PRO FOOTBALL
PHOENIX (AP) Invoking his father Al’s name, and copying what the Hall of Fame owner did with the Raiders, Mark Davis is moving the franchise out of Oakland.
NFL owners approved the Raiders’ move to Las Vegas 31-1 at the league meetings Monday. Miami was the lone dissenter.
”My father used to say the greatness of the Raiders is in the future,” Davis said. ”This gives us the ability to achieve that.”
The vote was a foregone conclusion after the league and Raiders were not satisfied with Oakland’s proposals for a new stadium, and Las Vegas stepped up with $750 million in public money. Bank of America also is giving Davis a $650 million loan, further helping to persuade owners to allow the third team relocation in just over a year.
The Rams moved from St. Louis to Los Angeles in 2016, and in January the Chargers relocated from San Diego to LA.
NCAA TOURNAMENT
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) – Geno Auriemma and the UConn Huskies have been on an unprecedented Final Four run, making it there 10 straight years.
This trip might have been the least expected of them.
With a trio of All-Americans lost to graduation, Auriemma had questions about his inexperienced group of Huskies. They answered every single one of them.
Next up for the Huskies, who have won 111 consecutive games, is Mississippi State on Friday night in Dallas. Stanford will face South Carolina in the other national semifinal, giving the Southeastern Conference two teams in the Final Four for the first time since 2008.
That was the last season the conference won a championship. The Bulldogs are playing in their first Final Four after beating Baylor in the Oklahoma City Regional.
PENN STATE ABUSE SCANDAL
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – A juror who voted to convict Penn State’s former president of child endangerment said that the defendant’s own words in a 2001 email amounted to some of the strongest evidence against him.
Victoria Navazio said that an email from Graham Spanier to former co-defendants Gary Schultz and Tim Curley showed that he knew children were at risk.
Spanier approved a plan on how to deal with a report that assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky showering with a boy in a team facility. In the email, he told the other two administrators that the ”only downside” was if Sandusky did not respond properly ”and then we become vulnerable for not having reported it.”
Spanier, who did not testify or put on any witnesses, has said he had no inkling that the 2001 complaint by then-graduate assistant coach Mike McQueary to Curley, Schultz and former head football coach Joe Paterno was about a sexual attack on a child, as McQueary has repeatedly testified was the case. Spanier has said it was characterized as horseplay.
WOMEN’S HOCKEY WAGE BOYCOTT
WASHINGTON (AP) – Pressure is mounting on USA Hockey in its wage dispute with the women’s national team.
Sixteen U.S. senators wrote a letter to executive director Dave Ogrean, urging him to resolve the matter. The message came four days before the start of the women’s world championship, which players threatened to boycott if significant progress was not made toward an agreement.
USA Hockey’s board of directors held a meeting but had not emerged with a resolution as of late Monday night. Players said Sunday in a statement that they were hopeful USA Hockey would agree to what was hammered out after 10-plus hours of in-person talks a week ago.
The senators, all Democrats, cited the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act and told Ogrean he should ensure the team receives ”equitable resources.”
They joined a chorus of support that includes unions representing players from the NHL, NBA, NFL and Major League Baseball. Those organizations said over the weekend they stood with the women’s team and criticized USA Hockey for attempting to find replacement players.
COLLEGE BASKETBALL
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Lonzo Ball of UCLA, Josh Hart of Villanova, Frank Mason III of Kansas, Purdue’s Caleb Swanigan and Gonzaga’s Nigel Williams-Goss are the finalists for the John R. Wooden Award as college basketball’s player of the year.
The five have been invited to Los Angeles for the trophy presentation at the College Basketball Awards on April 7.
The 10-member Wooden Award All American team was announced Monday based on national fan voting from March 13-20, which included opening rounds of the NCAA Tournament. Besides those five, the other members are: Dillon Brooks of Oregon, Josh Jackson of Kansas, Justin Jackson of North Carolina, Duke’s Luke Kennard and Kentucky’s Malik Monk.
Brooks, Justin Jackson and Williams-Goss will play at the Final Four this weekend in Arizona.
PRO BASKETBALL
LOS ANGELES (AP) – A battle over control of the Los Angeles Lakers is over after an agreement was reached to have Jeanie Buss serve as controlling owner of the storied NBA franchise for the rest of her life, making permanent the arrangement her late father and longtime Lakers owner Jerry Buss said in his will that he wanted.
The agreement was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court and states that Jim and Johnny Buss have agreed that their sister will serve as the controlling owner. The filing ends weeks of uncertainty about control of the Lakers as the franchise tries to put several losing seasons behind it.
Earlier this month, Jeanie Buss went to court seeking an order to control the team after her brothers called for a board meeting that she interpreted as a challenge to her power. That filing came days after she removed Jim Buss as the Lakers’ executive vice president of basketball operations.
