Bears talk to Jones
The odds Mac Jones will be available when the Bears draft next month are seemingly dwindling by the day.
But the Alabama quarterback said Monday that the Bears have done their homework, calling his conversation with team officials this offseason “a great meeting” in which “we just talked football for like an hour straight.”
“That’s the best type of meeting for me is just talking ball,” he told reporters during a news conference. “So hopefully I’ll get a chance to talk to them more — and see where that relationship kind of heads, as well.”
A quarterback-needy team interviewing one of the draft’s top five quarterbacks is hardly shocking. But given that Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson said Bears general manager Ryan Pace didn’t talk to him privately before the 2017 draft, the Jones conversation remains notable.
Drafting No. 20, the Bears seem unlikely get a crack at one of the top five quarterbacks in the draft next month.
The 49ers’ trade for the No. 3 pick Friday made it all but certain that passers will be picked with at least each of the first three selections.
† Former Browns coach Hue Jackson said that owner Jimmy Haslam gave him a contract extension midway through a winless 2017 season and that he was lied to from the start about the team’s rebuilding plans.
† The Vikings signed cornerback Mackensie
Alexander and safety Xavier Woods to one-year contracts.
SAN ANTONIO — It took a great game from phenomenal freshman Paige Bueckers and a last-second stop with a disputed non-foul call to keep UConn’s run of Final Four appearances going.
Bueckers scored 28 points and top seed UConn used a huge run spanning the final two quarters to beat No. 2 Baylor 69-67 on Monday night and reach a 13th consecutive Final Four in the women’s NCAA Tournament.
“Each year that we do it, I still can’t believe it,” said UConn coach Geno Auriemma, who was showered by his team with confetti after the game.
UConn has made the national semifinals every season since 2008 and won six titles during that span. The Huskies will face third-seeded Arizona on Friday.
Bueckers was 6 years old when UConn started its run of appearances in the national semifinals.
“To be part of that history is wild,” Bueckers said. “It’s why I came here. Saw that as a young kid, wanted to be a part of that. It’s surreal.”
The Huskies (28-1) trailed 5545 late in the third quarter before scoring 19 consecutive points, including 10 by Bueckers, who became the third first-year player to make first-team All-America.
Baylor (28-3) wouldn’t go away as Bueckers went cold in the final minutes.
Trailing 64-55, NaLyssa Smith ended Baylor’s drought with 6:47 left and sparked a 12-4 burst that got Baylor within one after Dijonai Carrington converted two free throws with 19.3 seconds left. After UConn’s Christyn Williams missed two free throws, Carrington drove the lane to the left and missed a contested jumper from the baseline. A foul could have been called but wasn’t.
Arizona 66, Indiana 53
Aari McDonald scored 33 points and No. 3 seed Arizona (20-5) beat fourth-seeded Indiana (21-6) to earn its first trip to the Final Four.
McDonald, the Pac-12 player of the year, briefly left the game with a twisted ankle with 2:35 left but limped back on the floor and scored six more points.