Conference USA received four
bids to the 2007 NCAA baseball tournament on Monday.
Rice will host the Houston
regional as the No. 2 national seed, while East Carolina will be the No.
2 seed in Chapel Hill, Southern Miss will be the No. 2 seed in Oxford,
MS, and Memphis will travel up the road to Nashville, TN, where it will
compete as the No. 3 seed.
Only the ACC (7), Big 12 (6) and
SEC (5) had more selections than Conference USA.
Duke falls to Johns Hopkins in lacrosse final
Johns Hopkins won its ninth NCAA
men's lacrosse title on Monday, withstanding a Duke comeback for a 12-11
victory in Baltimore.
The Blue Jays never trailed but
the Blue Devils overcame a six-goal halftime deficit to pull even at
11-11 when Max Quinzani scored with 4:37 left.
Hopkins' Kevin Huntley followed
with his third goal of the game with 3:25 to go, which proved decisive
despite late pressure by Duke (17-3), the nation's top-ranked team and
No. 1 seed for the tournament.
Kansas
star decides no Rush on NBA draft
Kansas basketball standout
Brandon Rush has withdrawn his name from NBA draft consideration.
Rush, who completed his
sophomore year at KU this spring, submitted his name to the NBA to be
eligible for this year's draft.
A two-time All-Big 12 first-team
selection, Rush has led the Jayhawks in scoring each of his first two
seasons, including 13.8 points as a sophomore. He was second on the team
in rebounding average at 5.6. He also hit a team-best 50 three-pointers
in the 2006-07 season.
May 28, 2007
ECU duo set for NCAA
hammer championships
East Carolina's Chelsea
Salisbury advanced to the NCAA track and field championships after
finishing fourth in the hammer throw with a mark of 57.83 meters at the
2007 NCAA East regionals in Gainesville, FL.
Salisbury joins Terrance Myers,
who qualified with a hammer throw of 62.87 meters in the first day of
the regional competition. The duo will travel to Sacramento, CA, to
compete in the NCAA championships June 6-9.
Duke, Johns
Hopkins vie for NCAA lacrosse title
The top-seeded and second-ranked
Duke lacrosse team will play third-seeded and fourth-ranked Johns
Hopkins in the NCAA championship game this afternoon at M&T Bank Stadium
in Baltimore. Face-off is set for 1 p.m. The game will be televised live
on ESPN.
Former Villanova star dies week after beating
Howard Porter, one of the best
basketball players in Villanova history, died after he was found
severely beaten in an alley more than a week ago, according to a
Star-Tribune report. He was 58.
Porter died Saturday night,
Minneapolis Police Lt. Kim Lund said Sunday. Police were awaiting a
report from the medical examiner to determine the cause of death.
Porter worked as a probation
officer for Ramsey County. Police said it was unclear whether the
beating was connected to his job. Lund said there have been no arrests
and the investigation is continuing.
May 27, 2007
ECU's Myers hammers
out NCAA track berth
East Carolina's Terrance Myers
advanced to the NCAA Championships after finishing third in the hammer
throw with a mark of 62.87 meters in the 2007 NCAA East regionals in
Gainesville, FL.
Myers will travel to Sacramento,
CA, to compete in the NCAA national championships June 6-9.
Dramatic
goal lifts Duke into NCAA lacrosse final
Scoring sensation Zack Greer
rifled home the game-winning goal with just three seconds left to
provide the winning margin in Duke's 12-11 victory over Cornell in the
national semifinals of the NCAA lacrosse tournament on Saturday
afternoon in Baltimore, MD.
Cornell erased a seven-goal
deficit and tied the game at 11-11 with just 17 seconds remaining on
Brian Clayton's unassisted goal. On the subsequent face-off, Terrence
Molinari scooped up the ground ball and found Peter Lamade near
midfield. Lamade then drove to the goal and fed Greer, who deposited his
fourth goal of the day into the net to push the Blue Devils back into
the championship game for a rematch of the 2005 title tilt with Johns
Hopkins.
Greer finished with four goals
and one assist on the day while goalkeeper Dan Loftus was credited for
16 saves. Greer now has 67 tallies on the year, marking the
third-highest single-season total in NCAA history.
The announced attendance of
52,004 establishes a new NCAA men's lacrosse semifinal day record,
bettering the previous high of 49,512 set last year in Philadelphia, PA.
