Williamson, Nike feel pain of torn shoe
Soon after Zion Williamson’s shoe ripped apart, Nike’s stock price took a hit.
The freak injury during one of the college basketball season’s marquee games immediately sparked debates about everything from the shoe manufacturer to insurance issues and whether the likely NBA lottery pick should risk his professional future by continuing to play for the top-ranked-fornow Blue Devils.
Williamson has a mild right knee sprain and is progressing as expected, team spokesman Mike DeGeorge said Thursday night.
Nike, which manufactured the shoes Williamson was wearing, also was feeling the effect of the injury. The company’s stock price was down about 1%, to $83.95 after trading Thursday as the sportswear manufacturer became the target of ridicule on social media.
Longtime Syracuse basketball coach Jim Boeheim struck and killed a man along an interstate late Wednesday night as he tried to avoid hitting the man’s disabled vehicle, police said.
Syracuse police said 51-year-old Jorge Jimenez was an occupant in a black Dodge Charger with three others when they apparently lost control on a patch of ice and hit a guardrail before midnight Wednesday on I-690 in Syracuse.
Boeheim struck Jimenez with his GMC Acadia while trying to avoid the disabled car, which was resting perpendicular on the darkened highway.
BASEBALL Red Sox beat writer Cafardo dies at 62
Longtime Boston Globe baseball writer Nick Cafardo died Thursday while covering spring training after collapsing on the sidewalk outside the Red Sox clubhouse in Fort Myers, Fla. He was 62. The newspaper said Cafardo appeared to have an embolism. The team’s medical staff responded quickly but was unable to revive him.
In Mesa, Ariz., the spring training season started with a splash as the first major league exhibition game of the year, the Seattle Mariners versus Oakland Athletics, was rained out. The Mariners led 5-0 in the middle of the second inning when it was called.
ETC. NBA seeks lowering its draft age to 18
The NBA has followed through on a public desire by Commissioner Adam Silver to take steps to lower the league’s age minimum to 18, according to a person with knowledge of the matter not authorized to speak publicly.
Over All-Star weekend, the NBA delivered a proposal to the players’ union detailing the proposal, which would move the league in the direction of removing the so-called one-and-done rule for college basketball players.
The current league rules, requiring players to be at least one year removed from high school, were enacted before the 2006 draft.
Former UCLA outside linebacker Jaelan Phillips announced on Twitter that he was headed to Miami to play for the Hurricanes after his two seasons as a Bruin were cut short by injuries.
A UCLA athletic department official said in December that Phillips had taken a medical retirement after playing in only four games last season because of multiple concussions.
The Redlands East Valley High graduate had 31⁄2 sacks in six games as a freshman during another season that was abbreviated because of injuries. Rory McIlroy nearly made a hole-in-one on the same short par four that Tiger Woods hit his first competitive shot in Mexico out-ofbounds. McIlroy kept right on rolling to an eight-under 63 for a one-shot lead over Dustin Johnson in the Mexico Championship in Mexico City. Woods opened with a double bogey and salvaged his round with an even-par 71 . ... Andres Romero shot a six-under 66 in windy conditions to take the first-round lead in the PGA Tour’s Puerto Rico Open in Rio Grande.
Georges St-Pierre officially announced his retirement from mixed martial arts fighting near his home in Montreal. St-Pierre (26-2) reigned as UFC welterweight champion from 2006 to 2007 and 2008 to 2013, successfully defending the belt nine times — including once in a record $12 million live gate at UFC 129 in Toronto. He returned in 2017 following a fouryear hiatus to claim the middleweight title by defeating Michael Bisping.