BUSINESS

The NBA’s Washington Wizards and NHL’s Washington Capitals are staying in the District of Columbia for the long term after ownership and the city reached an agreement on a $515 million arena project.

Mayor Muriel Bowser and owner Ted Leonsis signed a letter of intent on Wednesday for the deal, which keeps the teams in the District through 2050. They announced the development at a joint news conference at Capital One Arena minutes later.

“It’s a great day, and I’m really relieved,” Leonsis said.

The project is set to include 200,000 square feet of expansion of the arena complex into the nearby Gallery Place space, the creation of an entertainment district in the city’s surrounding Chinatown neighborhood and safety and transportation upgrades.

The agreement between Monumental Sports & Entertainment and the city came as Alexandria officials said talks for a new arena that would have moved the teams to Virginia had ended. Leonsis acknowledged Virginia had land as an advantage D.C. didn’t.

BASKETBALL

NBA: Philadelphia 76ers Coach Nick Nurse said there is a “good likelihood” that reigning NBA MVP Joel Embiid will be back on the court before the postseason.

Embiid, who has averaged 35.3 points and 11.5 rebounds this season, has missed 27 games after suffering a meniscus injury on Jan. 30 at Golden State that required surgery on Feb. 6. The Sixers were 10-16 in the games since Embiid’s injury heading into Wednesday.

COLLEGES

MEN’S BASKETBALL: Louisville has reached an agreement with College of Charleston Coach Pat Kelsey to become the Cardinals’ next men’s basketball coach, a person with direct knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press.

Kenny Payne, a first-time head coach, was fired by Louisville on March 13 after going 12-52 the last two seasons at his alma mater. It marked the worst two-year stretch in the storied program’s history and capped its third consecutive losing season after missing the NCAA Tournament in 2021.

The 48-year-old Kelsey will become Louisville’s third head coach, and fifth overall, since the school fired Hall of Famer Rick Pitino in October 2017 in the wake of a federal investigation of corruption in college basketball.

• Pacific has hired former Canadian college basketball coach Dave Smart as its new men’s basketball coach.

Athletic Director Adam Tschuor announced the decision to hire Smart as the replacement for the recently fired Leonard Perry.

Smart spent this past season as an assistant at Texas Tech but has a long history as a head coach in Canada, winning 656 games in 18 seasons at Carleton University.

Texas Tech went 23-11 and made the NCAA Tournament this season with Smart on the staff.

Pacific went 6-26 this season and lost all 16 conference games under Perry.

• Florida guard Riley Kugel, who was benched for two games during the Southeastern Conference Tournament, is transferring.

Kugel announced his intention to enter the NCAA transfer portal on social media.

A preseason all-SEC selection, Kugel averaged 9.2 points and 3.5 rebounds as a sophomore this season. The Orlando native averaged 9.9 points as a freshman.
But he was so solid down the stretch last season — he averaged 17.3 points over Florida’s final 10 games — that he considered turning pro. He ended up returning to Florida with hopes of being the team’s go-to scorer.

Instead, he often looked lost on the court and disengaged on the bench.

• Missouri State hired Cuonzo Martin, bringing back the only coach to lead its basketball program to a Missouri Valley Conference regular-season title more than a decade after he left Springfield for stints in power conferences.

Martin signed a five-year contract through the 2028-29 season with a base salary of $600,000 and incentives for NCAA Tournament and NIT appearances, conference championships, coaching honors and other benchmarks.

• Iowa’s Patrick McCaffery, son of Hawkeyes Coach Fran McCaffery, has entered the transfer portal, the school confirmed.

Patrick McCaffery has one year of eligibility remaining after starting 60 of 123 games. He was a starter for the first half of the 2023-24 season, averaged 8.9 points per game and scored a team-high 19 in the Hawkeyes’ loss at Utah in the NIT on Sunday.

The 6-foot-9, 212-pound forward had thyroid cancer when he was 13 and, after having two surgeries, was declared cancer-free three months after his diagnosis. He missed six games last season to address anxiety symptoms that caused him to lack sleep, appetite and energy.

• Florida Atlantic is hiring Baylor associate head coach John Jakus as its coach, a move that comes four days after Dusty May capped his six-year run with the Owls and took over at Michigan.

Jakus and the school have agreed on a five-year contract. Financial terms were not immediately released.

Jakus was at Baylor for seven seasons — including the team’s national championship season in 2021 — and spent time at Gonzaga as director of operations under Mark Few before that.

GAMBLING: In the midst of March Madness, the NCAA is pushing for states with legal wagering on sporting events to ban prop bets on college athletes.

“Sports betting issues are on the rise across the country with prop bets continuing to threaten the integrity of competition and leading to student-athletes getting harassed,” Baker said in statement posted on social media. “The NCAA has been working with states to deal with these threats and many are responding by banning college prop bets.”

Prop bets — short for proposition bets — allow gamblers to wager on statistics a player will accumulate during a game rather than the final score.

Baker’s statement came two days after the NBA confirmed it opened an investigation into unusual betting patterns surrounding props involving Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter. The Raptors said Porter would miss his third consecutive game Wednesday for personal reasons.

SOCCER

U.S. WOMEN: United States women’s national team forward Midge Purce sustained a season-ending knee injury this past weekend playing for Gotham FC against the Thorns in Portland, Oregon.

The NWSL champions announced Purce will undergo surgery to repair her anterior cruciate ligament. Purce confirmed the diagnosis in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

NWSL: Sophia Smith had options but in the end felt like she “wasn’t done” in Portland.

The Thorns announced they signed Smith to a contract extension through 2025, with a player option for 2026. Portland says the deal gives the 23-year-old forward the highest annual salary in the National Women’s Soccer League but would not disclose terms.

The Thorns were sold in January to the Bhathal family, which is also part of the ownership group of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings.

AUTO RACING

NASCAR: Darlington Raceway will pay tribute to the late NASCAR Hall of Famer Cale Yarborough by displaying his No. 29 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass during its throwback weekend at the Goodyear 400 in May.

Yarborough, a native of Sardis, South Carolina, and three-time Cup champion, died on New Year’s Eve at age 84.

TENNIS

SPLIT:  Top-ranked Novak Djokovic has split with Coach Goran Ivanisevic, ending their association that began in 2018 and included 12 Grand Slam titles for the Serbian tennis player.

In a post on Instagram, Djokovic said he stopped working with Ivanisevic “a few days ago.”

“Our on-court chemistry had its ups and downs,” Djokovic wrote, “but our friendship was always rock solid.”

MIAMI OPEN: Australian Open champion Jannik Sinner won his 20th match of 2024 to reach the semifinals for the third time in the past four years with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Tomas Machac.

On the women’s side, 14th-seeded Ekaterina Alexandrova followed up her win over No. 1 seed Iga Swiatek with another top-10 victory, taking down No. 5 seed Jessica Pegula 3-6, 6-4, 6-4. Alexandrova earned her first trip to a Miami Open semifinal.

Alexandrova will face Danielle Collins, who defeated No. 23 seed Caroline Garcia 6-3, 6-2.

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