SOCCER

Grant Wahl died of a ruptured blood vessel when he was stricken while covering a World Cup match last weekend, according to an autopsy of the well-known American soccer writer.

Wahl’s wife, Dr. Céline Gounder, said Wednesday that an autopsy was conducted by the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office.

“Grant died from the rupture of a slowly growing, undetected ascending aortic aneurysm with hemopericardium,” she wrote on her husband’s website, referring to the wall that surrounds the heart. “The chest pressure he experienced shortly before his death may have represented the initial symptoms. No amount of CPR or shocks would have saved him. His death was unrelated to COVID. His death was unrelated to vaccination status. There was nothing nefarious about his death.”

Wahl, who was 49, was stricken in the media tribune of Lusail Iconic Stadium in Qatar early Saturday during extra time in Argentina’s quarterfinal match against the Netherlands. Emergency workers immediately attended to him and treated him for 20 to 30 minutes before taking him away on a stretcher, reporters in his vicinity said.

COLLEGES

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WOMEN’S BASKETBALL:

Luna Love scored 15 points to lead Central Maine Community College (14-0, 6-0 YSCC) to a 73-40 win over Southern Maine Community College (10-3, 6-1) at South Portland.

Kali Thompson added10 points and 11 rebounds for CMCC, which led 29-20 at halftime before breaking the game open with a 23-9 edge in the third quarter.

Maddie York paced SMCC with 15 points. Jaylyn Bartolome scored 14.

MEN’S BASKETBALL: DeSean Crowell scored 13 of his 29 points during an 18-1 run in the second half as Southern Maine Community College (11-4, 5-2 YSCC) rallied for a 64-51 win over Central Maine Community College (9-3, 5-1) in South Portland.

Thomas Martinotti added 13 points for SMCC, which turned a 35-27 deficit into a 45-36 lead.

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Cam Pollock led CMCC with 12 points. Wyatt Hathaway scored 10.

Former Arizona coach Sean Miller escaped sanctions when a report from the Independent Accountability Resolution Process largely accepted the program’s self-imposed penalties stemming from a NCAA rules violations case that dates back to 2017.

Arizona’s athletics program was put on three years of probation through 2025. The school announced a one-year postseason ban in December 2020, which took effect for the 2020-21 season.

BASKETBALL

NBA: The NBA and its players now have until Feb. 8 if either side wants to opt out of the current collective bargaining agreement, after the league’s board of governors approved a plan to push the deadline back.

The original opt-out deadline was Thursday. The sides agreed last week to push the date back and allow more time for talks with hope of getting closer to a new CBA deal.

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There are “ongoing efforts to reach a new agreement,” the league and the National Basketball Players Association said . The deadline could be pushed back again if the sides deem it necessary. If either side opts out, the current CBA will expire on June 30.

GOLF

LIV GOLF: LIV Golf has added three tournaments to its 2023 schedule, two of them at courses and markets where the PGA Tour no longer plays and a third on an Oklahoma course that previously held an LPGA Tour event.

The Saudi-funded rival league now has announced seven locations for its 14-tournament schedule next year.

LIV said it would go to The Gallery at Dove Mountain in the high desert north of Tucson, Arizona, where the Accenture Match Play Championship was held in 2007 and 2008 before moving to a different course at Dove Mountain.

Also on the schedule is the Old White course at The Greenbrier in West Virginia, which held a PGA Tour event from 2010 to 2019.

Cedar Ridge in the suburbs of Tulsa, Oklahoma, will host a LIV Golf event on May 12-14, the same week the PGA Tour is about five hours away in the Dallas area for the AT&T Byron Nelson.


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