University of Maine forward Adrianna Smith, right, was named the America East Player of the Year on Tuesday. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel
University of Maine sophomore forward Adrianna Smith was named the America East Women’s Basketball Player of the Year on Tuesday.
Smith is the ninth UMaine player to win the honor and third in as many seasons. Blanca Milan won the award in 2021 and Anne Simon won last year.
Smith became the first player since Vermont’s Sheri Turnull in 1993-94 to average 20 points and 10 rebounds in conference play. In games as America East teams, Smith averaged 23.5 points and 10.8 rebounds per game. She had four 30-plus point scoring games and 23 games with 10 or more points in the regular season.
In 30 games overall, Smith averaged 20.4 points and 9.7 rebounds per game for the Black Bears, who are 15-13 overall and 11-5 in the conference.
Smith was also named to the all-defensive team and all-academic team.
Also, Maine’s Anne Simon was named to the third team despite playing just 12 games during the regular season. Simon averaged 12 points per game.
Maine opens the America East playoffs against Binghamton at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Orono.
(22) UNLV 71, NEVADA 66: Desi-Rae Young scored 20 points, Alyssa Durazo-Frescas added 18 and visiting UNLV (28-2, 18-0) rallied in the fourth quarter to beat Nevada (9-20, 6-12) to finish the regular season undefeated in the Mountain West Conference.
MEN’S BASKETBALL
UMAINE 66, BRYANT 64: Kristians Feierbergs grabbed a rebound off a missed 3-point attempt by Ja’Shonte Wright-McLeish and scored just before the buzzer as the Black Bears (13-16) closed out the regular season by beating the Bulldogs (17-12) at Orono.
Gedi Juozapaitis led Maine with 19 points, followed by Kellen Tynes, who scored 12. Feierbergs had 11.
Earl Timberlake had 20 points for Bryant, which trailed 32-31 at halftime.
(3) KANSAS 67, TEXAS TECH 63: Jalen Wilson scored 21 points in his Allen Fieldhouse farewell, fellow senior Kevin McCullar Jr. added 14 points and nine rebounds, and Kansas (25-5, 13-4) held off Texas Tech (16-14, 5-12) to clinch a share of the Big 12 regular-season championship.
Dajuan Harris had 16 points for the Jayhawks, who would capture the outright crown if ninth-ranked Texas loses to No. 22 TCU on Wednesday night.
Otherwise, the Jayhawks – now with an NCAA-leading 64 conference championships – would need to beat the Longhorns in a head-to-head showdown Saturday in Austin.
IOWA 90, (5) INDIANA 68: Kris Murray scored 26 points, Tony Perkins flirted with the first triple-double in Iowa history and the visiting Hawkeyes (19-11, 11-8 Big Ten) beat Indiana (20-10, 11-8).
Perkins had 23 points, 10 rebounds and a career-high eight assists in his return to his home state.
Just three days after rallying from a 13-point deficit in the final 94 seconds of this season’s highest-scoring Big Ten game against Michigan State, the Hawkeyes never trailed and produced the most first-half points in a league contest this season.
Trayce Jackson Davis led the Hoosiers with 26 points and 13 rebounds.
(6) MARQUETTE 72, BUTLER 56: Tyler Kolek had 21 points and 10 assists, and Marquette (24-6, 16-3) clinched its first outright Big East championship by beating Butler (14-16, 6-13) at Indianapolis.
The victory was the fifth in a row and 10th in 11 games for the surprising Golden Eagles, picked ninth by the league’s coaches in the preseason poll.
This week, Marquette ascended to its highest ranking in the AP Top 25 since it was No. 1 in 1978.
Marquette, which had already secured a share of its first Big East title since 2013, had not won an outright regular-season crown since doing so in Conference USA in 2003.
Olivier-Maxence Prosper added 14 points and Oso Ighodaro had 12 for the Golden Eagles, who will be the top seed in the Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden – an event Marquette has never won.
