Pitt men’s soccer team gets NCAA bid
The Pitt men’s soccer team received an at-large bid to the 48-team 2022 NCAA championship tournament Monday, the fourth consecutive NCAA bid for Panthers (8-4-5).
They will play host to Cleveland State (11-3-5) on Thursday night at AmbroseUrbanic Field beginning at 7 pm. The winner will advance Sunday to play the No. 16 national seed, Akron (11-35), the Mid-American Conference runner-up.
The Panthers have been dominant at home since 2019 as they are 30-4-5 including a 6-1-4 mark at Ambrose Urbanic Field this season. Pitt is 3-0 all-time at home in the NCAA tournament.
More soccer
Forward and winger Christian Pulisic will wear No. 10 for the United States at the World Cup. The No. 10 jersey is traditionally awarded in soccer to a team’s leading player. Previous No. 10s on the U.S .team included Peter Vermes (1990), Roy Wegerle (1994), Tab Ramos (1998), Claudio Reyna (2002 and 2006), Landon Donovan (2010) and Mix Diskerud (2014).
College basketball
The Duquesne men’s team rolled to a 96-70 victory against South Carolina State. It lifted the Dukes’ record to 2-1 overall, 2-0 at home.
Dae Dae Grant with 14 points and Jimmy Clark III with 13 led Duquesne’s balanced scoring attack that saw 13 players put their names on the scoring sheet in a game Duquesne controlled from the outset.
The Dukes outscored their visitors 50-29 in the first half and were never threatened. The Bulldogs fell to 0-3 with the loss.
• Robert Morris women’s team ran its record to 4-0 with an 87-48 victory against visiting Wheeling. The Division II Cardinals dropped to 2-1. Danielle Vuletich had 15 points and five rebounds to lead the Colonials.
• North Carolina (2-0) earned 44 of 63 first-place votes to finish ahead of No. 2 Gonzaga in the first regularseason AP Top 25, which featured only slight changes from the preseason poll released Oct. 17.
• South Carolina (3-0) upheld its No. 1 preseason ranking in the AP women’s poll by holding the top spot in the first regular-season rankings. Stanford remained No. 2, setting up Sunday’s showdown in the Bay Area between the two.
Olympics
Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva faces a potential four-year doping ban which would rule her out of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina d’Ampezzo, the Court of Arbitration for Sport said.
The World Anti-Doping Agency WADA also wants Valieva to be disqualified from all competitions since December 2021, when she gave a sample which later tested positive. That would include losing the gold medal she won in the team event at the Beijing Olympics in February, when she was 15.
Tennis
Novak Djokovic beat Stefanos Tsitsipas for the ninth consecutive time, 6-4, 7-6, in the players’ opening match at the ATP Finals in Turin, Italy. Earlier, Andrey Rublev won a 37-shot rally on his fifth match point to seal a 6-7 (7), 6-3, 7-6 (7) win against Daniil Medvedev.