University of Maine sophomore forward Adrianna Smith was named the America East women’s basketball player of the week.
Smith averaged 30.2 points, 10 rebounds and 4.5 assists in two games for the Black Bears. She had 30 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in UMaine’s 70-63 overtime win over UMass-Lowell on Wednesday. She followed that with 34 points, 10 rebounds and four assists in Maine’s 69-63 win over the New Jersey Institute of Technology on Saturday.
Smith, who has four double-doubles this season, is averaging 14.1 points and 8.4 rebounds per game, and has 58 assists in 15 games for the Black Bears (7-8) this season.
The Black Bears play at the University of New Hampshire at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
UCONN: UConn, which was forced to postpone a game this past weekend because of a lack of healthy players, announced it will be able to play as scheduled on Wednesday.
The Huskies are traveling to face St. John’s at the UBS Arena in Elmont, New York. The school announced it now has “at least seven players” available for that game.
UConn’s game against, DePaul, which had been scheduled for Sunday, was postponed when it became clear that injuries would leave the No. 4 Huskies with only six available athletes.
The conference requires schools to suit up seven scholarship players for any game.
TOP 25: Off to one of the best starts in school history, Illinois cracked The Associated Press Top 25 women’s basketball poll for the first time in 23 years.
The Illini (14-3) are ranked No. 24 in their first Top 25 appearance since Nov. 27, 2000. It’s been a remarkable turnaround under first-year coach Shauna Green. The team was 7-20 last season and just 1-13 in the Big Ten. Illinois hasn’t had a winning season since 2012-13.
South Carolina remained the No. 1 team, garnering all 28 votes from a national media panel. The Gamecocks have been No. 1 for 29 consecutive weeks. They were followed in the poll by Stanford and Ohio State, which rallied to beat Illinois on Sunday.
UConn moved up one spot to fourth.
MEN’S BASKETBALL
TOP 25: Houston is back at No. 1 in The Associated Press Top 25 men’s college basketball poll for the second time this season, while Kansas State continued its unexpectedly strong start by leaping from unranked to the verge of the top 10.
The Cougars received 34 of 60 first-place votes in the poll to return to the top after a two-week stay there earlier this season. Kansas was second and had 22 first-place votes, while Purdue fell from No. 1 to No. 3 and got the other four first-place votes after suffering its first loss at Rutgers last week.
Before this season, the Cougars (16-1) hadn’t been No. 1 since the high-flying “Phi Slama Jama” days of the 1980s.
Kansas State jumped to No. 11 after an impressive week with two road wins against ranked opponents under first-year coach Jerome Tang. Picked to finish last in the 10-team Big 12, the Wildcats scored 116 points at Texas then edged Baylor 97-95 in overtime.
That helped Kansas State (14-1) match its best start since the 1958-59 season, while bringing the Wildcats back into the AP Top 25 for the first time since the end of the 2018-19 season.
FOOTBALL
MICHIGAN: All-America running back Blake Corum is staying in school for his senior season and putting his NFL dreams on hold.
Corum announced his decision hours before the national championship game, writing that he had “unfinished business.”
He had a season-ending left knee injury against Illinois on Nov. 19 after running for 1,463 yards and 18 touchdowns. Corum had 952 yards rushing and 11 touchdowns as a sophomore in 2021.
The second-ranked Wolverines lost to third-ranked TCU in a College Football Playoff semifinal without Corum in the lineup.
HALL OF FAME: Reggie Bush, whose Heisman Trophy victory for Southern California in 2005 was vacated because of NCAA violations, was among 18 players in the latest College Football Hall of Fame class.
Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, who won the Heisman in 2007, was also elected to the hall by the National Football Foundation, along with Dwight Freeney of Syracuse; Luke Kuechly of Boston College; LaMichael James of Oregon; and Michael Bishop of Kansas State.
Bush played on two national championship teams with USC in 2003 and ’04, and led the Trojans to another title game in 2005, a season in which he won the Heisman with a spectacular season. He ran for 1,740 yards, averaged 8.7 yards per carry and scored 19 touchdowns.
He went to become the second overall pick in the NFL draft by the New Orleans Saints after a college career that saw him run for 3,169 yards in three seasons, averaging 7.3 yards per carry, and score 42 touchdowns.
The NCAA later investigated USC and Bush and determined he and his family had received impermissible benefits from a marketing agent while playing for the Trojans.
The NCAA hit USC with severe sanctions in 2010 and later the Heisman Trust vacated Bush’s Heisman victory and asked him to return his trophy.
Among the NCAA penalties, USC disassociated with Bush for 10 years. That sanction lifted in 2020 and Bush was welcomed back by the school.
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