(12) TENNESSEE 75, ARKANSAS 57: Olivier Nkamhoua scored 16 points to lead host Tennessee (22-8, 11-6 Southeastern Conference) over Arkansas (19-11, 8-9).
Despite the win, the Volunteers may have sustained a significant loss. Three minutes into the game, sophomore point guard Zakai Zeigler, who brings energy on offense and defense, went down with an injury to his left knee. The extent of the injury wasn’t immediately known, but he did not return.
(13) VIRGINIA 64, CLEMSON 57: Jayden Gardner had 12 points and nine rebounds, Armaan Franklin and Isaac McKneely each scored 12, and host Virginia (22-6, 14-5 Atlantic Coast Conference) outlasted Clemson (21-9, 13-6) to stop a two-game skid.
The Cavaliers moved into a tie for second place in the league with No. 16 Miami with one game remaining.
PJ Hall led the Tigers with 19 points and Hunter Tyson had 17.
BOISE STATE 66, (18) SAN DIEGO STATE 60: Max Rice scored 26 points and reeled off 12 straight points in a 14-0 run to close out the game and host Boise State (23-7, 13-4 Mountain West Conference) upset San Diego State (23-6, 14-3).
The Broncos avenged a 20-point loss to San Diego State on Feb. 3 and remained perfect at home in conference play. It was the Broncos’ first win over a ranked team this season.
San Diego State, which had already claimed a share of the conference crown with its buzzer-beating win over New Mexico on Saturday, failed to hold onto a late nine-point lead.
(24) TEXAS A&M 69, MISSISSIPPI 61: Tyrece Radford scored 13 points as host Texas A&M (22-8, 14-3 Southeastern Conference) erased an early 12-point deficit to beat Mississippi (11-19, 3-13).
Wade Taylor IV added 12 points and seven assists and Julius Marble scored 10 for the Aggies, who went 13 of 16 from the free-throw line in the second half to stave off the Rebels’ attempt at a late rally.
ALABAMA: Coach Nate Oats apologized and took responsibility for allowing freshman forward Brandon Miller to continue going through a pat-down during pregame introductions.
Miller had received the pat-down upon his introduction well before the Jan. 15 arrest of then-teammate Darius Miles and another man on capital murder charges in the shooting death of 23-year-old Jamea Harris. Then, police testimony last week accused the second-ranked Crimson Tide’s biggest star of delivering Miles’ gun, though his attorney said he never handled it and didn’t know it was going to be used for a crime.
“That situation’s on me,” Oats said on Tuesday of the pregame ritual. “We addressed it as a team. As soon as I brought it up to them, they immediately understood how it could be interpreted, and we all felt awful about it.
“They explained to me that it’s like when TSA checks you when you get on a plane. And now Brandon’s cleared for takeoff. We as the adults in the room should have been more sensitive to how it could have been interpreted. I dropped the ball. That’s it, I dropped the ball on it. I can assure you it won’t happen again.”
Miller, who has started every game, hasn’t been charged and the university said he is a cooperating witness, not a suspect.
FOOTBALL
NORTH CAROLINA: North Carolina hired former Cleveland Browns head coach Freddie Kitchens as its run-game coordinator and tight ends coach.
Kitchens replaced John Lilly after Lilly joined Frank Reich’s staff with the NFL’s Carolina Panthers.
Kitchens spent 16 seasons in the NFL, leading the Browns to a 6-10 record as head coach in 2019. He also worked as an offensive coordinator with the Browns and took over as play-caller for the New York Giants in 2021.
TENNESSEE: Four former Tennessee football staffers have received multiyear show-cause penalties for their roles in recruiting violations under agreements with the NCAA.
The NCAA said the four had reached agreements with the enforcement staff that include show-cause penalties ranging from three to five years, making it difficult for them to get other college jobs during that time. The NCAA did not identify the former staffers who worked under former coach Jeremy Pruitt, but SI.com identified them as inside linebackers coach Brian Niedermeyer, outside linebackers coach Shelton Felton, director of player personnel Drew Hughes and student assistant Michael Magness.
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