Ex-Vol D.J. Burns going to Winthrop
ROCK HILL, S.C. — Former Tennessee Volunteers basketball player D.J. Burns is returning to his hometown to play for Winthrop. In a post to Twitter on Thursday, 10 days after entering his name in the NCAA’s transfer portal, the 6-foot-9 forward revealed he had committed to the Eagles, taking him from the Southeastern Conference to the Big South. Burns posed in a Winthrop jersey with the words “IT FEELS GOOD TO BE HOME” above his photo. He finished high school at Rock Hill’s York Preparatory Academy a year early to join the Vols, then spent the 2018-19 season as a redshirt. Burns totaled more than 1,000 points and 1,000 rebounds in his prep career and was considered the state’s third-best prospect when he signed with Tennessee last summer. His exit opens up a scholarship for coach Rick Barnes, who lost many of the key contributors from the team that spent a month ranked at No. 1 and reached the NCAA tournament’s Sweet 16 this past season. Winthrop has made 10 trips to the NCAA tourney, all since 1999 and most recently in 2017.
› CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — The University of North Carolina men’s basketball team is returning to its old home court for one game. Team spokesman Steve Kirschner said Thursday that the Tar Heels’ game against Wofford on Dec. 15 will be played at the 6,822seat Carmichael Arena — the first regular-season matchup there since 1986. The game had to be played that day because of scheduling conflicts that include the Tar Heels leaving the next day for a game at Gonzaga. North Carolina’s regular home arena, the 21,750-seat Dean Smith Center, already was booked for the university’s December graduation ceremony. The arena where Michael Jordan and James Worthy became college stars, Carmichael has hosted one men’s game since the Smith Center opened in 1986. The Tar Heels beat William & Mary in the first round of the 2010 National Invitation Tournament.
FOOTBALL
› Former Tennessee Vols and Tennessee Titans defensive lineman Albert Haynesworth said he needs a kidney transplant. In a post to Instagram, the 38-year-old Haynesworth wrote that he has been battling kidney disease for a few years. He shared a photo of himself in a hospital bed and wrote that his kidneys failed him Sunday and he’s looking for a donor. “It’s hard to believe from being a professional athlete to only 8 (seasons into) retirement that my body has taken another major blow,” Haynesworth wrote in the post, adding that he’s “in dire need of a kidney.” He played 10 seasons in the NFL. He spent his first seven seasons with the Titans, who selected him No. 15 overall in the 2002 draft, and also played for the Washington Redskins (2009-10), the New England Patriots (2011) and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2011). He was selected as an All-Pro after the 2007 and 2008 seasons and had 30.5 sacks in 123 career games. Haynesworth had his greatest season in 2008, when he totaled 8.5 sacks while leading the Titans to a 13-3 record and the No. 1 overall seed in the AFC before they lost to the Baltimore Ravens in the divisional round of the playoffs. This isn’t the first health problem Haynesworth has faced since leaving the NFL. He told a Nashville radio station in 2016 that he dealt with a brain aneurysm in November 2014 that caused him to spend time in intensive care, and he referenced that in his Instagram post.
› The Atlantic Coast Conference has agreements with 13 bowl games from Boston to San Diego for the next six college football seasons. The ACC announced its bowl partners for the next postseason cycle Thursday, and they included a few new additions. The conference will now send a team to the Holiday Bowl in San Diego and a newly created game to be played at Fenway Park in Boston and run by ESPN. The ACC did not renew agreements with the Independence Bowl in Shreveport, Louisiana, and the Quick Lane Bowl in Detroit. The conference also has an agreement in which the Gasparilla Bowl in St. Petersburg, Florida, Birmingham Bowl in Alabama and First Responders Bowl in Dallas will collaborate on the selection of one ACC team each season.
BASEBALL
› LANCASTER, Pa. — The independent Atlantic League will experiment with allowing batters to “steal” first base. After having a computer call balls and strikes in its all-star matchup Wednesday night, the league announced four more changes for the second half of its season. Most notably, a batter may run to first and try to beat the throw after any pitch not caught in flight. The batter would be out if he is beaten by the throw or is tagged before touching first.