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    Across Town, Tony Bland Is Adjusting to a Different World

    Bland, a former U.S.C. assistant coach arrested in 2017 as part of an F.B.I. investigation, is now coaching at a Los Angeles-area high school. He still hopes he can return to the college level.PLAYA DEL REY, Calif. — In an alternate universe, Tony Bland might have been a world away on Tuesday night, on the sideline at the University of Southern California’s sold-out Galen Center, coaching the home team in a nationally televised, high-stakes men’s basketball game against Arizona.Instead, Bland was in a well-worn high school gym about 20 miles away with the St. Bernard High School boys basketball team in a state playoff game.He is trying his best to, as he says, plant himself where his feet are, to think about where he is and not stew about what he once had — a college career that had him on the fast track to possibly becoming a head coach.Still, the reminders are hard to miss: After St. Bernard dispatched feisty Long Beach Poly, 52-40, Bland was congratulated by Wyking Jones, a University of Washington assistant recruiting one of his players. In the stands was the U.C.L.A. assistant Rod Palmer, whose son Joshua is a freshman at St. Bernard. One of his team’s leaders is Jason Hart Jr., whose father was on the U.S.C. coaching staff with Bland and now coaches in the N.B.A.’s G League.The triggers are particularly strong in March, when college basketball takes center stage in the American sports landscape and deep N.C.A.A. tournament runs, like U.S.C.’s to last year’s regional final, can be springboards for coaches with aspirations.“It’s the competitive itch,” Bland said. “The what if? Ascending the college coaching ranks to maybe soon be a head coach. How I would have done it. I remember when I used to do this. It’s the whole thing.”Everything changed for Bland on Sept. 26, 2017, when armed federal agents — their weapons drawn — stormed into his hotel room in Tampa, Fla., and arrested Bland as part of a nationwide college basketball corruption scandal. Bland was one of 10 people arrested that day as a result of an investigation that targeted some of the nation’s most prominent programs and that federal prosecutors boasted would expose the sport’s shady underbelly.“We have your playbook,” the F.B.I.’s William Sweeney thundered, sending a chill through the college basketball world when he added that the investigation, which had been fortified by wiretaps, was ongoing.Now, some four and a half years later, it has long been clear how empty those overinflated proclamations have been. (The same can be said for the breathless exclamations that a sea change in the sport was at hand.)The N.C.A.A. has done little more than slap a few schools on the wrist, and Rick Pitino is the only head coach who was fired in 2017 — a result less of his culpability than that the investigation was the latest in a string of embarrassing incidents during his tenure at Louisville. (Pitino now coaches Iona).Federal authorities fought in court in 2019 to keep Louisiana State Coach Will Wade off the witness stand. Wade is in his fifth year at L.S.U.Jeff Blake/USA Today Sports, via ReutersAnd the Feds, rather than exposing top college coaches, went lengths to shield them. They fought in court in 2019 to keep Louisiana State’s Will Wade, Arizona’s Sean Miller — who was fired last year — and other coaches off the witness stand. They also fought to keep an undercover agent from testifying, the reasons for which became clear last week: An F.B.I. agent pleaded guilty to gambling with $13,500 in government money at a Las Vegas casino in late July 2017, dates and circumstances that coincide with the sting operation that nabbed Bland and others.So, the head coaches who were accused in court of having known about — or even having facilitated — payments to players have almost all continued to collect million-dollar salaries, and business has proceeded as usual. (Arizona, Auburn and Kansas — all implicated in the scheme — are ranked second, fifth and sixth, respectively, in this week’s Associated Press poll.)“If anyone thinks that there is such a thing as a clean big-time program, they need to wake up and smell the donkey” manure, wrote Merl Code, a former shoe company employee, in his recently published book, “Black Market: An Insider’s Journey Into the High-Stakes World of College Basketball,” using an expletive. “Somewhere along the line, even the so-called cleanest of programs has some dirt if you look close enough.”Code, like Christian Dawkins, an aspiring agent, was sentenced to prison for his role in shunting money to top high school prospects and/or their families — a practice that has long been against N.C.A.A. rules, but one that has looked far less illicit as schools have made millions off the backs of an unpaid, largely Black labor force.(Code said Pitino and Kansas Coach Bill Self knew about payments he facilitated to players; both have denied any involvement.)Lamont Evans, Emanuel Richardson and Chuck Person were all fired from their assistant coach roles for accepting bribes.USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe case has only underscored the racial dynamic that is coming under greater scrutiny in major college sports: Coaches and top administrators, most of them white, enriching themselves thanks to the athletes, largely Black, who power their team’s success. All but one of the nine people who have been convicted or pleaded guilty in the corruption case are Black.Chuck Person (Auburn), Emanuel Richardson (Arizona), Lamont Evans (South Carolina and Oklahoma State), Preston Murphy (Creighton), Corey Barker (Texas Christian and New Mexico State) and Bland were all fired as assistants for accepting bribes. Murphy and Barker were not charged with crimes because they had returned the bribes.All have also been hit with show-cause penalties ranging from two years to 10, meaning that any college that wants to hire them has to explain to the N.C.A.A. why it wants to do so.The penalties effectively serve as a ban, and so many of the coaches are working as trainers, running workouts and camps for anyone who will pay them. Bland seems to be the only one coaching at a school.“I’m not saying these guys did anything wrong,” Bland said of the head coaches. “But what the assistant coaches went down for, I don’t know if they anticipated something more coming from it. I don’t know if there was supposed to be a Part B. This whole scheme and TV and bust for that? I don’t understand it.”Bland pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery — accepting $4,100 from Dawkins to steer players to a financial adviser — and received two years probation.Bland said he accepted only $2,100 from Dawkins, a friend for about a decade who told him to enjoy a night out in Las Vegas as a thanks for meeting with the financial adviser. He said, though, that he had little choice but to accept the plea deal because, if his case went to trial, it would be lumped in with those of four other defendants. “It was a business decision,” said Bland, who said he was so traumatized by the arrest that he couldn’t sleep in a hotel room. “I had to protect my family.”Bland, 42, said his wife urged him to think beyond basketball and reminded him that he had much to offer, but a few decades ago, the game is what carried him from South Los Angeles to Westchester High, the powerhouse public school that’s just around the bend from St. Bernard. A state championship helped earn him a scholarship to Syracuse and San Diego State.Bland felt at home in those same Los Angeles gyms when he returned to recruit one of the nation’s most fertile talent grounds, first as an assistant at San Diego State and then at U.S.C. He volunteered at St. Bernard, then took over as coach before last season.“We had a team, but he’s building a program,” said Jamie Mark, the athletic director, who had spent most of her career working for a sports agency. “And I think Tony likes the idea of building something.”The opportunity to coach has meant something for Bland, too. He has not given up hope of returning to the college game and one day being a head coach. “The people in college basketball understand my situation,” he said, later adding that his former boss at U.S.C., Andy Enfield, remains one of his biggest supporters. (Enfield is recruiting one of Bland’s best players, Tyler Rolison, a junior guard.)But he also knows there is more to the equation. A college coach is going to have to sell his athletic director on hiring Bland, and the athletic director will have to explain it to the university president. And so, with two more years left on his show-cause penalty, Bland said he knew better than to look too far down the road — or even across town.“This right here,” Bland said Tuesday night, sitting on the bleachers of a nearly empty gym, “has been helping to rehabilitate my soul.” More