Blue Devil
women earn national title on the links
The Duke women's golf team
earned a third consecutive NCAA championship at the 6,351-yard, par 72
LPGA International Legends Course in Daytona Beach, FL.
It was the fifth national title
in nine years for the Duke women.
Duke's five titles is second to
Arizona State, which has six. ASU was the last team to three-peat, doing
so in 1992-95. The championship also marks the ninth in Duke athletics
history along with three men's basketball championships (1991, '92 and
2001) and men's soccer (1986).
May 26, 2007
C-USA baseball
players visit children's ward
Members of the East Carolina,
Memphis, Rice, Southern Miss, Tulane and Central Florida baseball teams
visited the Children's Ward at Pitt County Memorial Hospital in
Greenville on Friday.
The visit was part of the "Reach
for the Stars" program in conjunction with the 2007 C-USA Baseball
Championship.
Cavs, Heels meet for berth in ACC championship
North Carolina's Tim Fedroff had
four hits and scored three times to power a 19-hit attack and lead the
Tar Heels to a 14-5 win over North Carolina State in the Atlantic Coast
Conference baseball tournament in a game that spanned two days on the
calendar.
The start of the contest was
delayed an hour and 40 minutes by rain and the 3-hour, 5-minute game
that started on Thursday did not finish until 1:15 a.m. Friday morning.
North Carolina (46-12) will meet
Virginia on Saturday, with the winner moving on to Sunday's championship
game as the Bracket B winner.
SEC will
look at potential football playoff revenue
The debate over a major-college
football playoff touches on its impact on the sport's regular season, on
the survivability of a decades-old bowl system and on the potential for
infringement on players' academics, according to a USA Today report by
Steve Wieberg.
But where it will turn,
University of Florida president and playoff advocate Bernie Machen
predicts, is on money.
"The big (unknown) is: 'Is there
a lot of money that's not on the table?' " he says. "It could be
sizable. More than $100 million more than is on the table now."
It's one plank in an argument
he'll make to presidents of the 11 other schools in the Southeastern
Conference next Friday during meetings in Destin, FL.
Machen also sees a playoff
bringing a more equitable split of postseason revenue, which last season
totaled almost $218 million — 86% pocketed by schools in six conferences
— Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big 12, Big East, Pacific-10 and SEC — and
Notre Dame.
May 25, 2007
East Carolina
track standouts in NCAA regionals
Qualified performers from East
Carolina's men's and women's track teams will compete in the NCAA
Division I East regional championships today and Saturday in
Gainesville, FL.
Six individuals from ECU and two
Pirate relay teams will be competing to advance to the NCAA national
championships to be held June 6-9 in Sacramento, CA.
For the ECU women, Camelia
Morman will compete in the triple jump while Chelsea Salisbury will
represent the Pirates in the hammer throw.
For the men, Brandon Small and
Chris Richardson will run in the 400 meter dash, while Terrence Myers
and Eric Frasure will compete in the hammer throw.
East Carolina's 4x100 relay team
of Aidan Sanderson, Jarek Hewett, David Rucker and Kevin Thompson is
also in the regionals, as is the the 4x400 relay team of Small,
Sanderson, Bryson Bowling and Richardson.
Two gridders planning to leave Virginia Tech
Tailback George Bell and wide
receiver Brandon Barden have indicated they will leave the football
program at Virginia Tech.
Bell, who starred at Jack Britt
High in Fayetteville, is headed to Division II Catawba, where he hopes
to play more. Barden, a freshman who arrived in January and went through
spring practice, was shaken by the April shootings on the Blacksburg
campus that left 33 dead. He is looking at the possibility of
transferring to Vanderbilt.
East Carolina opens its 2007
football season at Virginia Tech on Sept. 1.
Rolle through as role player in hoops for LSU
LSU basketball coach John Brady
has announced that forward Magnum Rolle, by mutual agreement, will be
given the opportunity to pursue other interests as it relates to his
basketball career.
The 6-foot-10 Rolle may transfer
or sit out next season and prepare for the 2008 NBA draft.
"Despite the development of
several players who have had the patience and made it to the next level
in our program at his position, sometimes the parties involved do not
agree on a developmental process of the player as it relates to the
team," Brady said. "When that happens, other options may be explored. We
wish Magnum well with his future in basketball and his pursuit of his
education."
Rolle played in 60 games in two
seasons at LSU with nine starts. He averaged 2.8 points per game and 3.2
rebounds.
