Sports briefs
By Associated Press
Rebels holds off Tigers from the line, pulls out an win
COLUMBIA, Mo. | Jaemyn Brakefield hit four free throws and Matthew Murrell, Jaylen Murray and Austin Nunez each hit a pair in the final 35 seconds to help Mississippi escape Missouri with an 84-78 win on Saturday night.
The Tigers, winless in 16 Southeastern Conference games, got within two points after Nick Honor converted three free throws with 50 seconds left to make it 76-74, but after Murrell’s free throws Sean East II missed a 3-point attempt and Brakefield grabbed the rebound and was fouled by Aidan Shaw. After Brakefield converted both free throws. Shaw scored a layup and the Tigers immediately fouled Murray. Honor followed Murray’s free throws with a layup and Nunez hit the final Ole Miss free throws with a second left.
The win was the 20th of the season for the Rebels (20-9, 7-9).
Murrell hit 5 of 9 from long range and was 4-of-4 shooting from the line to lead Ole Miss with 21 points. Brakefield was 10 of 14 from the line and finished with 19 points. Murray hit 4 of 8 from long range and 4 of 4 from the line to add 16.
East finished with 27 points to lead Missouri (8-21, 0-16). Shaw and Tamar Bates each scored 13 and Honor contributed 12.
Ole Miss closes out its regular season at Georgia on Tuesday and at home against Texas A&M Saturday,
Missouri plays host to No. 11 Auburn Tuesday and closes out its regular season at LSU Saturday.
Bieniemy officially named UCLA’s associate head coach, offensive coordinator
LOS ANGELES | UCLA made it official on Saturday, announcing Eric Bieniemy is the Bruins’ associate head coach and offensive coordinator.
News of Bieniemy’s hiring came out last week as the two sides were working toward finalizing his two-year contract.
The former Kansas City Chiefs and Washington Commanders offensive coordinator is the first significant hire for new UCLA coach DeShaun Foster, who was hired on Feb. 12 after Chip Kelly left Westwood to become Ohio State’s offensive coordinator.
“Having one of the most innovative offensive minds in football join our staff speaks volumes to the type of program we are building here at UCLA,” Foster said in a statement. “Coach Bieniemy’s belief in our pillars shined throughout our conversations and confirmed he was the right man to not only help us develop an explosive approach on the field, but leaders off of it.”
Bieniemy, a two-time Super Bowl champion with the Kansas City Chiefs, spent the past season in Washington. He wasn’t retained by new Commanders coach Dan Quinn, who replaced Ron Rivera.
In an email to ESPN last week, Bieniemy said he was not fired in Washington and “I actually just chose not to stay. Learned a lot and that is always a good thing.”
Foster doesn’t have head coaching or coordinator experience, so the hiring of Bieniemy gives the Bruins an experienced voice as they enter the Big Ten in 2024 and try to retain or add players via the transfer portal.
Despite his success in Kansas City, Bieniemy hasn’t landed a heading coach job, even though he’s interviewed with more than half of the NFL’s 32 teams.
Bieniemy only received offers to be a running backs coach and pass game coordinator for 2024, so he chose to return to UCLA. That’s where he spent three seasons as an assistant in various roles with the Bruins from 2003-05.
Bieniemy spent 10 seasons with the Chiefs working under Andy Reid and played a major role in helping Patrick Mahomes develop into one of the NFL’s best players. Mahomes just led the Chiefs to their third Super Bowl title in five years and earned MVP honors for the third time.
At the NFL Scouting Combine this week, Reid said Bieniemy will be a great fit at UCLA.
“It’s hard when you’re in charge of something to step back. He has an opportunity here to do his thing on offense, he knows the landscape, he’s been at UCLA before,” Reid said. “Maybe he’s the head coach at the college level. I thought he should be a head coach here. But if that doesn’t happen, maybe he has an opportunity there to make it happen.”
Bieniemy had mixed results in Washington, where he had full control of play-calling duties on a team that lacked overall talent. The Commanders were 4-13 and had the NFL’s 24th-ranked offense behind quarterback Sam Howell.
The Bruins ran a pro-style offense during Kelly’s six seasons at UCLA, which should help both sides.
Bieniemy’s second college coaching job was at UCLA. He coached running backs for three seasons and also was the Bruins’ recruiting coordinator in 2005.
Foster, a Bruins assistant for the past seven years, left last month to become the Las Vegas Raiders’ running backs coach but returned to his alma mater after Kelly’s departure.
Kelly had a 35-34 record with the Bruins, but the program was showing signs of stagnating ahead of its move to the Big Ten.