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    Los Angeles Lakers Fighting Just to Make N.B.A. Playoffs

    LeBron James is defiant, but the fans are booing, and the season might be lost.LOS ANGELES — The Lakers are on the verge of missing the N.B.A. playoffs. Their fans are booing and heckling them at home. They haven’t won since the All-Star break. They’ve won only three games out of their last 13.After their most recent outing, a 109-104 loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday night, LeBron James sounded defiant.“Until you stump me out, cut my head off, bury me 12 feet under, then I got a chance,” James said, his voice echoing in a cavernous portion of the arena. He added: “As long as we’ve got more games to play, we still have a chance. So that’s my confidence. I hate losing. I feel like poop right now. But tomorrow is a new day and I’m going to be prepared and ready for the Clippers on Thursday.”How firmly James truly believes they have a chance is unclear, but what he said reflected perfectly the Lakers’ situation. At 27-34, with the ninth-best record in the Western Conference, they still have a chance to make the playoffs, and they have James, who has led unlikely groups to postseason success before. Technically, they can win another championship, however unrealistic that might be.They have no choice but to approach the rest of the season with that in mind. They have no choice but to make the best of their circumstances.“We’ve got a resilient group,” Coach Frank Vogel said. “We have two guys, three guys really, top 75 all time. We’re hoping to get the other one back. Young guys are playing their tails off and bringing great energy to our group. We’re doing enough in stretches to give us belief; we just haven’t been able to close out the last two games.”This is not what the Lakers envisioned for this season. A combination of injuries and a poorly constructed roster have led to their fighting to be seeded into a play-in game to get into the playoffs.After a first-round exit in last year’s playoffs, they traded for Russell Westbrook, who they thought would offer superstar caliber play. Instead, Westbrook, whose acquisition James supported, has struggled on a team that cannot constantly feed him the ball.His obvious bad fit caused the Lakers to lightly explore trading him before last month’s deadline, but without the assets to make his inflated contract appealing to another team, they opted to wait until at least the summer to make any moves.James, who has been known during his career to make coded remarks, raised eyebrows when he praised the Los Angeles Rams’ general manager, Les Snead, after the Rams won the Super Bowl, then praised the Oklahoma City Thunder’s general manager, Sam Presti, when asked an innocuous question about one of his players at an All-Star Weekend news conference. Some read his remarks as veiled criticisms of the Lakers’ front office.James then told The Athletic that he hadn’t closed the door on returning to Cleveland, leading to a mountain of speculation about whether the marriage between James and the Lakers was effectively over.In hindsight, it clearly isn’t. In the week after the All-Star Game, James insisted too much was being made of his comments. Vogel referred to them as “just noise.”James’s agent, Rich Paul, met with Rob Pelinka, the Lakers’ vice president for basketball operations, and Jeanie Buss, the team’s governor and chief executive, to assure them James was committed to being a Laker, according to multiple people with knowledge of the meeting.As the agent for the most important current Laker in James and the second most important in Anthony Davis, Paul has built a close relationship with Pelinka and Buss. Their conversation last week helped to soothe potential rifts borne of the frustration that comes with such a disappointing season.In the week since, the Lakers and their biggest star have all presented a face of unity and harmony.What that meeting could not do, though, was change what was happening on the court.Davis has been out with a foot sprain since Feb. 16. In all, he has missed 24 games this season. James has missed 17. The last time James, Davis and Westbrook played in the same game together was in Brooklyn on Jan. 25.They won that game, but even together they have challenges. Westbrook has not played well enough to justify the more than $90 million he is owed over the final two years of his contract. What the Lakers have committed to him has also hamstrung their ability to build depth that might have helped weather the injuries they’ve faced.LeBron James tried to make something happen against Luka Doncic and the Mavericks.Gary A. Vasquez/USA Today Sports, via ReutersAnd so the Lakers have found themselves here.On Sunday night, they were booed loudly by a fed-up crowd watching a lackluster effort against the New Orleans Pelicans. They lost to the Pelicans, who went into their game on Wednesday night with a 25-36 record and tied for 10th place in the Western Conference.They heard boos on Tuesday against the Mavericks (37-25), mostly as they fell to a 21-point deficit in the second quarter. A third-quarter rally brought back cheers briefly, and an energy rarely felt in their home arena lately.Tuesday’s game was such an improvement over Sunday’s 28-point loss to the Pelicans that the idea of a moral victory was broached to James after the game. He found the words so repugnant he could not let them go uncontested.“No,” James said, then each subsequent word sounded a bit more urgent than the last. “No. No. No. No.”Without the ability to make any real changes, the Lakers can only cling to the hope that maybe they will be healthy in time to change their fortunes during the playoffs.Last year, the N.B.A. introduced a play-in tournament in which the seventh- through 10th-seeded teams competed for the seventh and eighth seeds in each conference’s playoffs. In the past, the league had just let in the top eight teams in each conference.James bristled last season that his seventh-seeded Lakers had to participate.This season, the play-in tournament might offer a lifeline. But only if they can get there.The Lakers have the ninth-best record in the Western Conference. Entering Wednesday night’s action, they were only two games ahead of the 11th ranked Portland Trail Blazers.“If we win games, it gets us in,” James said. “We’re going to prepare. We’ll be ready. But we got to try to win one basketball game right now.”All anyone involved with the Lakers can do now is make the best of their reality. More

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    How Wilt Chamberlain's 100-Point Game Changed the NBA

