Off the wire

BASKETBALL Cuban: Mavs tanked

Speculation about flailing pro sports teams tanking games at the end of a season to improve draft position often runs rampant. But rarely does a player or anyone associated with a particular team admit it. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban did so Wednesday after his team finished 33-49 in its first losing season since 1999-2000. “Once we were eliminated from the playoffs, we did everything possible to lose games,” Cuban said on The Dan Patrick Show. Cuban explained that he didn’t tell his players to lose games on purpose. Instead, the Mavericks went with younger players down the stretch, which inherently decreased their chances of winning. The Mavericks, who finished 2-8 in their last 10 games, finished eight games out of the last playoff spot in the NBA Western Conference. Dallas entered Tuesday’s NBA draft lottery in the ninth position and remained there after not cashing in on long odds to move up in the pecking order. Cuban’s admission likely won’t go over well with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, who has previously addressed the tanking issue. “We’re going to have to react and change incentives a bit. I do think it’s frustrating,” Silver said last month on the Mike & Mike talk show on ESPN Radio.

FOOTBALL Blount moves to Eagles

LeGarrette Blount is bringing his power running to Philadelphia. The Eagles and Blount agreed on a one-year contract Wednesday, giving the team a bruising back to complement their group of smaller, speedy runners. Blount led the NFL with 18 touchdowns rushing in 2016 while helping the New England Patriots win the Super Bowl. He ran for 1,161 yards, averaging 3.6 per carry. Blount, 30, is the latest veteran playmaker the Eagles have added in free agency. They also signed wide receivers Alshon Jeffery and Torrey Smith, giving quarterback Carson Wentz more options. Blount has 5,122 yards rushing in his career and 4.4 average yards per carry to go with 49 TDs.

Wife: Brady had concussions

Gisele Bundchen, the wife of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, said in an interview with CBS that Brady “had a concussion last year” and hinted that he had suffered previous concussions. Bundchen made the comments during the CBS This Morning

show Wednesday in an answer to a question posed by Charlie Rose

in response to comments Brady made on SiriusXM NFL Radio in February that indicated she would prefer that he retire. Brady, who turns 40 on Aug. 3 and has said he wants to play well into his 40s, was not listed on any injury report last year with a concussion. According to Jeff Howe of the Boston Herald,

Brady hasn’t been listed on an injury report with a concussion dating as far back as 2003. Neither Brady nor the Patriots have commented on Bundchen’s remarks.

Brains pledged to research

Two more retired football stars have pledged their brains to research. Two-time Super Bowl champion Leonard Marshall and three-time Pro Bowl selection Matt Hasselbeck say they will donate their brains to the Concussion Legacy Foundation for research into chronic traumatic encephalopathy. The announcements were made Wednesday as part of the second annual Brain Trust conference, which is hosted by the Veterans Administration. Marshall said he already has short-term memory loss and erratic behavior. The former New York Giants defensive lineman is 55. Hasselbeck’s father, Don, was a teammate of Marshall’s on the Giants and pledged his brain to the foundation in 2010. More than 1,800 former athletes and military veterans have pledged to donate their brains to the Concussion Legacy Foundation for CTE research. The disease has been linked to repeated head trauma.

Ex-Baylor student files suit

A former Baylor student said in a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday that as many as eight players on the school’s football team drugged and gang-raped her. The woman, a volleyball player referred to as Jane Doe, said she was attending a party in February 2012 at an apartment where several football players lived. She said she became intoxicated and cannot recall portions of the night, but she remembers one football player picking her up and putting her in his vehicle. She was taken to another location where she says at least four football players raped her. Later, other people told her at least as many as eight football players were involved. The woman said members of the football team taunted her later, with one of them telling her that she “wanted it” and that one of the men had taken pictures of her during the rape. The new lawsuit is the seventh Title IX lawsuit filed against the Waco, Texas, university in its ongoing sexual-assault crisis.

TENNIS

Nadal advances in Rome

Rafael Nadal hardly had to get his socks dirty to extend his winning streak to 16 matches. Back to being the best player on tour over the last month, Nadal advanced from his opening match at the Italian Open in Rome on Wednesday when Nicolas Almagro retired in the first set with an apparent injury. Nadal will next face 13th-seeded Jack Sock, who beat Jiri Vesely 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (1) after more than 21/ hours. Top-ranked Angelique Kerber, meanwhile, lost her opening match at the Foro Italico to Estonian qualifier Anett Kontaveit

6-4, 6-0. Kerber joined Andy Murray, the top-ranked men’s player, on the sidelines after Murray’s loss to Fabio Fognini on Tuesday. Also, Olympic silver medalist Juan Martin del Potro defeated British player Kyle Edmund 7-5, 6-4; fifth-seeded Milos Raonic defeated Germany veteran Tommy Haas

6-4, 6-3; and 16th-seeded Alexander Zverev beat Viktor Troicki

6-3, 6-4 and will next face Fognini. Venus Williams, the 1999 champion, eliminated Lesia Tsurenko 6-4, 6-3. Also, second-seeded Karolina Pliskova defeated Lauren Davis of the United States 6-1, 6-1, and sixth-seeded Simona Halep beat Laura Siegemund of Germany 6-4, 6-4. Eighth-seeded Elina Svitolina eliminated Alize Cornet of France 6-4, 7-6 (11), and 15th-seeded Kiki Bertens beat American qualifier CiCi Bellis 6-4, 6-0.

Sharapova: Will rise again

Maria Sharapova is vowing to “rise up again,” a day after she was denied a wild-card entry for the French Open. On her Twitter feed Wednesday, Sharapova posted this message: “If this is what it takes to rise up again, then I am in it all the way, everyday. No words, games, or actions will ever stop me from reaching my own dreams. And I have many.” French Tennis Federation President Bernard Giudicelli announced Tuesday that he decided not to invite Sharapova to play at Roland Garros, where the main draw starts May 28. She recently returned to the tour after serving a 15-month doping ban. Sharapova, 30, didn’t comment about Giudicelli’s ruling Tuesday. She is a twotime French Open champion who has won five Grand Slam titles.

CYCLING Huffman wins stage

American rider Evan Huffman won from a five-man breakaway that barely survived a hard-chasing peloton to win the fourth stage of the Tour of California on Wednesday. Huffman was followed across the line by Rally Cycling teammate Rob Britton in a banner day for the U.S.based squad that was granted one of the wild cards to compete in the race. Lennard Hofstede, Mathias Le Turnier and Gavin Mannion followed them across after spending about 98 of the 99 miles from Santa Barbara in the breakaway. Their advantage reached nine minutes before the peloton finally began giving serious chase, and by that point it was too late. Peter Sagan led the field across the line 13 seconds behind the leaders. Rafal Majka retained his overall lead, two seconds ahead of George Bennett, heading into the potentially decisive climb up Mount Baldy in the fifth stage today.