were hoping for the same way: from somebody else. Bulsak,...

TOKYO — Ichiro drew all the cheers. Most everyone else on the Seattle Mariners did all the hitting. A crowd that came to salute Ichiro Suzuki in his homeland saw Domingo Santana deliver the biggest hit at the Tokyo Dome, a grand slam that sent Seattle over the Oakland Athletics,...

BALTIMORE — Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh has sued the owners of Pimlico Race Course in an effort to seize the horse racetrack and block the move of the Preakness Stakes out of the city. News outlets report that on behalf of the city, Pugh is also trying to prevent the...

You may not have even submitted your bracket yet, and the 2019 NCAA Tournament is one night old. One potential 16th-seeded Cinderella — Prairie View A&M — is already going home. Another — either North Carolina Central or North Dakota State — will get eliminated Wednesday night. All that before...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Cameron Johnson swears there’s no deals among North Carolina’s top three scorers determining who gets to lead the offense in each game. It sure seems that way sometimes, though. The graduate wing, freshman point guard Coby White and senior Luke Maye have proven capable of carrying...

DAYTON, Ohio — Kevin McClain scored 29 points and led the decisive second-half run as Belmont got its first NCAA Tournament win, pulling away to an 81-70 victory Tuesday night and ending Temple coach Fran Dunphy’s career in the First Four. The 11th-seeded Bruins (27-5) play Maryland on Thursday in...

DAYTON, Ohio — Eleven months ago, Fairleigh Dickinson coach Greg Herenda was seriously ill with life-threatening blood clots. On Tuesday night, he danced on the court and hugged his players after they secured the first NCAA Tournament win in school history. Senior guard Darnell Edge scored a career-high 33 points,...

Vermont’s Anthony Lamb is among several players from one-bid conferences capable of leading their teams to major upsets in the NCAA Tournament. The 6-foot-6 junior forward scored 24 points against Kansas and 25 points against Louisville in the NIT Season Tip Off in November. Although Vermont lost both games, Lamb...

For Zack Zavatsky, something that’s been a significant part of his life will come to an abrupt end later this month. So why not go out on top? A Latrobe alum, Zavatsky’s final competitive wrestling act figures to come at the NCAA championships this weekend at PPG Paints Arena in...

Bob Bubb became an NCAA All-American in 1959, wrestling in the University of Iowa’s gymnasium. Nearly 60 years later, Nico Megaludis won a national title in “The World’s Most Famous Arena,” New York’s Madison Square Garden, with a finals attendance of 19,270 — more than the crowd for the entire...

At this time of year, everyone’s in search of a system — some way of simplifying the brackets and making it a little easier to pick one champion out of all those contenders. You could go with the most experienced coaches or perhaps the teams playing the best defense. Or...

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa — Iowa police say a 2-year-old boy died after a man sat on the child for allegedly taking his cellphone. Pottawattamie County court records show 31-year-old Larry Murphy is charged with first-degree murder and child endangerment resulting in death. He’s jailed on more than $1 million bail....

NEW YORK — One of the joys of March Madness is the surprising things that can happen during the NCAA Tournament. For the women, there was an unpleasant surprise before the tournament even began when the field was revealed early thanks to a production error. The bracket was mistakenly broadcast...

RALEIGH, N.C. — This year’s NCAA Tournament features a top tier of teams that are heavy Final Four favorites, starting with No. 1 overall seed Duke and star freshman Zion Williamson. Figuring out how to stop them won’t be easy, though some clues might be in weaknesses that showed when...

If you’re wondering how Penn State has been able to win seven of the past eight NCAA wrestling championships, coach Cael Sanderson believes he has the answer. He demands his wrestlers are thankful for who they are, what they’ve been given and the opportunities under their feet every time they...

According to an American Gaming Association survey, 47 million Americans will wager $8.5 billion on the NCAA tournament this year, and while more than half of that astounding sum will be wagered via bracket pools, $3.9 billion will be bet on the games themselves via a sportsbook (either in person...