    OAKLAND, Calif. — On Sunday afternoon, Al Attles eased onto his living room couch next to his friend Tom Meschery, and they soon found themselves transported to March 2, 1962.They were listening to an old radio broadcast, Meschery for the first time. For a few blissful minutes, Attles’s home in Oakland was filled with the smoky baritone of Bill Campbell, who was the play-by-play voice for the N.B.A.’s Philadelphia Warriors when Attles, 85, and Meschery, 83, were teammates.“I remember thinking in the third quarter that something special was happening,” Meschery said.That something special was Wilt Chamberlain, Philadelphia’s dominant center, scoring 100 points in a 169-147 win over the Knicks in Hershey, Pa., where Attles reveled in his role of shuffling the ball to Chamberlain as often as possible and Meschery helped make history amid a haze produced by the nearby candy factories.“I can’t tell you how much the aroma of chocolate disturbed me for years,” he said.On the game’s 60th anniversary, it lives on as a part of the country’s cultural fabric — a touchstone for a transcendent athlete when the N.B.A., by design, was predominantly white. Gary M. Pomerantz, whose book, “Wilt, 1962: The Night of 100 Points and the Dawn of a New Era,” offers the definitive account of the game, said Chamberlain’s performance marked an important shift.“We remember Wilt’s 100-point game in part for its symbolism,” Pomerantz said in a telephone interview. “It symbolically exploded the racial quota N.B.A. owners had that limited opportunities for Black players. If this wasn’t the intended effect, it was the ultimate result: The N.B.A. would be a white man’s enclave no more.”Attles, who was one of Philadelphia’s three Black players at the time, spent his entire 11-year career with the Warriors as a player and player-coach, then stayed with the franchise as its head coach, guiding the team, which had by then moved to California, to its first championship in 1975. He was enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2019.Al Attles, left, and Tom Meschery, right, were teammates during the game Wilt Chamberlin scored 100 points.Jason Henry for The New York TimesMeschery had 10 productive seasons in the N.B.A. before he embarked on a long second career as a high school English teacher. A published poet, he is the only former N.B.A. All-Star who has been inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame.Yet for all their varied accomplishments, Attles and Meschery understand that their legacies are tied, in some small measure, to that night in Hershey, where Chamberlain shot 36 of 63 from the field, made 28 of 32 free throws, then caught a ride back to New York — he lived in Harlem at the time — with a couple of players from the woebegone Knicks.“He was trying to sleep in the back, and he could overhear them talking about dropping him off by the side of the highway,” Meschery said, laughing.The Great ReadMore fascinating tales you can’t help but read all the way to the end.Disney World’s new “Star Wars” hotel incorporates role playing, live interactive theater, rides and gaming. But it will cost you.A Broadway conductor caught Covid in the first wave. Two despairing years later, he is finally reclaiming his old life, breath by breath.A violent brawl that involved several biker gangs in Waco, Texas, left nine dead and led to nearly 200 arrests. Why was no one convicted?The game was, in many ways, unremarkable. It was staged at Hershey Sports Arena, an impersonal concrete shell where the Warriors played a few games each season. For their game against the Knicks, the building was only half full. The wooden court was originally designed for roller skating. The game was not televised, and only a couple of newspaper reporters made the two-hour trip from Philadelphia.Even now, the radio broadcast is not made available for public consumption without prior approval by the league. (The Warriors provided Attles and Meschery with a copy of the fourth quarter so they could listen to it.)But the game produced unexpected magic, and it has continued to be mythologized — fitting for a figure like Chamberlain, who did little to dispel the stories, real or imagined, about his life. Even to teammates, Pomerantz wrote, Chamberlain could seem detached and “beyond their reach,” though Attles was closer to him than most.“Just a terrific person once you got to know him,” Attles said.To Meschery, Chamberlain was more of a looming presence — at least at first. In 1957, as a high school senior in San Francisco, Meschery appeared on NBC’s “The Steve Allen Show,” along with the rest of the country’s high school and college all-American selections. As they gathered onstage, Meschery glanced over his shoulder.“And Wilt is standing right above me,” Meschery recalled.Chamberlain, who was dominating college defenders for Kansas, eventually left school early to play for the Harlem Globetrotters, then joined the Warriors in 1959. Attles, who thought he was bound for a teaching job at a junior high school in Newark, made the Warriors as a fifth-round pick in 1960, crafting a reputation as a defense-minded guard. (His nickname? The Destroyer.) A scrappy forward, Meschery joined the Warriors the following season.“I was in Wonderland,” he said. “I was just this kid from the West Coast, and there I was, playing with Wilt Chamberlain for God’s sake.”Meschery was prone to mixing it up with opponents. He recalled one game when Zelmo Beaty, a 6-foot-9 center for the St. Louis Hawks, lost his patience with him. They were about to brawl, Meschery said, when the 7-foot-1 Chamberlain wrapped his arms around Beaty and hauled him away as if he were a sack of potatoes.“Wilt saved my life,” Meschery said.Meschery has a memoir in the works, and he recently finished a short chapter on Chamberlain’s 100-point game. But Meschery said he had never heard the radio broadcast until Sunday, when he was transfixed by the soundtrack of a game from another era.Fans and teammates rushed the court to congratulate Chamberlain after he scored his 100th point against the Knicks.Paul Vathis/Associated PressFor Meschery and Attles, the broadcast stirred dusty memories. They remembered the way in which Dave Zinkoff, the team’s public address announcer, would enunciate Chamberlain’s nickname, the Big Dipper, in his hallmark Philadelphia drawl: “Dippah dunk!” They remembered the team’s exhaustive preseason schedule — 15 games or more in “Podunk towns,” Meschery said — as the N.B.A. sought to expand its reach. They remembered traveling by train to St. Louis from Philadelphia, long before the era of charter flights.“Wilt played cards the whole time,” Meschery said.They remembered how the team had arrived early for its game against the Knicks in Hershey, and how some of the players occupied themselves at a nearby penny arcade. Chamberlain was predictably the star attraction as he monopolized a target-shooting game.“I don’t think he missed,” Meschery said.And as they listened to Campbell’s call of the game, Meschery could even picture Frank McGuire, Philadelphia’s coach, patrolling the sideline in his crisp suit.“Frank’s out there with his cuff links, looking good,” Meschery said.McGuire had floated the idea that Chamberlain could score 100 points in a game. After all, Chamberlain had already poured in a record 78 points against the Los Angeles Lakers a few months prior, and he was averaging 50.2 points per game — while playing virtually every minute of every game.“Wilt would get ticked if he got taken out,” Meschery said.And when he was in, passing to him was usually the best option for his teammates. “If you were going to shoot, you better make it,” Attles recalled.By the early minutes of the fourth quarter for this special game, Campbell’s voice grew expectant with each possession.Chamberlain with a jumper from the circle — good!“That jumper was not really Wilt’s strength,” Meschery said. “It was sort of a miracle. But the whole game was a miracle in a way.”The kids are hollering out, “We want 100!”“If you got the ball to Wilt, you stayed in the game,” Attles said.Chamberlain in the locker room after he scored 100 points.Paul Vathis/Associated PressA game ball trophy gifted to Al Attles by Chamberlain.Jason Henry for The New York TimesHappy to be with you on this historic occasion. The big man of the Warriors, and the big man of the league, has 92 points.“Wilt loved to set up on the left block and then use that finger roll when he came across the lane,” Meschery said.And then, finally, a few minutes later: He made it! He made it! He made it!“One hundred points,” Attles said.“Astounding,” Meschery said.The Warriors relocated to San Francisco the following season. The league, of course, began to change, too. Players like Chamberlain, Attles and Meschery helped create the foundation for what the N.B.A. has become — a global enterprise and a revenue-generating colossus.Yet Chamberlain’s record remains intact, and neither Attles nor Meschery thinks anyone will break it. Kobe Bryant came the closest when he scored 81 points — with the benefit of the 3-point shot — for the Lakers in 2006.When Chamberlain died of a heart attack in 1999, he was just 63. Attles called Meschery to share the news.“I just couldn’t believe that he could die,” Meschery said. “I know that sounds very strange, but he always had that aura around him, that he was larger than life.”Now, Attles and Meschery are the only surviving members of the Warriors who played in Chamberlain’s 100-point game. Meschery, who has multiple myeloma, said he had two weeks left of treatment.“And then I’m going to live another 10 years,” he said.On Sunday, he was simply happy to be with his friend as they revisited a chapter from their past, back when anything seemed possible.“That,” Meschery said, “was an awful lot of fun.”Jason Henry for The New York Times More

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    N.C.A.A. Tournament: South Carolina Is Locked at No. 1 Ahead of Shuffling

