TUESDAY’S GAME

The m ost COLUMBUS — important thing following No. 15 Ohio State’s win against Bucknell is that Andre Wesson is fine.

When the junior forward went mouth-first into the court at Value City Arena early in the second half Saturday afternoon, he immediately started to kick the floor in obvious pain. Once play stopped, he was eventually helped to his feet and immediately taken into the locker room.

The news was gnarly: three missing teeth for the oldest Wesson brother. As postgame interviews were conducted, he was already at the den- tist after having played with a protective mouthguard for the remainder of the game.

Once it was established he was fine, a little levity was allowed. Younger brother Kaleb, who had a double-dou- ble with a career-high 22 points and 10 rebounds, was dismissive in a way only brothers can be.

“He’s going to be good,” he said. “Ain’t nothing wrong with him.”

So this wasn’t the first time he’d lost teeth? The backyard battles between the brothers are the stuff of local legend.

“Oh, we’ve both lost teeth before,” he said. “He lost teeth at (Westerville) South. Oh yeah, he’s cool.”

After going to the locker room, Andre Wesson returned after missing 3:08 of action. He finished with a career-high nine rebounds and added four points and two assists in just over 28 minutes.

Chris Holtmann lauded the fact that he came back and played as much as he did.

“Andre Wesson’s a tough kid, and he wanted to come back and play,” the coach said. “That’s why I love Andre as a kid. That’s why I love him. I’d go to war with that dude, go to battle with that dude any day because he competes on the defensive end and he’s Youngstown State at Ohio State, 7 p.m., BTN, 1410 got a real toughness to him.”

Better defending

It wasn’t necessarily that Ohio State did a better job of contesting the 3-point line that led to a precipitous drop-off in Bucknell’s perimeter shoot- ing after halftime.

It had more to do with the team’s overall approach.

“We were pressuring the ball more,” Woods said. “We so put they more couldn’t pressure make on the pinl bal - point passes like how the ey were in the first half.”

That was a major halftime talking point, Holtmann said. Bucknell was 3 for 13 in the second half after hitting 9 of 17 in the first.

“(Our ball pressure) was lacking for the full 20 minutes, and it was a major point of emphasis at halftime,” the coach said. “I just didn’t think our effort was good enough and our activity was good enough. We said to them going in, ‘if they don’t’ feel us, it’s going to be a long night.’ They’ve got five guys in their lineup that are going to shoot threes, and if they get on a roll and start making threes it’s going to be a long night for us. Their best shooter only made one. Overall, that’s just an area we have to get better in, but our ball pressure was much better.”

Bucknell coach Nathan Davis said he noticed a dif- ference.

“I thought in the first half we made some tough shots,” he said. “I thought they did a good job. They picked up the pressure. They don’t get out and deny but they do pressure the ball. At times we over-dribbled some and were late getting the ball back, so we shot some more contested shots because of that.”

Canelo Alvarez NEW YORK — threw a Garden party Saturday night. A short and powerful fiesta.

Alvarez landed dozens of body punches, knocking down Rocky Fielding four times and stopping him in the third round to earn his third weight-class title, taking the WBA super middleweight belt.

Coming off his close decision against Gennady Golovkin three months ago to take the WBA and WBC middleweight titles, Alvarez could hear chants of “Canelo! Canelo!” long before he entered the Madison Square Garden ring for the first time. Throughout a lengthy undercard, it was clear which fighter the sellout crowd of 20,112 came to see and cheer.

He delivered with power and precision, landing 73 punches, 35 to the body.

“That was the plan in the gym, to hit the body and then move up,” Alvarez said If this was a one-off at 168 through an interpreter. “You pounds, it was quite a show in see the result here.” his debut at Madison Square

Only eight other Mexican Garden. Fielding, 31, won the fighters have held three divi- WBA crown in July when he sion titles. And Alvarez, 28, knocked out Tyron Zeuge in says he is headed back to the Germany in the fifth round. 160-pound class he rules, But the Englishman had never with possibly a third go with faced anyone close to Cane- Golovkin in 2019. The next lo’s class, and it showed. fight, opponent unknown, is “I never shied away from set for Las Vegas in early May. the challenge,” Fielding said.

“Canelo will fight whoever “I lived the dream, I’ll come is the best, no doubt about back. it,” said his promoter, Oscar “He is strong and all that. It De La Hoya. was the body shots, the wind Associated Press

UCF’s Josh Heupel, Notre Dame’s Brian Kelly and Ala- bama’s Nick Saban are the finalists for The Associated Press national college football coach of the year after leading their teams to unbeaten regular seasons.

