Kansas hit by virus ahead of tournament
Kansas will be without starting center David McCormack and backup forward Tristan Enaruna for the Big 12 tournament due to COVID-19 protocols, though the No. 11 Jayhawks hope to have both players back for next week’s NCAA tournament.
The second-seeded Jayhawks open tournament play in Thursday’s quarterfinals against No. 25 Oklahoma or Iowa State.
Big 12
Baylor guard Jared Butler is The Associated Press Big 12 player of the year after helping the Bears win their first conference title. Butler finished third in the Big 12 in scoring during the regular season, behind two players who joined the 6-foot-3 junior as first-team AP All-Big 12 picks: Oklahoma State freshman Cade Cunningham (19.7 ppg) and Oklahoma senior Austin Reaves (17.5 ppg). West Virginia junior forward Derek Culver and Texas Tech junior guard Mac McClung complete the five-player first team.
Big Ten
Iowa’s Luka Garza is The Associated Press player of the year in the Big Ten Conference for the second year in a row and Michigan’s Juwan Howard is coach of the year.
Pac-12
Oregon’s Chris Duarte is The Associated Press player of the year in the Pac-12 Conference and Southern California’s Evan Mobley is the newcomer of the year. Southern California’s Andy Enfield was chosen as Pac-12 coach of the year by a panel of writers who cover the conference.
Notre Dame
Trey Wertz hit a deep 3pointer at the buzzer to cap a 17-2 closing run and No. 11 seed Norte Dame ( 11- 14) rallied past 14th- seeded Wake Forest (6-16), 80-77, in the first round of the ACC tournament.
Duke
DJ Steward scored 17 points, Mark Williams added 13 points and 10th-seeded Duke (12-11) beat Boston College (4-16), 86-51, to begin its quest of winning five games in a row in the ACC tournament. No team has won five ACC tournament games in five days — but Duke likely must do so to avoid missing the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1995.
Iowa
Athletic director Gary
Barta apologized to the family of Hawkeyes basketball great Roy Marble for any hard feelings they have over the retirement of star player Luka Garza’s number. Garza last month broke the 32-year-old career scoring record held by Marble.
South Florida
Sydni Harvey scored 14 points and No. 20 South Florida (16-3), the top seed in the American Athletic Conference tournament, avoided a major upset with a 48-44 win over ninth-seeded Wichita State (5-14) in the quarterfinals. The Bulls will play fourth-seeded Temple in the semifinals on Wednesday.