    The Gamecocks have only one loss, but parity across the Power 5 leagues, especially the Big Ten and Big 12, should make for intense jockeying ahead of the tournament.As the spring approaches, women’s college basketball is inching closer and closer to a symbolic milestone. It’s one many people might never have noticed, and one that won’t have any impact on the quality or intensity of games.But for the first time since its debut 40 years ago, the N.C.A.A. Division I women’s basketball tournament will be officially called “March Madness” — the popular term that, until last fall, the N.C.A.A. had technically reserved exclusively for the men’s tournament.The start of the first official women’s March Madness is just a few weeks away. Many of the teams at the top of the heap are familiar, yet plenty of questions remain.Can anyone — besides Missouri, which managed to hand South Carolina a loss, by a single point — challenge the Gamecocks? Will Connecticut, long the front-runner, emerge in the postseason after its worst regular season in recent memory? Will the reigning champions, Stanford, earn longtime coach Tara VanDerveer her first repeat?As the regular season draws to a close, here’s what we know — and what’s next.Aliyah Boston is the front-runner for player of the year.Aliyah Boston has recorded 20 consecutive double-doubles, breaking a Southeastern Conference record set by Sylvia Fowles.Tracy Glantz/The State, via Associated PressSouth Carolina has been the top-ranked team in The Associated Press poll since the preseason thanks in large part to the efforts of the 6-foot-5 junior forward Aliyah Boston. Despite being the focus of every opposing team’s defense and getting persistently double-teamed by their most physical players as she fights to get in the paint, Boston has been nearly unstoppable. She leads the nation in win shares, according to Her Hoop Stats, and has recorded a double-double in points and rebounds in 20 consecutive games, breaking a Southeastern Conference record set by the highly decorated W.N.B.A. star Sylvia Fowles at Louisiana State.A top recruit out of high school, Boston has been a contender for national honors since she was a freshman. Last year, though, her stellar sophomore season was overshadowed by the prolific scoring and preternatural talent of Connecticut’s Paige Bueckers, whose national player of the year awards as a freshman were unprecedented.This year, Iowa guard Caitlin Clark, who in January became the first Division I player to record back-to-back 30-point triple-doubles, has drawn some attention away from Boston’s dominance — and that of her own team. Clark’s gaudy point totals and splashy hot streaks — she’s hit at least four 3-pointers seven times this season — make for irresistible highlight reels and have sparked conversation about her place in the player of the year race.Boston, though, has the numbers with 16.7 points and 11.8 rebounds per game, and South Carolina (26-1, 14-1 Southeastern Conference) has the wins.“It’s hard for me to imagine not having her and her contributions in so many different areas outside of the stat sheet,” South Carolina Coach Dawn Staley told reporters last week. “She’s a communicator, she’s a captain, she’s a leader, she’s a great teammate, she’s a great competitor on top of the stats.”Some top seeds could have a particularly tough road to the Final Four.With Paige Bueckers, second from left, set to return from an injury, UConn could have a more complete team and a quasi-home-court advantage during the N.C.A.A. tournament. Jessica Hill/Associated PressBarring a massive upset loss in the SEC tournament, the Gamecocks appear to be firmly in control of the top overall seed in the N.C.A.A. tournament. They’re better poised than ever to win Staley’s second national championship, with the South Carolina faithful — who have posted Division I’s best home attendance since 2015 — ready to pack the stands should they end up in the Greensboro, N.C., region.The most recent top-16 reveal from the N.C.A.A. Division I Women’s Basketball Committee, on Feb. 10, projected that the rest of the No. 1 line would fill out with familiar faces. After losing to South Carolina in December, Stanford (23-3, 14-0 Pac-12 Conference) has cruised through conference play with relative ease — only Arizona, its championship game foe last season, and Oregon stand as other Pac-12 teams ranked in The Associated Press poll.The Cardinal are currently projected as the No. 2 overall seed. That would likely place them in the Spokane, Wash., region, close to home and with limited upset potential.With the third and fourth overall seeds, the action is concentrated in the Atlantic Coast Conference. North Carolina State (25-3, 16-1) and Louisville, who have both been top seeds in recent tournaments, are neck and neck. The third-ranked Wolfpack are holding onto a narrow edge over the fourth-ranked Cardinals (24-3, 15-2) in the conference. One will likely play in the Wichita, Kan., regional, and one in the Bridgeport, Conn., regional.What both of those teams are hoping to avoid is something of a perfect storm brewing in Bridgeport. If UConn, projected as a No. 3 seed, is assigned to Bridgeport, either North Carolina State or Louisville — which has already beaten the Huskies once this year — could face what will essentially be a fervent home crowd at a purportedly neutral site.But even if UConn (20-5, 14-1 Big East Conference) winds up in Wichita, it will likely be playing with its healthiest team since the start of the season. Bueckers, who was sidelined after suffering a tibial plateau fracture and a lateral meniscus tear in her left knee on Dec. 5, is expected to return to the court on Friday against St. John’s.The Big 12 and Big Ten are deeper than ever.Caitlin Clark, left, had 32 points in a win over Rutgers on Thursday. Clark has gotten some national player of the year consideration along with Boston. Greg Fiume/Getty ImagesThis season’s parity has been remarkable, especially across the Power 5 conferences, where upsets have kept even the top teams from going on cruise control. Nowhere has that been more apparent than in the Big Ten and the Big 12, which are crowding the national rankings and positioned for exciting conference tournaments.In the Big Ten, where Maryland has won five of the past seven tournaments, the top teams — No. 6 Michigan, No. 17 Ohio State, No. 21 Iowa, and No. 13 Maryland — are separated by just a win or two, and their position is still changing by the day. Seven of the league’s teams are projected by ESPN to make the N.C.A.A. tournament, a group that now includes Northwestern, which fought to a double-overtime win over Michigan this month.In the Big 12, Baylor’s grip on the conference has been even tighter: The Bears have won nine of the past 10 tournaments. Yet right now, the fifth-ranked Bears (22-5, 12-3) are fighting for the top spot with No. 9 Iowa State.Close at their heels are No. 20 Oklahoma, which is second in the country in points per game with 84.9; No. 11 Texas, which managed one of the N.C.A.A. tournament’s biggest upsets last year by knocking off Maryland in the round of 16; and Kansas, which is in the mix despite landing 10th in the conference’s preseason poll.The last week of the regular season will be a tightly contested window into March.Louisville’s Hailey Van Lith, left, scored 13 points in a win Thursday against Pittsburgh. Van Lith leads the fourth-ranked Cardinals in scoring.Rebecca Droke/Associated PressThe final matchups of the regular season should offer some intrigue as teams jockey for seeding in conference tournaments and the national tournament.On Friday night, an overperforming No. 10 Indiana (19-6, 11-4) faces an underperforming Maryland at home (8 p.m. Eastern time, Big Ten Network).The Hoosiers beat Maryland in January, and now are just one win behind the Terrapins in a crowded field at the top of the Big Ten. If Maryland wins, there’s a chance it’ll be able to eke out its fourth-straight regular-season conference title and the top seed in the Big Ten tournament; if it loses, it’ll fall to the middle of the pack.On Sunday, Louisville and North Carolina State will each close the regular season against ranked opponents whom they have already beaten. The Cardinals will face No. 14 Notre Dame (noon, ESPN2), and the Wolfpack will take on No. 23 Virginia Tech (6 p.m., ACC Network). An upset loss for either team could take them out of the top four overall seeds and create a steeper road toward the A.C.C. title.In the Southeastern Conference, South Carolina’s stranglehold on the top spot has quieted some of its usual competitors. But new-look Louisiana State has sneaked into the top 10 for the first time in 13 years with Kim Mulkey at the helm, and is looking to make a run in the N.C.A.A. tournament despite not having qualified since 2018.On Sunday, the eighth-ranked Tigers will play No. 16 Tennessee (2 p.m., ESPN2), a team that started strong but has been bullied recently, losing four of six — albeit to a difficult group of opponents that included Connecticut and South Carolina — before winning Thursday.Mulkey’s former team, Baylor, is hardly languishing in her absence, though. The Bears will play Iowa State on Monday (7 p.m., ESPN2), with NaLyssa Smith, one of the best players in the country, center stage as she tries to pull the Bears atop the Big 12. More