Bieniemy attended high school in Southern California at Bishop Amat in La Puente, which is 20 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. It is Bieniemy’s first college job since 2012, when he was the offensive coordinator and running backs coach at Colorado.
49ers promote Sorensen to DC and hire Staley as an assistant, AP source says
SANTA CLARA, Calif. | The San Francisco 49ers have promoted assistant Nick Sorensen to defensive coordinator and hired former Los Angeles Chargers coach Brandon Staley for a role on the team’s staff, a person familiar with the hirings told The Associated Press.
The person confirmed the hirings to the AP on condition of anonymity Saturday because the team hadn’t made an announcement. ESPN first reported the hirings.
The Niners had been looking for a defensive coordinator since firing Steve Wilks three days after losing the Super Bowl to the Kansas City Chiefs.
San Francisco’s defense ranked third in points allowed last season and was in the top 10 in advanced efficiency metrics like Expected Points Added and Defense-adjusted Value Over Average in the first season with Wilks in charge in place of DeMeco Ryans, who left to take over in Houston.
But Wilks struggled to adapt to the system head coach Kyle Shanahan wanted to use and the defense struggled all season against the run and came up short in the playoffs, leading to the decision to make a change.
The Niners were the first team to fire an offensive or defensive coordinator after losing the Super Bowl since Atlanta fired defensive coordinator Richard Smith after blowing a 28-3 lead to New England in Super Bowl 51. Shanahan was the offensive coordinator for the Falcons in that game and left to take over San Francisco following the loss.
The team interviewed several candidates, including both Sorensen and Staley, before Shanahan made a final decision.
Sorensen initially joined San Francisco’s staff as a defensive assistant in 2022 when he worked with linebackers when Johnny Holland was out dealing with cancer, and he was in charge of the passing defense and nickel backs last season.
Sorensen also has run weekly meetings focused on creating turnovers during his time in San Francisco.
Sorensen previously served as special teams coach in Jacksonville in 2021 and spent eight seasons in Seattle as an assistant for the secondary and special teams, where the Seahawks used a similar defensive philosophy to the 49ers.
Sorensen played quarterback for two seasons in college at Virginia Tech before moving to defense in 1999 when Michael Vick took over. Sorensen then played 10 seasons as a defensive back in the NFL before beginning his coaching career.
Staley was fired as Chargers head coach in December with a 24-24 record in two-plus regular seasons. Los Angeles’ defense struggled under Staley, ranking in the bottom half of the league each season in defensive metrics.
Staley has one year of experience as a coordinator, leading the the Los Angeles Rams to the No. 1-ranked defense in 2020 before taking over the Chargers.
He brings a background of a different defensive system, having learned under longtime NFL coordinator Vic Fangio. Shanahan wanted to maintain the same system that had been successful under Ryans and Robert Saleh, but Staley could add some new wrinkles.
Takahiro Hataji wins
New Zealand Open for
first professional title
QUEENSTOWN, New Zealand | Takahiro Hataji won his first professional tournament and became the first Japanese player to win the New Zealand Golf Open Sunday when he took out the 103rd edition of the event at the Millbrook Resort.
Hataji shot a flawless 4-under final round of 67 for a four-round total of 17-under-par to win by a stroke from Australian Scott Hend.
Hend came to the 72nd hole tied with Hataji in first place. He hit his tee shot on the par-3 18th to the back of the green and his putt for the championship ran past the hole. Hend’s return putt lipped out, leaving with a final round 69, alone in second place.
The 50-year-old Hend was bidding to overtake Kel Nagle as the oldest-winner of the New Zealand Open in the modern era.
Hataji became the first Japanese winner of a tournament on the Australasian PGA Tour since Isao Aoki in 1989.
“It was a really tough day but I have the trophy so I am feeling very happy now,” Hataji said. “I’m happy but (Hend) played very well so when his putt missed I felt a bit sorry for him too.”
Iowa’s Caitlin Clark breaks Pete Maravich’s NCAA Division I scoring record
Caitlin Clark stood alone at the free-throw line on Sunday and made the foul shots that put her atop the all-time NCAA Division I scoring chart.
The flash and pizzazz of her game have made her the biggest name in all of college basketball. Yet it was two free throws after a technical foul that pushed Clark past the late Pete Maravich’s 54-year-old record in No. 6 Iowa’s 93-83 win over No. 2 Ohio State.
Clark entered the game in Iowa City needing 18 points to pass Maravich’s total of 3,667, amassed in just 83 games over three seasons at LSU (1967-70). She finished with 35 to run her total to 3,685 in 130 games.
