Rambo earns PAC honor

NEW WILMINGTON, Pa. — Westminster College junior Shelby Rambo has been named the Presidents’ Athletic Conference (PAC) Women’s Outdoor Track and Field Athlete of the Week for the second time.

Rambo, a former Crestview High School standouts, finished third in both the shot put (a personal-best 41-feet-4 1/4) and the discus (126-9) at the Stark County Challenge, which was hosted by the University of Mount Union, last Friday. Both throws top the PAC this season, while her shot put ranks No. 8 in the country in Division III.

The Titans will compete at the Carnegie Mellon University Invitational today and Saturday in Pittsburgh.

Cooper leads North All-Stars

MASSILLON — West Branch head football coach Tim Cooper will lead the North Team in the 80th annual Ohio High School Football Coaches Association Div. IV-VII North-South Classic All-Star Game set for April 26 at Massillon Paul Brown Stadium.

West Branch players selected to play include wide receiver Joey Jackson and running back Boston Mulinix. Salem’s David Manges along with South Range’s Tristan Toy and Luke Starkey have also been selected.

The Div. I-III game will be held at 11 a.m. while the Div. IV-VII game will be held 30 minutes following the competition of the first game.

Tickets are $10 and include admission to both games.

Kent State coach on leave

KENT (AP) — Kent State has placed head coach Kenni Burns on administrative leave.

The university said in a statement Thursday that Burns was put on leave with pay and that Greg Glaus, executive deputy athletics director, would oversee the administrative responsibilities of the program. Also, the school said that offensive coordinator Mark Carney would be in charge of on-field activities.

Kent State did not provide details on why Burns was played on leave.

Kent State is scheduled to begin spring practices this weekend.

Burns has a 1-23 record in two seasons with the Golden Flashes. They were 0-12 last season, the fifth time in school history they had gone winless.

Before arriving at Kent State, Burns was the running backs coach at Minnesota.

Allen paces Cavaliers

CLEVELAND (AP) — Jarrett Allen scored a season-high 29 points, Donovan Mitchell had a career-high 14 assists and the Cleveland Cavaliers looked more comfortable back home, holding off the San Antonio Spurs 124-116 on Thursday night.

Allen went 10 of 11 from the floor and added 16 rebounds for Cleveland, which went 2-4 on a just-completed six-game trip out West.

Mitchell scored 25 and flirted with his first career triple-double, finishing with eight rebounds.

Allen’s three-point play — on an assist from Mitchell — put the Cavs up 117-112 and Darius Garland’s 3-pointer put the Spurs away with 1:16 left.

Rookie Stephon Castle and Devin Vassell had 22 points apiece for the Spurs, who are fighting to make the Western Conference play-in.

The Cavs rested All-Star forward Evan Mobley. Superb sixth man Ty Jerome sat out with a sore left knee.

Takeaways

Spurs: According to a report in France’s LeEquipe, star Victor Wembanyama underwent surgery to correct the deep vein thrombosis in his shoulder, an ailment that sidelined him for the rest of this season. Interim coach Mitch Johnson did not have an update on Wembanyama. “We’re going to keep his plan and program in house for now,” Johnson said.

Cavaliers: Mitchell’s recent shooting issues (he came in 3 of 29 on 3s) may have some Cleveland fans on edge, but coach Kenny Atkinson isn’t worried about the All-Star, likening his struggles to a baseball slugger in a slump.

Key moment

With the Cavs leading by two, Mitchell had an open wing 3-pointer, but instead rifled his pass inside to Allen for the game’s biggest bucket and assist No. 14.

Key stat

Mitchell has played in 534 games and is still missing a triple-double from his resume.

Up next

The Cavs play a back-to-back, visiting Detroit on Friday night. The Spurs host Boston on Saturday.

Alabama makes record 25 threes

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — There was no such thing as a bad shot for Alabama in the Sweet 16.

Certainly not from beyond the arc, where the Crimson Tide set March Madness records by making 25 3-pointers, attempting 51 and knocking one of college basketball’s most memorable teams, Loyola Marymount, out of a perch it had held for 35 years.

Mark Sears highlighted Alabama’s 113-88 win over BYU on Thursday night by going 10 for 16 from 3 and finishing with 34 points.

“I was just in a zone,” Sears said. “Once I seen the first 3 fell in, I felt the basket was as big as an ocean. And every time I shot, I felt like it was going in. Just lost myself in the game and just let everything else happen.”

Sears hit the record-breaking 22nd 3 late in the game to make it 97-66 and received a standing ovation when he checked out with 10 3s and more than four minutes left to play.

Sears ended up one long-range basket short of breaking the record Jeff Fryer set in Loyola Marymount’s record-breaking 149-115 tournament blowout of Michigan back in 1990. That Lions team starred Hank Gathers before his fatal collapse on the court and was coached by Paul Westhead, whose team cracked 100 points in all but three games that season.

Fun fact: After the win over Michigan, Loyola Marymount beat none other than Alabama, coached back then by Wimp Sanderson. The score was 62-60 — by far, Loyola Marymount’s lowest-scoring game of the season.

This year’s Tide, with Nate Oats coaching, are the highest-scoring team in the country at 90.8 points a game. This was the ninth time they cracked triple digits.

Sears, a first-team All-America guard, was in a long-range slump entering the game. He went just 1 of 9 over the first weekend of the tournament and was just 3 of 25 over his last five games. That dumped his success rate to just 33% on the season — a year after he made 44% of 3s to help the Crimson Tide reach the Final Four for the first time in program history.

Consider the slump busted.

“I told Mark he’s playing chess, not checkers,” Oats said. “He just kind of set everybody up, thinking he was in a slump and he’s going to come out and shoot.”

So did the rest of the Crimson Tide.

An experienced group that’s already made deep tournament runs just kept going. The Tide only tried 15 shots from inside the arc. They made 10. Collectively, Alabama shot 53% from the floor and also made 18 of 21 free throws.

They also broke a week-old record for 3-point attempts, surpassing the 46 Texas Tech hoisted last week in a first-round win over UNC-Wilmington.

“We’ve been preparing all week to get our shot right,” Sears said. “The amount of preparation we put in, it led to the success we had tonight.”

Aden Holloway made six 3s, Chris Youngblood hit five and Alabama shot 49% from behind the arc. The 25 makes were also the most for the Crimson Tide — playing in their third straight Sweet 16 — in any game in program history.

“An open 3 is kind of a layup, so we’re happy with 77% of our shots coming from 3 today,” Holloway said.

Alabama’s previous 3-point record was 23 against LSU in 2021. John Petty Jr. twice hit 10 3s, the latter time against Samford in 2019.

BYU was brutal from beyond the arc, missing 24 of 30 attempts.

Pretty good D. Not good enough for Oats and a team trying to reach another Final Four, against either Duke or Arizona.

“We don’t want to give up 3s,” Oats said. “Our defense did a fairly decent job of it at times, but not to the level we need to. We try to play analytically sound basketball on both sides of the ball.”

The Crimson Tide rode the long ball to their first-ever Final Four appearance last year. Sears made seven 3-pointers and Alabama hit 16 3s in an Elite Eight win over Clemson.

“If Duke or Arizona, whoever ends up winning, decides they’re not going to give us some 3s, that’s fine, too,” Oats said. “Let’s get to the rim.”

AP National Writer Eddie Pells contributed to this report.