Rift between NBA, China widens
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver told the Nets and Lakers on Wednesday that the league is still expecting them to play as scheduled this week, even while the rift between the league and Chinese officials continued in ways that clearly suggested the two planned games in Shanghai and Shenzhen were anything but guaranteed.
The NBA called off scheduled media sessions Wednesday for both teams. At least two other NBA events to be held Wednesday before the start of the China games were canceled as part of the fallout that started after Rockets GMDaryl Morey posted a since-deleted tweet last week that showed support for anti-government protesters in Hong Kong.
In Washington, a bipartisan group of lawmakers sent a letter to Silver that said the NBA should show the “courage and integrity” to stand up to the Chinese government. They asked the NBA to suspend activities in China until what they called the selective treatment against the Rockets ends.
College basketball: Hall of Fame coach Jim Calhoun was accused of sexual discrimination by a former associate AD at the University of Saint Joseph, the D-III school where Calhoun now works. Jaclyn Piscitelli filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the small Catholic school in West Hartford, Conn., which began admitting men in 2018. Piscitelli’s attorneys said she was fired in June after complaining about the conduct of men in the athletic department, including the 77-year-old Calhoun, whom she alleges helped turn the department into “a boys club” after he was hired to form and coach the school’s men’s basketball team.
College football: A federal judge ruled that Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio can wait until after the season to give a deposition in a former employee’s lawsuit. Curtis Blackwell, a former Michigan State football employee, filed a lawsuit claiming his employment agreement was violated when he was disciplined while the school addressed sexual assault allegations against three players in 2017. Dantonio was named as a defendant in the suit. ... Rutgers QB McLane Carter announced that he’s retiring from football due to medical reasons. Carter, a graduate transfer from Texas Tech who won the starting job in training camp, hadn’t played since leaving Rutgers’ second game with a concussion.
Tennis: Coco Gauff reached her first WTA quarterfinal when Kateryna Kozlova retired during the third set of their secondround match at the Upper Austria Ladies in Linz. Gauff trailed by a set and a break but was on the verge of a comeback when Kozlova retired with the American teenager leading 4-6, 6-4, 2-0. At 15 years and 214 days, Gauff became the youngest player to reach a WTA quarterfinal since January 2005, when Sesil Karatancheva did it at 15 years and 153 days.