Maravich’s mark fell four days after Clark broke Lynette Woodard’s major college women’s record when she scored 33 points against Minnesota on Wednesday.
“Just to be in the same realm of all these players who have been so successful, whether it’s Pete or Kelsey Plum or Lynette Woodard — all these people have just given so much to the game,” Clark said. “Hopefully somebody comes after me and breaks my records and I can be there supporting them.”
Best known for her long 3-pointers, Clark was called on to go to the foul line after Cotie McMahon was assessed a technical for giving her a little push during a dead ball with less than a second to go in the first half.
Clark had no immediate reaction after the second shot went through, as if it hadn’t sunk in yet. She said she knew the record had fallen only after it was announced.
It didn’t matter to her that she made history with two free throws rather than a half-court logo 3-pointer.
“That’s like the hardest thing to do in basketball is to make free throws with nobody (around you) at the free-throw line,” she said.
She had gotten off to a slow start Sunday. Her first shot was a 3-pointer that bounced off the rim. She missed a layup and from deep on the right wing before making a 3 from the left side for her first basket.
After starting 2 for 7, she made 3 of her next 4 shots — including three straight 3s, each deeper than the previous.
Woodard was among those at Carver-Hawkeye Arena to help Clark celebrate senior day. Also on hand were basketball great Maya Moore, who was Clark’s favorite player, and Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan.
“It’s a great time for women’s basketball,” Woodard said in a television interview. “Caitlin is leading the way. As she was chipping away, I said records are made to be broken. Also, they’re made to be honored. Because of her, my records are being honored. She’s gone beyond that now, she’s gone beyond Pete … I passed her the baton to go ahead and burst through that ceiling, and I’m so happy for her.”
On Thursday, Clark announced she would enter the 2024 WNBA draft and skip the fifth year of eligibility available to athletes who competed during the COVID-19 pandemic. She is projected to be the No. 1 overall pick by the Indiana Fever, and the WNBA already is seeing a rise in ticket sales.
Logitix, which researches prices on ticket resale platforms, reported an average sale price of $598 for a ticket to Sunday’s game purchased since Feb. 1.
Kiran Nanjappa, who was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and now lives in Denver, said he paid more than $200 for his ticket.
“She’s a truly once-in-a-lifetime player,” he said. “I’ve been watching Iowa basketball for 40 years, and I’ve never seen a player like her, men’s or women’s. I’ll just say this — I paid more to see her today than I paid to see Michael Jordan three times at the end of his career. And I never thought I’d say that.”
Clark is all but assured of one or two more appearances at the arena in Iowa City. Iowa is projected to be a No. 2 seed for the NCAA Tournament, meaning it would be at home for the first two rounds.
Pearl Moore of Francis Marion owns the overall women’s record with 4,061 points from 1975-79 at the small-college level in the AIAW. Moore had 177 points at Anderson Junior College before enrolling at Francis Marion.
Clark is 376 points behind Moore, and she has two to nine more games left in an Iowa uniform, depending on how far the Hawkeyes advance in the Big Ten and NCAA tournaments.
The fall of Maravich’s record is subject to scrutiny.
Maravich’s all-time scoring mark is one of the more remarkable in sports history. There was no shot clock or 3-point line in his era. The 3-point line was adopted in 1986.
Maravich averaged 44.2 points per game. He scored more than 60 in a game four times, topping out at 69 against Alabama on Feb. 7, 1970.
LSU coach Kim Mulkey, who grew up in Louisiana and played at Louisiana Tech, said after her team’s win over Kentucky on Sunday that comparing Maravich and Clark would be like comparing apples and oranges.
“What Clark has done is unbelievable and her name will be right up there at the top,” Mulkey said. “But he played over here with no 3-point line, three years, and I don’t think we need to make too much of, ‘Well, she passed him because he’s a man.’ She’s who she is, and that’s awesome. Lord knows when I (coached) against her: ‘Are you kidding me? What a generational talent.’”
Clark averages 28.3 points for her career. Her biggest output was 49 points against Michigan on Feb. 15, when she passed Kelsey Plum as the NCAA women’s Division I career scoring leader.
Clark has 55 games with at least 30 points, the most of any player in men’s or women’s college basketball over the last 25 years. She has six triple-doubles this season and 17 in her career.
“What Caitlin’s done has been amazing. She’s fantastic player, great for the women’s game and basketball in general,” Maravich’s eldest son, Jaeson, told The Associated Press last week.
—From AP reports
