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NIT
to Experiment With 40-Team Field
NEW YORK (AP)
— For the past 30 years, the NIT has provided a second chance
for college basketball teams that didn’t make the field for
the NCAA tournament.
Now, in a one-year experiment, eight more schools will get the opportunity
to extend their seasons.
The Metropolitan
Intercollegiate Basketball Association, which runs the preseason
and postseason NITs, said Wednesday the one-year expansion from
32 teams to 40 is in reaction to repeated requests from around college
basketball.
“Conference
commissioners, athletic directors and coaches (asked) us to expand
our postseason NIT field to accommodate additional teams who have
had successful seasons in their conference but have failed to receive
an invitation to the NCAA tournament,” NIT executive director
John J. Powers said.
The extra berths
come a year too late for St. Francis, N.Y., which in 2001 agonizingly
lived the scenario of the type of teams the NIT appears ready to
reward.
“It does
give coaches at schools our size something else to be hopeful about
in case you win your conference and stub your toe,” Terriers
coach Ron Ganulin said Wednesday.
Tyson’s
boxing fate remains undecided
NEW YORK (AP)
— The Association of Boxing Commissions is recommending that
other states follow Nevada by denying Mike Tyson a boxing license.
The ABC’s
suggestion isn’t binding, though, because while state commissions
uphold other states’ license revocations or suspensions of
boxers, they are not bound to honor a license denial.
Shelly Finkel,
Tyson’s adviser, said seven states have expressed interest
in a Tyson challenge to WBC-IBF heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis.
General manager
Eddie Gossage of the Texas Motor Speedway at Fort Worth, said he
spoke with Finkel and Main Events, Lewis’ American promoter.
Dickie Cole,
boxing coordinator of Texas, has said Tyson could get a license
there. He has not applied, but he is supposed to apply for a license
in California in about two weeks.
There also is
a political reason behind the ABC’s action.
The ABC is against
having a Federal Boxing Commission, and the group’s president,
Tim Lueckenhoff, said that for that reason, “I think it’s
important that we as an association stick together.”
The Nevada State
Athletic Commission voted 4-1 on Jan. 29 not to issue a license
to Tyson so he could fight Lewis on April 6 in the MGM Grand at
Las Vegas.
Sampras
leads U.S.; Kuerten out for Brazil
OKLAHOMA CITY
(AP) — Pete Sampras is back in the Davis Cup after a nearly
two-year absence.
The United States
is hoping Sampras and a player 11 years his junior, Andy Roddick,
can lead the team past Slovakia in their first-round meeting that
opens Friday on an indoor court in Oklahoma City.
“I felt
like there were certain times of the year that I had a hard time
getting going, and Davis Cup definitely means something,” the
30-year-old Sampras said.”
He’s had
a poor-for-him 18 months, dating to Wimbledon in 2000, when he won
the last of his 13 Grand Slam championships. That was also the last
tournament of any sort Sampras won — making 2001 his first
year without at least one title since 1992.
Bearcats
run over 49ers 85-66 in Charlotte
CHARLOTTE, N.C.
(AP) — Leonard Stokes scored 30 points and Steve Logan added
24 as No. 6 Cincinnati snapped Charlotte's seven-game winning streak
with an 85-66 victory over the 49ers on Wednesday night.
The Bearcats
(21-2, 9-1 Conference USA) knocked Charlotte (14-6, 8-2) out of
a three-way tie for first place in the American Division.
The 49ers now
hold a share of the top spot with Marquette, which snapped Cincinnati's
20-game winning streak with a 74-60 victory on Saturday.
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