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    Prospects Get a Taste of N.B.A. Life During All-Star Weekend

    Members of a developmental team, the N.B.A. G League Ignite, some still in their teens, participated in the N.B.A.’s All-Star Weekend.Amauri Hardy sat in the stands during the N.B.A.’s All-Star Weekend in Cleveland, watching his little brother, Jaden, on the court with the best young players in the league. He thought about the work Jaden had put into his game and the guts he showed in leaving home as a teenager to follow a nontraditional path into professional basketball.“I’m not sure if he actually realizes how big of a moment it is, but I did because I grew up watching this game a lot,” Amauri Hardy said, proudly. “Just to see him out there with the jersey on with our last name on it, just representing for our whole family.”He added, “He’s been making the best of these moments.”Jaden Hardy, 19, does not play in the N.B.A., though he believes he could have been drafted last year, right out of high school, if the rules had allowed it. Instead, he signed with the N.B.A. G League Ignite, a developmental team in Northern California which allows elite prospects to play professionally in the United States before they are eligible for the N.B.A. draft.This season, playing for the Ignite offered another perk. The N.B.A. included players from that experimental team in their festivities surrounding the All-Star Game. It was a chance for the league to showcase the Ignite, a project now in its second year. It also gave the players, many of them teenagers, an incomparable experience.Four players from the Ignite — Jaden Hardy, Scoot Henderson, MarJon Beauchamp and Dyson Daniels — joined 24 first- and second-year N.B.A. players, 12 from each conference. The players were split into four teams, each with six N.B.A. players and one Ignite player, for a mini-tournament on the Friday of All-Star Weekend. The Ignite players Fanbo Zeng and Mike Foster were scheduled to participate in a shooting competition during the tournament, though Zeng couldn’t participate because of an injury.“I was nervous before the game before I even got out there, but when I got out there it was kind of relieving,” Beauchamp said. He watches the All-Star events every year, he said, “so just seeing myself on the screen is pretty amazing.”While league rules prevent players from going straight from high school to the N.B.A., playing for the Ignite can be a lucrative path for prospects when compared with playing in college — Ignite players can make up to $500,000 for the season. It can be a more familiar one than playing overseas, which some have tried.Scoot Henderson, 18, passing during the Rising Stars Challenge. Because of his age, he is not eligible for the N.B.A. draft until next year.Emilee Chinn/NBAE, via Getty ImagesThey first heard that a few of them would get to participate in All-Star Weekend while at a practice in New York.“I just thanked God, honestly,” Henderson said. “I was very excited. The first thing I did was call my parents and share the moment with them. They were just saying they were proud of me and what I’ve done through my year.”The rest of their teammates attended Friday night’s events, as did family members and friends. Amauri Hardy was both a family member and a teammate — he plays on the Ignite along with his brother. Daniels’s father traveled from the family’s home in Australia and saw his son for the first time in months.This is the second season the Ignite has existed. The team was designed to play a schedule that includes games against other G League teams and international exhibitions. Last year’s team produced two top-10 draft picks — Jalen Green, by Houston, and Jonathan Kuminga, by Golden State.It is made up of prospects and veterans who serve as mentors. They practiced in Cleveland on Thursday and Saturday in preparation for a Sunday afternoon game against the Cleveland Charge, the Cavaliers’ G League affiliate.Practices include competition and camaraderie for this group. They’re all trying to become lottery picks, most of them in this year’s draft.“It’s a little tense in practice sometimes,” Foster said. “They’ve developed into brothers. We got that brotherly fight.”On Friday morning, they sat for the Rising Stars media day. That’s when Jaden Hardy started to really feel part of the weekend.“It was just fun to be able to be out there on the court with those young stars really and just being able to go out there and just laugh and compete,” he said.One of those young stars was guard Tyrese Haliburton of the Indiana Pacers, a second-year N.B.A. player who met Hardy at a camp a few years ago.“I think him being around us, seeing us young guys who are thriving in the N.B.A., I think he’s getting a little bit of a taste of that,” Haliburton said. “And his future is bright, so I’m excited for him to get to the league.”Hardy’s team played against Beauchamp’s in the semifinals, and Hardy’s team won.Beauchamp caught two lobs for dunks from Cole Anthony, a second-year guard for the Orlando Magic.MarJon Beauchamp, left, and Jaden Hardy at the Rising Stars Challenge.Emilee Chinn/NBAE, via Getty Images“I’m sure it had to be a surreal experience,” Anthony said. “Not even playing in the N.B.A., being at N.B.A. All-Star, that has to be one of the dopest experiences a kid can experience. I wish I could’ve been there when I was in college just that year before going into the draft.”Among the players Henderson was most excited to play with Friday night was LaMelo Ball, the N.B.A.’s 2020-21 rookie of the year.When Henderson thought about his path to pro basketball, Ball was one of his role models. Ball left high school after his sophomore year to play professionally in Lithuania.In his rookie year, Ball was very confident, noted Henderson, who joined the Ignite after his junior year of high school.Henderson was part of Ball’s team for the Rising Stars Challenge, and thrilled for an opportunity to play with him. Conversely, Ball appreciated Henderson’s interest in his path.“My whole journey I felt like it was going to help the younger generation, which I feel like it’s doing,” Ball said. “So just having kids do what they want, I feel like it’s great.”“I was nervous before the game before I even got out there, but when I got out there it was kind of relieving,” Beauchamp said.Brian Sevald/NBAE, via Getty ImagesBut restrictions remain on players as they attempt to enter the N.B.A. Henderson, for example, will not be eligible for the draft until 2023.“If I had the opportunity and that chance, I would definitely love to play in the N.B.A. next year,” Henderson said.Henderson added that he had found the environment with the Ignite helpful given the mentorship opportunities and the chance to play against N.B.A. talent.Beauchamp was a little nervous backstage on Friday before he was introduced as a participant in the Rising Stars Challenge to a bigger audience than he had ever played for.But the butterflies dissipated by the time he arrived for introductions.His appearance was an honor normally reserved for players in their first or second N.B.A. seasons, not those, like Beauchamp, preparing for the draft. Between his accomplished teammates and the N.B.A. veterans he saw sitting courtside, he looked around and thought about what he wanted for his future.“I feel like it motivates me to want to be here,” Beauchamp said. “Again and again and again.” More