The winner will be announced today.

Heupel guided Central Florida (12-0) to a second consecutive unbeaten season. The American Athletic Conference champions will play LSU in the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 1. Kelly led the Fighting Irish (12-0) to their first College Football Playoff appearance. The Irish play Clemson in the Cotton Bowl on Jan. 29. Saban has Alabama (13-0) in the playoff for the fifth consecutive season. The Crimson Tide won the Southeastern Conference and face Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl on Jan. 29.

The AP coach of the year was established in 1998. Saban is one of two coaches to win the award twice, along with Gary Patterson of TCU. Saban was coach of the year with LSU in 2003 and with Alabama in 2008.

Kelly won coach of the year in 2012, the last time he led Notre Dame to a 12-0 season.

Last year’s winner was Scott Frost of UCF. No school has ever had differ- ent coaches win the award in consecutive seasons.

Missouri: An assistant coach at Missouri-Columbia was arrested for missing a court date on a traffic ticket. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports Vernon Hargreaves was arrested Saturday after a University Police officer discovered an arrest warrant related to a court date Hargreaves missed last January.

University Police spokes- woman Sara Deidrich says Hargreaves was ticketed in he took away. He placed the shots well and he caught me. I stood too long to try to mix it with him when I shouldn’t have. The better man won tonight.”

The fight ended with 22 sec- onds remaining in the third after two knockdowns in the round.

Fielding was outmanned from the outset. He couldn’t block the bevy of body punches launched by Alva- rez, who floored Fielding with a left in the first round. Miller County, Missouri, for operating a vehicle without valid insurance or registra- tion in December 2017. After he was arrested Saturday, Hargreaves posted $1,000 bond and was released. Missouri spokesman Chad Moller says the university is aware of the situation, but it is still gathering more information.

The 56-year-old Hargreaves coaches inside linebackers for Missouri. He has been with the team for about a year.

Elsewhere: Rogan Wells tied the NCAA Division II championship game record with five touchdown passes and Valdosta State (14-0) won its fourth national title with a 49-47 victory over Ferris State (15-1) on Saturday night in McKinney, Texas. Ferris State’s rally from an 11-point deficit fell short when Jevon Shaw’s two-point conversion pass sailed wide of Keyondre Craig at the back of the end zone with 40 seconds

Alvarez did it again with a right to the head and a left to the body late in the second round, and that brought down Fielding’s hands enough to expose the head. So Alvarez used a huge right lead to knock down Fielding in the third round, and soon after finished it with a series of blows.

The fight card was streamed on DAZN, a service that paid Alvarez $365 million for 11 fights. This was quite a selling point for the red-headed Mexican.

On the undercard, Tevin Farmer (28-4-1) started fast, then coasted to a unanimous decision over Francisco Fonseca (22-2-1) to hold onto his IBF super featherweight belt. He won 117-111 on all three judges’ cards.

Katie Taylor of Ireland won a lopsided 10-round decision over Finland’s Eva Wahlstrom to keep her IBF and WBA lightweight championships. She is now 12-0, while Wahlstrom lost for the first time in 24 fights.

Super featherweight Lamont Roach Jr. easily outpointed Alberto Mercado, running his record to 18-0-1. Roach controlled the fight from the outset and took it easy late, which nearly cost him when Mercado (15-2-1) nailed him with several hard shots in the final round.

Rising lightweight Ryan Garcia had no trouble running his record to 17-0 by stopping Braulio Rodriguez in the fifth round. Rodriguez’s repertoire included more clowning and low blows than fighting. left. Ferris State couldn’t stop Valdosta’s championship-game-record 374-yard passing attack, and the champions gave up 270 rushing yards to Ferris State.

In Daytona, Fla., Trent Solsma threw four TD passes, including an 16-yard scoring strike to Connor Niles with 1:29 to play, to help Morningside beat Benedictine 35-28 for its first NAIA championship.

New Colorado coach Mel Tucker added a few familiar faces to serve as his coordinators. Tucker brought in Jay Johnson to run the offense and Tyson Summers to oversee the defense in moves announced Saturday by the school. Both were on staff with Tucker when he served as the defensive coordinator of Georgia. Johnson spent the past two seasons handling quality control for the offense. Summers held a similar position for the defense last fall.