BASKETBALL Connelly’s City of Gods advances to semifinals

City of Gods, a team coached by Baltimore’s Joe Connelly, defeated The Untouchables, 86-79, on Saturday in Philadelphia to reach the semifinals of The Basketball Tournament, a $2 million winnertake-all event, for the second straight year. City of Gods will face defending champion Overseas Elite on Saturday in New York. It will be a rematch of last year’s semifinals, won by Overseas Elite, 84-71. Connelly’s team overcame a 13-point halftime deficit against The Untouchables, who had several former Pittsburgh players, including Jermaine Dixon, the younger brother of former Maryland star Juan Dixon. Xavier Silas, the son of ex-San Antonio Spurs All-Star guard James Silas, led the comeback by City of Gods, scoring 16 of his teamhigh 20 points after the break. OFF THE COURT: Carmelo Anthony plans to meet with politicians, community leaders and other athletes Monday in Los Angeles to start a discussion about the recent violence involving police officers, the New York Knicks star said late last week while training with the U.S. Olympic team in Las Vegas. “We want to get youth. We want to get kids. We want to get adults. We want to get officers. We want to get teachers,” said Anthony, a Towson Catholic alumnus who grew up in Baltimore. “We want to get community leaders, athletes, everybody, having this conversation and talking on both sides, hearing each other out. It’s part of continuing what I started off.”

Lynch wins 4 at Laurel; Exaggerator unimpressive

leading rider in 2011 and a six-time meet champion at Laurel and Pimlico Race Course who tore his labrum and fractured his shoulder in two places in a Nov. 9 training accident. He is named on three horses today. … Evelyn Poehl of Italy hustled Peppermint Stick from the gate and stayed in front to win the Fegentri International Federation of Gentlemen and Lady Riders race. Favored at 2-1 in a field of seven for the $27,000 maiden claiming event, Peppermint Stick ($6.40) ran 51⁄2 furlongs in 1 minute, 2.93 seconds. SARATOGA RACE COURSE: Preakness winner Exaggerator’s status for Saturday’s Jim Dandy Stakes in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., is questionable after an unimpressive workout. Trainer Keith Desormeaux’s colt breezed 6 furlongs for jockey Junior Alvarado in a sluggish 1:13.80 on Saturday morning on Saratoga’s main track. “Off of that work, it doesn’t seem he’s tight enough or is struggling with the track,” Desormeaux said. “It is making me leery of running in the Jim Dandy.” The trainer rated the workout a “C or a C-plus.”

Terps lose out to Buckeyes on DeMatha DE Young