Bulls pick Donovan as next coach
The Chicago Bulls hired Billy Donovan as their coach Tuesday, landing one of the top candidates on the market to lead a rebuilding team with an overhauled front office.
The 55-year-old Donovan spent the past five seasons with the Oklahoma City Thunder. He replaces Jim Boylen, who was fired after the Bulls finished 22-43 and were one of the eight teams that didn’t qualify for the NBA’s restart in Florida.
In other basketball news:
• A’ja Wilson had 29 points, seven rebounds and a career-high seven blocks to lead the top-seeded Las Vegas Aces past the Connecticut Sun 83-75 to even the best-of-five WNBA semifinal playoff series at 1-1.
In the other semifinal, Alysha Clark’s putback at the buzzer lifted the Seattle Storm past the Minnesota Lynx 88-86 in Game 1 of the best-of-five series.
• Vanessa Bryant, the widow of NBA star Kobe Bryant, has filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles County sheriff claiming deputies shared unauthorized photos of the crash that killed her husband, their 13-year-old daughter and seven others.
After the Jan. 26 crash, reports surfaced that graphic photos of the victims were being shared. Vanessa Bryant was “shocked and devastated,” the lawsuit states.
• Texas State men’s coach Danny Kaspar has resigned three months after a former player accused him of making racist remarks. Athletic director Larry Teis said assistant coach Terrence Johnson will take over the program for the upcoming season.
UH ‘chirping’ upsets Baylor AD
Baylor athletic director Mack Rhoades said he was disappointed in the “chirping”
from University of Houston coach Dana Holgorsen on the cancellation of last Saturday’s game.
“I’ll be candid. I’m disappointed in their head football coach and the chirping,” Rhoades said on a Baylor radio show. “I let the (UH) AD ( Chris Pezman) know it. In my opinion, not professional. But we’ll move on and move forward.”
On Monday, Holgorsen expressed frustration over the short notice given to UH, which had lined up Waco hotels and were a few hours from leaving campus Friday when Baylor called off the game due to COVID-19 issues.
In other news:
• Notre Dame’s game at Wake Forest on Saturday has been postponed after positive COVID-19 tests landed 13 Fighting Irish players in isolation and another 10 in quarantine.
The No. 7 Fighting Irish said the game would be rescheduled. Both teams are off Oct. 3.
• Former Georgia transfer Matthew Downing has been named the starting quarterback for TCU’s season opener Saturday against Iowa State, though last year’s starter, Max Duggan, has also been cleared to play.
Medvedev drops Hamburg opener
Daniil Medvedev lost his first match since reaching the U.S. Open semifinals as he was beaten 6-4, 6-3 Tuesday by unseeded Frenchman Ugo Humbert in the first round of the Hamburg European Open.
Humbert is ranked 36 places below the top-seeded Medvedev at 41st. In other news:
• Bianca Andreescu, last year’s U.S. Open champion, will sit out the French Open, which starts Sunday in Paris, and the rest of 2020.