Truex will be alone again for Furniture Row Racing
DENVER — Furniture Row Racing will field only one NASCAR Cup Series team next season — the ride for Martin Truex Jr. The Denver-based team expanded this year to two cars, with Truex and Erik Jones behind their steering wheels. But Jones is a development driver for Joe Gibbs Racing, and he is being pulled inside that organization next year. With Jones and his sponsor moving to JGR, Furniture Row owner Barney Visser said he will field only one car in 2018, though he said he wants to field two cars again at some point. Truex leads the Cup Series points standings and is first in almost every other statistical category this year.
BASKETBALL
› MINNEAPOLIS — A fiveyear contract extension worth nearly $150 million sat in front of Andrew Wiggins for more than two months. Not only did the 22-year-old not jump at the first chance to sign it, he decided to revamp the team of advisers around him and essentially lead the process himself. The Minnesota Timberwolves hope that self-assurance and unflappable nature helps a franchise long in the basement finally break through. On Wednesday, Wiggins signed his contract, a straight five-year deal with no player option that puts a big piece of business to rest a week before the Wolves open the season. Wiggins averaged 23.6 points in his third season in the league and has cemented himself as one of the building blocks of an up-and-coming franchise. Along with Karl-Anthony Towns and Jimmy Butler, he is expected to help the Timberwolves end a 13-season playoff drought.
› The NCAA said it will form a commission to study the inner workings of men’s college basketball in response to a federal investigation into bribery and fraud that rocked the sport and implicated several assistant coaches. The NCAA announced the commission Wednesday and said former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will lead the committee. NCAA president Mark Emmert said the NCAA needs to make “substantive changes” in the way it operates, and make them quickly. He said the changes will focus on the relationships between the NCAA, schools, athletes and coaches with outside entities like shoe companies, agents and financial managers. He said the committee will also examine the effects of the so-called “one-anddone” rule.
FOOTBALL
› READING, Pa. — A football player for Albright College, a Division III program, has been cut from the team for kneeling during the national anthem. Sophomore backup quarterback Gyree Durante took a knee before Saturday’s game. He said he was “taught you fight for what you believe in, and you don’t bow to anyone.” The school said Durante was cut because he violated a team decision to show unity by kneeling during the coin toss but standing during the anthem. The school said the players understood there could be consequences for anyone who didn’t support the team’s decision.