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    N.C.A.A. Tournament Peek: Gonzaga Remains the Favorite, but the Blue Bloods Are Back

    Transfers and first-year coaches will play a key role in who cuts down the nets in New Orleans in April.The N.F.L. and college football have crowned their champions, with the Los Angeles Rams and the University of Georgia winning titles. The Winter Olympics are in the rearview mirror. And the start of the Major League Baseball season is in flux because of a lockout.But the men’s college basketball season is just heating up, with the N.C.A.A. tournament set to begin March 15 before concluding with the Final Four in New Orleans in early April.Here’s a look at the major themes of the college season so far.Gonzaga is once again the team to beat.Gonzaga forward Drew Timme has averaged 18 points per game.James Snook/USA Today Sports, via ReutersBecause Gonzaga is in the West Coast Conference — meaning most of its games air late at night on the East Coast — a lot of people don’t get to see the Bulldogs much before March.But one year after suffering their only loss of the season in the N.C.A.A. championship game against Baylor, the Bulldogs are once again the favorites to win their first title. They are ranked No. 1 in The Associated Press poll and in Ken Pomeroy’s rankings, and when the N.C.A.A. Division I Men’s Basketball Committee announced its projected Top 16 seeds on Sunday, Gonzaga was at No. 1 overall.Unlike last season, the Bulldogs (23-2, 12-0 W.C.C.) won’t enter the national tournament undefeated because they lost to Duke and Alabama, but they have won 16 straight games and already wrapped up their 10th straight W.C.C. regular-season title.With the conference possibly sending four teams to the N.C.A.A. tournament this year, Gonzaga Coach Mark Few said that “to be undefeated is quite an accomplishment.”Entering Tuesday, the Bulldogs led Division I in scoring at 89.5 points per game — and, once again, a team will likely have to put up at least 85 or 90 points to have a chance at upsetting them in March. Five Gonzaga players boast scoring averages in double figures, led by the skilled forward Drew Timme (18.0 points per game, 6.3 rebounds per game) and the 7-foot freshman sensation Chet Holmgren, who is averaging 14.4 points, 9.6 rebounds and 3.4 blocks per game and is projected to be a top-three pick in this summer’s N.B.A. draft. In a year without many elite point guards at the top of college basketball, the Gonzaga senior Andrew Nembhard, who averages 10.9 points and 5.7 assists, might be the most savvy floor general.The blue bloods Duke, Kansas and Kentucky are all contenders.Kansas guard Ochai Agjabi is a contender for the National Player of the Year Award.Ben Queen/USA Today Sports, via ReutersLast year, Duke and Kentucky missed the N.C.A.A. tournament in the same year for the first time since 1976. Another powerhouse, Kansas, made the tournament as a No. 3 seed but was destroyed, 85-51, by Southern California, a No. 11 seed, in the second round.This season, the three blue bloods have come roaring back, and all have a legitimate shot to reach the Final Four and contend for a title.Kansas, 23-4 and 12-2 in its conference after beating Kansas State by 19 points on Tuesday, sits atop the powerhouse Big 12. Powered by the national player of the year candidate Ochai Agbaji, who is averaging 20.2 points and 5.2 rebounds, Kansas has been projected as a No. 1 seed — along with Gonzaga, Auburn and Arizona — by the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee, whose members include athletic directors and conference commissioners.Duke and Kentucky, which both feature a nice blend of one-and-done freshmen alongside experienced older players, were projected as No. 2 seeds.Mike Krzyzewski, 75, is coaching his final season at Duke (23-4, 13-3 Atlantic Coast Conference) and appears to have all the weapons he needs to contend for the program’s sixth championship.The Blue Devils feature five players who could be selected in the first round of the N.B.A. draft, led by the 6-foot-10 freshman Paolo Banchero, a projected top-three pick averaging 16.9 points and 8.4 rebounds per game; the junior wing Wendell Moore Jr. (13.9 points, 5.6 rebounds and 4.6 assists); and the freshman guard Trevor Keels (12.0 points and 4.0 rebounds).Duke’s team boasts five potential first-round N.B.A. draft picks, including Paolo Banchero.Gerry Broome/Associated PressKeels recently said that this year’s team had “better talent” and “better depth” than the 2014-15 Duke squad that won the N.C.A.A. championship — and that it can “definitely” cut down the nets.Kentucky, which lost by 8 points to Duke in November at Madison Square Garden and blew out Kansas on the road by 18 points in January, has a shot at the title because it blends elite freshmen like point guard TyTy Washington, averaging 12.4 points and 4.1 assists per game, with skilled older players and transfers.Oscar Tshiebwe, a 6-foot-9, 255-pound junior transfer from West Virginia who was called “a mountain masquerading as a man” by the dogged talent scout Tom Konchalski, is averaging 16.4 points per game and a Division I-best 15.2 rebounds. He is a leading contender for the John R. Wooden and Naismith Awards, given to the top college basketball players.Kentucky (22-5, 11-3 Southeastern Conference) also has a variety of other weapons: Kellan Grady, a graduate transfer from Davidson, is averaging 12.3 points per game while shooting 45.1 percent from 3-point range, and Sahvir Wheeler, a junior transfer from Georgia, is a speedster averaging 9.6 points and 7.1 assists.Several first-year coaches have their teams in contention.Arizona Coach Tommy Lloyd has led his team to the top of the Pac-12 standings in his first year.Rick Scuteri/Associated PressWhen the list of the 15 coaches in contention for the Naismith Coach of the Year Award was released last week, it featured some household names who have run their programs for years: Gonzaga’s Few, Baylor’s Scott Drew, Kentucky’s John Calipari and Auburn’s Bruce Pearl. Few, Drew and Pearl’s teams have all been ranked No. 1 in The Associated Press poll this season.But two first-year coaches are also in the mix for the award, and for deep runs in March: Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd and Texas Tech’s Mark Adams.Lloyd, 47, came to Arizona from Gonzaga, where he was the chief recruiter under Few, to replace Sean Miller, who failed to reach a Final Four during his 12 years with the program and whose team was the subject of F.B.I. and N.C.A.A. investigations.All Lloyd has done in his first season as a head coach is to lead the Wildcats (24-2, 14-1 Pac-12 Conference) to the top of the league standings with significant contributions from the projected N.B.A. lottery pick Bennedict Mathurin, a 6-foot-6 native of Montreal averaging 17.4 points and 5.8 rebounds.Adams, 65, was elevated to the head coaching position at Texas Tech in April after Chris Beard left for Texas. Despite losing several players to transfers, Adams rebuilt the roster, and the ninth-ranked Red Raiders (21-6, 10-4 Big 12) now have two wins over both Texas and Baylor, the defending national champion.“He always wants to get the best out of us, and he’s doing a good job right now,” said the junior guard Terrence Shannon Jr.Some big-name coaches and programs are making headlines — and not in a good way.Michigan Coach Juwan Howard, suspended for five games, will be eligible to return for the Big Ten Conference tournament.Amber Arnold/Wisconsin State Journal, via Associated PressJuwan Howard, Penny Hardaway and Patrick Ewing have several things in common: they all starred in the N.B.A. and they all now coach at their alma maters.They’re also all struggling in various ways at the college level.Howard, the Michigan coach, was suspended for five games and fined $40,000 on Monday after he slapped a Wisconsin assistant coach in the head in the handshake line after a blowout loss to the Badgers on Sunday. Howard, who apologized and will be eligible to return for the Big Ten Conference tournament, said he was upset with a late timeout called by Wisconsin Coach Greg Gard while the Badgers had a double-digit lead.The veteran coach Phil Martelli will lead Michigan (14-11, 8-7 Big Ten), which is on the bubble for the N.C.A.A. tournament after being ranked as high as No. 4, for the rest of the regular season.At Memphis, Hardaway has talked openly about aspirations of winning national championships, and the Tigers were among the preseason favorites after Hardaway persuaded the superstar recruits Emoni Bates and Jalen Duren to reclassify and enroll this season as freshmen. But Bates, who was once compared to a young Kevin Durant, struggled early and hasn’t played since late January because of a back injury. Without Bates, the Tigers (15-9, 9-5 American Athletic Conference) won six straight games before losing to Southern Methodist on Sunday. They own impressive wins over Alabama and Houston but remain on the N.C.A.A. tournament bubble.At Georgetown, Ewing and the Hoyas are making history — and not in a good way. They’ve lost 16 straight games and stand at 6-20 overall and 0-15 in the Big East Conference. One year after winning the conference tournament, Georgetown is trying to avoid becoming the first Big East team to finish 0-19 in league play.Key transfers are again playing an important role.Kentucky’s Oscar Tshiebwe, who transferred from West Virginia, leads Division I with 15.2 rebounds per game.Jordan Prather/USA Today Sports, via ReutersWhen Baylor won the N.C.A.A. title last spring, the team started two transfers (Davion Mitchell and MaCio Teague) and brought two more off the bench (Adam Flagler and Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua). Gonzaga started another transfer, Nembhard, at point guard in its run to the title game.Given that more than 1,700 players entered the N.C.A.A. transfer portal after last season, don’t be surprised to see them play a role on teams that advance deep into March. Gonzaga, Duke, Kansas, Kentucky and Texas Tech all have key transfers on their rosters. After losing three players to the pros, Baylor brought in the former Arizona and Georgetown guard James Akinjo, who is averaging 13.2 points and 5.8 assists for the 10th-ranked Bears.At Auburn (24-3, 12-2 SEC), Pearl may have hit the jackpot with the additions of Walker Kessler (North Carolina), K.D. Johnson (Georgia), Wendell Green Jr. (Eastern Kentucky) and Zep Jasper (College of Charleston).The 7-foot-1 Kessler has teamed up with Jabari Smith, the potential No. 1 pick in this year’s N.B.A. draft, to give the Tigers a fearsome front line that is the envy of some N.B.A. teams. After averaging 4.4 points, 3.2 rebounds and 0.9 blocks as a freshman with the Tar Heels, Kessler is averaging 12.0 points, 8.2 rebounds and a Division-I best 4.6 blocks. In a recent win over Texas A&M, Kessler had a triple-double with 12 points, 12 blocks and 11 rebounds. More

