Notre Dame lures Penn State coach
Notre Dame is finalizing a deal to make Penn State’s Micah Shrewsberry its new men’s basketball coach, two people with direct knowledge of the situation told the Associated Press on Wednesday.
The people spoke on condition of anonymity because contract details were still being completed.
Shrewsberry, in his second season at Penn State (23-14), led the Nittany Lions to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2011 and a tournament victory for the first time since 2001. The Nittany Lions beat Texas A&M and were eliminated by Texas in the second round.
Notre Dame is replacing Mike Brey, who spent 23 seasons as coach. He announced in January this would be his last season with Notre Dame, which went 11-21.
Wichita State hires ORU’s Mills: Wichita State hired Paul Mills away from Oral Roberts to turn around its languishing men’s basketball program, landing what has been one of the hottest names among mid-major coaches.
The 50-year-old Mills led the the Golden Eagles to two of the past three NCAA Tournaments, engineering upsets of Ohio State and Florida as a No. 15 seed in 2021 before going 30-5 this season and losing to Duke as a No. 5 seed.
He replaces Isaac Brown, who took over for Gregg Marshall when he resigned in November 2020 amid allegations of verbal and physical abuse of players. Brown led the Shockers to the NCAA Tournament in his first season but was 15-13 and 17-15 the last two seasons.
Bacot returning to UNC: Armando Bacot,
Forward
who was a third-team All-America after averaging 15.9 points and 10.4 rebounds, is returning to North Carolina for a fifth season.
TENNIS
Swiatek is out with rib injury
No. 1-ranked Iga Swiatek withdrew from defending her Miami Open title because of a rib injury that she is hoping will heal during a break from competition.
Meanwhile, former U.S. Open champions Emma Raducanu and Sloane Stephens were knocked out. Bianca Andreescu — the 2019 U.S. Open champ — defeated Raducanu 6-3, 3-6, 6-2, and Shelby Rogers beat Stephens 6-4, 3-6, 6-2.
MISCELLANEOUS Sakamoto leads women’s skaters
Defending champion Kaori Sakamoto of Japan took the lead after the women’s short program at the world figure skating championships at Saitama, Japan. Sakamoto is 5.62 points ahead of Lee Hae-in of South Korea going into Friday’s free skate.
Mai Mihara of Japan was third with 16-yearold American Isabeau Levito fourth. Russia’s typically dominant skating team has been excluded from the world championships for the second straight year because of the invasion of Ukraine.
Fury-Usyk fight off: The proposed fight between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk to become the first undisputed world heavyweight champion since 2000 appeared to be off, with the boxers seemingly unable to agree to rematch terms. Usyk’s promoter, Alex Krassyuk, said his fighter broke off negotiations with Fury because his rival was “putting so many obstacles in front of making the deal.”