HILL WILL REPLACE COLANGELO, LEAD USA BASKETBALL

Grant Hill helped the U.S. win Olympic gold in 1996. He would have been on the team again in 2000 if not for injury. And he was among the college kids who famously beat the first “Dream Team” in a scrimmage before the 1992 Olympics.

Now, USA Basketball is bringing him back.

Hill will become the men’s national team managing director following the Tokyo Olympics, USA Basketball said Saturday. He’ll replace the retiring Jerry Colangelo, in a move where one Basketball Hall of Famer takes over for another in the critical role of assembling teams that will compete for gold.

Hill played 19 NBA seasons, was an All-star seven times — likely would have been more if not for the ankle problems that derailed his career — and made five ALLNBA teams. At Duke, he helped the Blue Devils win national championships in 1991 and 1992.

Hill went into the Hall of Fame in 2018 and has worked as an NBA and college basketball analyst for Turner Sports for nearly a decade.

He will remain in broadcasting after assuming his USA Basketball job.

Soccer

Liverpool outclassed Arsenal from start to finish in a 3-0 win in the Premier League with a brace for substitute Diogo Jota and a nutmeg from Mohamed Salah to revive the team’s hopes for a top four spot.

Catching fourth-place Chelsea to qualify for the Champions League became more attainable in the final eight games of the season.

Manchester City, the runaway PL leaders, won 2-0 at Leicester, with goals from Benjamin Mendy and Gabriel Jesus.

• Real Sociedad beat fierce Basque rival Athletic Bilbao 1-0 in the delayed final of the 2020 Copa del Rey, giving the winners their first title in more than three decades.

• Christian Gutierrez broke a 3-3 tie with a goal at 13:16 of the fourth quarter, as the San Diego Sockers held off the Florida Tropics 4-3, upsetting the top team in the Major Arena Soccer League and advancing to face Ontario the Ron Newman Cup finals starting Friday.

Local colleges

Maggie Balint (10-5) tossed a four-hit shutout and San Diego State (15-11, 3-6 Mountain West) homered twice in a 3-0 victory over host Boise State (9-14, 2-4). Shelby Thompson hit her fourth this season and 24th of her career and Danielle Romanello hit her second homer of the season.

• UCSD softball (6-7, 3-2 Big West) split a doubleheader with host Hawaii (5-6, 5-3), losing Game 1 6-4 and winning the second game 5-1. Gabby Williams got the win in Game 2 and hit a solo homer.

• SDSU baseball (16-6, 11-4 MW) pounded visiting New Mexico (8-14, 6-9) 15-0. Leadoff hitter Mike Jarvis went 2-for-4 with a homer and scored four runs, and No. 2 hitter Matt Rudick went 3-for-5 with a homer and five RBIS.

• UCSD scored a pair of runs in the bottom of the first and got 51⁄3 innings of shutout relief from the bullpen, but the Tritons (7-13, 4-4 Big West) fell by a 3-2 score to visiting Long Beach State (6-6, 6-6) in the series finale.

• Victoria O’sullivan led SDSU will 16 kills and six block assists as the Aztecs women’s volleyball team (6-9, 6-9 MW) snapped an 11match losing streak to Colorado State (9-6, 9-6), 25-14, 25-20, 25-29.

• The Aztec men’s soccer team (1-5-2, 1-5-2) fell at No. 6 Stanford (8-1-1, 6-1-1) 3-1.

College basketball

Oklahoma officially hired Loyola Chicago’s Porter Moser as its basketball coach following Lon Kruger’s retirement.

Moser led Loyola to the Final Four in 2018 and the Sweet 16 this year. He went 188-141 in 10 years at Loyola and has a 293-242 record in 17 seasons as a college head coach, with stops at Arkansas-little Rock (2000-03) and Illinois State (2003-07).

Tennis

No. 1-ranked Ash Barty won her second successive Miami Open championship by beating No. 8-seeded Bianca Andreescu, who was injured when she fell and retired trailing in the second set. Andreescu, crying and shaking her head, conceded while behind 6-3, 4-0.

Also

Seven different Gulls players scored as San Diego (15-10-0-0) defeated San Jose (7-7-4-1) 7-3 in Irvine for its sixth straight win.

• The San Diego Legion lost to Atlanta United 41-22, dropping to 1-2 in Major League Rugby.