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    Women’s Basketball Players Get a New Lifeline, Close to Home

    The five-week Athletes Unlimited season has given some players an alternative to playing overseas during the W.N.B.A. off-season and a way to earn extra money.Lauren Manis was drafted, and waived, by the Las Vegas Aces before the 2020 W.N.B.A. season. She then signed with a team in Belgium, where intermittent lockdowns because of the coronavirus pandemic left her stuck in her apartment.She was unable to enter the gym, touch a basketball or return to her hometown, Franklin, Mass. But the time she eventually did get to spend on the court in Belgium proved fruitful: Manis averaged nearly a double-double in points and rebounds for the 16-game season and, in 2021, was invited back to the Aces’ training camp. Waived a second time, Manis signed to play for a team in Hungary. It didn’t go well.“I was living in a campground for three months,” Manis said. “The team was not honest with the living arrangements.”Under mental strain, she told her agent to prepare a termination agreement to get her out of the contract. Her agent told her about an opportunity to compete in Athletes Unlimited, a network of player-driven sports with a new basketball league based in Las Vegas. The next day, Manis boarded a flight out of Hungary. One Zoom call was all it took to persuade her to sign on to play in the inaugural A.U. basketball season.“I was very, very down after Hungary,” Manis said. “I thank God, because a few months ago I would have never imagined a situation like this coming up.”For Manis, the league is an opportunity to course-correct a career beleaguered by bumps and false starts. She is joined by women at various stages of their basketball careers, many focused on redemptive arcs of their own. Some see the league as a chance to compete in front of family and friends, some for their first time in their professional careers, rather than in obscurity overseas. It can also be the rare paycheck, and playing time, for professional women’s basketball players in the United States during the W.N.B.A.’s off-season.Lauren Manis, center, agreed to join the league after one Zoom call.Four weeks into the inaugural five-week A.U. season, many people have found reason to want success for this newest venture in a long line of upstart basketball leagues that have come and gone. On-court competition has been thrilling because of its intensity, but A.U. is judging the success of its first basketball season by player experience. “Track how the players are doing and how much they’re enjoying the experience, and the feedback has been incredibly positive,” said Jon Patricof, A.U.’s chief executive and co-founder.Athletes Unlimited started in March 2020 with softball, volleyball and lacrosse leagues. The first A.U. basketball season tipped off on Jan. 23 at Athletes Unlimited Arena at the Sport Center of Las Vegas, with recruiting help and oversight by its player executive committee: the veteran W.N.B.A. players Natasha Cloud, Sydney Colson, Tianna Hawkins, Jantel Lavender and Ty Young. The season ends Saturday.It’s probably not what most fans would expect: There are no general managers, coaches or set teams, and four teams of 11 players are redrafted each week. Their captains are the top four players on a leaderboard for points accrued by on-court actions like scoring, drawing fouls and stealing the ball, and by votes from fans and players. Opposite actions, like turnovers and missed shots, cost points. Teams win games by collecting the most points through outscoring the other team each quarter (50 win points per quarter) and in the overall game (100 points).Fans are given sheets explaining the point system at each game.The league has focused on engaging fans through social media and TV broadcasts for every game rather than in-person attendance. The arena can hold just 740 fans.“From the beginning, we really wanted to build a global national audience,” Patricof said.That was welcome news to Imani McGee-Stafford, who is competing in A.U. and last played in the W.N.B.A. in 2019, for the Dallas Wings. “Even in the W, we don’t have every game televised,” McGee-Stafford said. “I send my grandmother the schedule every week and tell her what channel to turn to, or what’s the link, and she texts me after every game. It’s really dope, and it’s also not very common in the women’s basketball world yet.”McGee-Stafford, a 6-foot-7 center, stepped away from the court in 2020 to begin law school, but now finds her professional career mired in uncertainty.“I just want to play basketball,” she said.Imani McGee-Stafford balances playing time with law school studies.To accommodate law school and the W.N.B.A., she chose a three-year, semesters-based program. But after four W.N.B.A. seasons and international stints in Israel, China and Turkey, McGee-Stafford, 27, hadn’t played professionally for three years before A.U. came along. In 2019, she signed to play in Australia, with the Perth Lynx, but she said she “got cut because I was taking the L.S.A.T. and showed up late to something.”In A.U., she is able to battle hard on the court, and retreat to a private room afterward to complete her coursework. “They’ve made it possible for players to do it all,” she said. “I’m taking three courses this semester, a lighter course load, because I knew I was going to be doing this.”Tianna Hawkins and her son Emanuel after a recent game.For Tianna Hawkins, a 6-foot-3 forward who won a championship with the Washington Mystics in 2019, A.U. has allowed her to rediscover the joy of playing. In 2021, she played for the 8-24 Atlanta Dream, who suspended a player for conduct detrimental to the team and lost their coach to another job just weeks before the season.“It’s been a great opportunity for me to regain my confidence because I’m coming off, maybe, the worst professional season I’ve ever had,” Hawkins said.She continued: “I’m able to work on the things that I’ve been working on this off-season. And, also, if I make one mistake, I’m not getting snatched out of the game. I’m able to play through my mistakes, and also learn different perspectives of the game.”Hawkins said being a captain in A.U. had given her more respect for coaches.“They go through a lot, and they’re not even playing,” she said. “So, imagine if you had to coach while playing, too. I have a newfound grace for coaches.”A key challenge for W.N.B.A. coaches is the effect of off-season overseas games on their players, who may arrive for the W.N.B.A. season late, tired or injured from competing year-round. For many players, the grind is necessary to supplement low W.N.B.A. pay and limited domestic opportunities.Courtney Williams celebrated with teammates after a recent win.But will Athletes Unlimited quell this need?For Hawkins, it’s a matter of weighing the options: money, location and the needs of her first-grade son. McGee-Stafford is all in for as long as A.U. will have her. She finds the base salary of $8,000 “just for showing up” to be attractive, she said, and she can simultaneously pursue her law degree. Plus, players who finish in the top 10 on the leaderboard can expect bonuses upward of $10,000, making the full take-home pay for five weeks of basketball potentially more than $20,000, according to Patricof. The minimum salary for the four-month W.N.B.A. season is about $60,000, with a max of around $230,000.David Berri, a professor at Southern Utah University who has studied sports economics and gender issues, sees long-term potential for A.U., so long as the league maintains low operating costs.“Athletes Unlimited is definitely doing much to save money,” Berri said, citing its focus on TV and social media instead of in-person audience. And by centering individual players over teams, Berri said, A.U. could build an audience faster than what the traditional league model allows.Sheryl Swoopes provides color commentary to the games, and advice to the players.At the start of the A.U. season, Sheryl Swoopes, who provides color commentary for games, spoke to players about her Hall of Fame career in professional basketball. Her words resonated with Manis. “I think playing basketball for a living is really difficult because you never know when it’s going to come to a sudden end,” Manis said. “And she had some really wild things to say about being able to manage your money, and having a plan to fall back on.”Swoopes said in an interview that had A.U. existed during her playing days, she would have seized the chance to play.“Some players love going overseas, some players don’t,” she said. “It’s not for everybody.”Manis, who has dazzled with her gritty play on both sides of the ball, has become one of this season’s stars and captured Swoopes’s attention during broadcasts. Her redemption seems to be underway.“It’s unreal,” Manis said. “It’s great when you hear people praise your game and love to watch it, but when it comes from someone as influential as Sheryl Swoopes, it’s a pretty big deal.” More

