OLYMPICS

The Russian flag and national anthem were banned from next year’s Tokyo Olympics and other major sports events for four years on Monday.

Russia’s hosting of world championships in Olympic sports also face being stripped after the World Anti-Doping Agency executive committee approved a full slate of recommended sanctions as punishment for state authorities tampering with a Moscow laboratory database.

Russian athletes will be allowed to compete in major events only if they are not implicated in positive doping tests or if their data was not manipulated, according to the WADA ruling.

Still, it is unclear how the ruling will affect Russian teams taking part in world championships such as soccer’s World Cup.

Russia’s anti-doping agency can appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport within 21 days.

Legal fallout from the WADA ruling seems sure to dominate preparations for the Tokyo Olympics, which open on July 24.

COLLEGES

MEN’S BASKETBALL: Louisville and Kansas finally provided some consistency to what has been a volatile Top 25 poll this season, while perennial bluebloods Michigan State and North Carolina continued to tumble after another wave of defeats.

The Cardinals solidified their place at No. 1 in the AP Top 25 by routing then-No. 4 Michigan in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge and breezing past Pittsburgh over the past week. The Jayhawks stayed at No. 2 after returning from their Maui Invitational title to thump former Big 12 member Colorado.

Ohio State jumped from sixth to third following its 74-49 rout of then-No. 7 North Carolina and a Big Ten blowout of Penn State. Maryland dropped one spot to fourth despite continuing to pile up wins, while Michigan slid one spot to round out the top five.

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL: Connecticut jumped to No. 2 behind Stanford in The Associated Press women’s Top 25 rankings after another week filled with upsets.

The Cardinal garnered 27 of the 30 first-place votes from the national media panel. UConn jumped up two spots, seven points in front of No. 3 Oregon, after routing longtime rival Notre Dame to stay unbeaten.

Oregon State moved up to fourth behind the rival Ducks and South Carolina was fifth. Connecticut, Oregon and Oregon State each received a first-place vote.

Louisville fell from No. 2 to seventh after losing at Ohio State in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.

FOOTBALL: Old Dominion has hired Penn State offensive coordinator Ricky Rahne as its head coach.

Rahne has been offensive coordinator at Penn State the last two seasons and on Coach James Franklin’s staffs with the Nittany Lions and Vanderbilt since 2011.

SOCCER

PREMIER LEAGUE: Arsenal ended its worst winless run (9) in 42 years by coming from behind at halftime to beat West Ham 3-1 at London.

HONORS: U.S. national team star Megan Rapinoe was named Sportsperson of the Year by Sports Illustrated.

Rapinoe, FIFA Player of the Year and a two-time World Cup winner, including this year’s tournament in France, was selected for dominating “the world’s game, on the world’s stage, under attack by a world leader.”

Rapinoe also won the FIFA Golden Boot and the Golden Ball for most goals and best player after the U.S. beat the Netherlands 2-0 in July at the World Cup in France. She also captured the Women’s Sports Foundation’s Sportswoman of the Year award.

AUTO RACING

NASCAR: Cole Pearn, considered one of the top crew chiefs in NASCAR, is leaving the sport to spend more time with his family.

Pearn won the 2017 NASCAR championship with Martin Truex Jr. and guided Truex to the title race in four of their five years together, including the last three seasons. Truex was the championship runner-up the last two years, including last month when a rare mistake in the pits cost the No. 19 team a shot at the title.

BASKETBALL

NBA: The Houston Rockets won’t get a do-over after officials wrongly disallowed a slam dunk by James Harden in a double-overtime loss to the San Antonio Spurs, even though the NBA has disciplined the officials who got the call wrong and botched the aftermath by not allowing Houston to challenge.

The league announced it has denied the Rockets’ protest of last Tuesday’s game, which the Spurs won 135-133. A successful protest, which is rare, would result in part of the game being replayed.

Harden’s dunk with 7:50 remaining in regulation was so forceful that, after the ball cleared the net, it looped around the basket and upward, creating the appearance that it wasn’t a made basket. Crew chief James Capers said after the game that, “in fact it did clear the net and should have been a successful field goal.”

The Rockets challenged the call after a timeout, but officials ruled that Houston had exceeded the 30-second time limit for challenges. But the league said Monday the officials got that wrong, too, because the 30-second limit should only apply when the challenge is made during a mandatory timeout or a timeout called by the opposing team.

Despite those officiating errors, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver determined that the Rockets “had sufficient time to overcome the error during the remainder of the fourth quarter and two subsequent overtime periods, and thus the extraordinary remedy of granting a game protest was not warranted,” the league said in a statement.

The Rockets were leading 102-89 when officials waved off the dunk, but San Antonio rallied after the botched call.

• Paul George scored 36 points in his first trip to Indianapolis with the Clippers and Montrezl Harrell added 26 to power the short-handed Los Angeles Clippers past the Indiana Pacers, 110-99.

Booed repeatedly early in the game, George finished with a season-high seven 3-pointers as the Clippers won for the fourth time in five games.

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