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After leading the Eagles to a 23-11 record, their fifth regular-season championship since 1987 and the National Invitation Tournament’s second round, the 6-foot, 7-inch, 195-pound 2019 Ellensburg High School grad Steele Venters announced Friday via Twitter his intent to transfer and to declare for the 2023 NBA Draft while retaining his final two years of collegiate eligibility.
Phil Rollins, a starting guard on Louisville’s 1956 NIT championship squad who went on to play in the NBA, has died. He was 87. The school announced that Rollins died Monday morning but did not specify a cause.
Not only was the 1970 National Invitation Tournament championship team celebrated for its 50th anniversary, but during halftime Marquette basketball alumnae Jae Crowder and Lazar Hayward were inducted with four others as part of the 2020 M Club Hall of Fame class.
A former BYU basketball star has been called home. Mel Hutchins, who led BYU to the NIT national championship in 1951, died Wednesday near his home in Encinitas, California, KSL.com has learned. He was 90.
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Metu’s college days weren’t without controversy. He was stripped of his captaincy and suspended for a half for punching an opponent in the groin in December. In February, he was linked to the FBI probe into bribery and corruption in college basketball. According to documents obtained by Yahoo Sports, Metu and/or his adviser, Johnnie Parker, received $2,000 from ASM Sports, an East Coast agency. Metu said he spoke to the Spurs about those potential red flags in a pre-draft interview. “It’s all behind me,” said Metu, who also received criticism from USC fans for choosing not to play with the Trojans in the National Invitational Tournament last spring to avoid injury before the draft.
USC junior forward Chimezie Metu will not play for the Trojans in the National Invitation Tournament, coach Andy Enfield announced. Without Metu, host USC outlasted UNC Asheville 103-98 in double-overtime on Tuesday night to advance to the second round. "Chimezie Metu has made a personal decision not to participate in the NIT as a precautionary measure to eliminate the risk of injury leading up to the NBA draft," Enfield said in a statement.
The San Antonio Spurs today announced that they have signed forward Patricio “Pato” Garino. Per club policy, terms of the contract were not announced. Garino, 6-6/210, spent the past four seasons at George Washington University. In his final season, he helped guide the Colonials to the 2016 NIT Championship and was named to the All-Tournament Team. He earned Atlantic 10 All-Defensive Team and the All-Conference Second Team honors after averaging 14.1 points, 4.2 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.37 steals in 32.0 minutes, while shooting .510 (203-398) from the field and .430 (58-135) from three-point range.
He started to envision himself as the family provider, placing even more pressure on his basketball skills. He scored only seven points against Tennessee. Only 11 points against Florida as Missouri got eliminated in its conference tournament. And only 13 points in what became his final college game, a loss to Southern Mississippi in the National Invitation Tournament. He missed nine of 13 shots. "If anything ever happened, I had to take the lead in the family," he said.
A 7-foot-1 center from Arlington, Texas, Austin revealed during his sophomore season that he is blind in his right eye as a result of a detached retina suffered as a teenager. He was expected to be the first to ever play in the NBA while partially blind. Austin played two seasons at Baylor before declaring for the 2014 NBA Draft. He played in 73 games (72 starts) and averaged 12.1 points, 6.9 rebounds and 2.4 blocks in 28.9 minutes per game. Austin finished his Baylor career tied for second on the school's all-time blocked shots list with 177, and his 119 blocks as a sophomore led the Big 12 Conference. Baylor went a combined 49-26 during his two-year career, winning the 2013 NIT Championship and advancing to the 2014 NCAA Sweet 16.
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Meminger had long battled an addiction to cocaine and had acknowledged using drugs as far back as his N.B.A. days, when he was among a glamorous cast of Knicks in the franchise’s glory years. In 2009, he was critically injured in a four-alarm fire in his room in a building in the Bronx. “They call him Dean the Dream, and he is all of that and more,” Coach Lou Carnesecca said after his St. John’s team was beaten by the Marquette squad led by Meminger in the final of the 1970 National Invitation Tournament at Madison Square Garden. Carnesecca had followed Meminger since he was recruited by Rice High School of Manhattan out of a grammar school basketball tournament.
Several hours before its chances of making the National Invitational Tournament ended, sophomore forward Renardo Sidney announced on his Facebook page he would return for his junior season at MSU. A MSU spokesman said Sunday Bulldogs coach Rick Stansbury hadn't talked to Sidney and wouldn't comment on his future with the team. Said Sidney, "YES for all you BULLDOG fans I will attend MSU another yr and I promise to work even harder than I have ever work b4 getting in shape is my main focus... watch out for them DOGS next season!!!"
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