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    Fax Machines and Popcorn Spills: The Rocky Road to N.B.A. Coaching

    Wes Unseld Jr. had done almost everything possible to prepare to be a head coach, from interning to selling tickets. But, he said, you can’t fully understand the job “until you’re in it.”Wes Unseld Jr. still has some of the reports he filed as a young scout for the Washington Wizards in the late 1990s. When he looks at them now, he said, they appear so basic. He still has no idea why Mike Brown, one of the team’s assistants at the time, was so encouraging and supportive of his work.In any case, Unseld has kept those reports as artifacts from the first of eight seasons that he spent combing the United States for prospects and studying opponents. Sure, there were moments when he questioned the general direction of his life. So many late nights. So many seemingly endless road trips. (“You get into Year 8, and you’re like, ‘This is a grind,’” Unseld said.) But from his courtside seat, he was immersed in the game that he loved.“It helped me enormously, because you’re seeing all sorts of philosophies firsthand,” Unseld said. “You’re watching all these different coaches and teams and how they use certain players: ‘That’s really good. It might work for our guys.’ In the process, you start to formulate your own ideology.”Now in his first season as the Wizards’ head coach, Unseld, 46, has used his more than two decades of experience as a scout and then as an assistant — first with the Wizards, and later with the Golden State Warriors, the Orlando Magic and the Denver Nuggets — as the foundation for his approach. Specifically, his time as a scout was vital and remains a part of his identity.“I think you always have that in you,” he said.Accustomed to challenges, Unseld has a fresh one with the Wizards, who are 27-31 at the N.B.A.’s All-Star break. Bradley Beal had season-ending surgery on his left wrist this month, and the team was active at the trade deadline, acquiring Kristaps Porzingis from the Dallas Mavericks. To get him, they traded away Spencer Dinwiddie, one of the team’s leading scorers. The Wizards have not had a winning season since 2017-18.“The goal is the playoffs,” said Ish Smith, a veteran guard who played for the Wizards from 2019 to 2021 and rejoined the team this month through a trade with the Charlotte Hornets. “But every day you’ve got to put the work in.”The Wizards traded for Kristaps Porzingis, left, earlier this month.Evan Vucci/Associated PressIn Unseld, the Wizards have a coach steeped in the organization: His father, Wes, who died in 2020 and was honored over the weekend as one of the N.B.A.’s top players ever, was the best player in Wizards history and a longtime executive. That connection surely helped the younger Unseld’s career, but he mostly climbed the coaching ladder the old-fashioned way. And it all started on one of the lowest rungs possible.For two summers, before and after his graduation from Johns Hopkins in 1997, Wes Unseld Jr. interned with the Wizards. (The first summer, he moonlighted as a sales representative for Nabisco.) With the Wizards, he hopscotched among departments, spending several weeks doing fairly standard tasks in each. His father, who was the team’s general manager at the time, emphasized the importance of hard work. So Unseld assembled media guides. He mingled with fans when he was working in community relations. He tried his hand at selling sponsorships and tickets, where he learned an important lesson about the business of professional sports.“If we weren’t playing well, it was tough,” he said.Unseld often started and ended each day the same way: by heading to the practice facility to rebound shots for players.By the end of his second summer with the team, he maneuvered his way into basketball operations, having shelved his ambitions of an investment banking career. The lure of the game was too strong, and his internship soon segued into a full-time role as a personnel scout, which largely involved evaluating high school and college prospects in the area.Brown, who had joined the Wizards before the 1997-98 season as a first-year assistant, was not sure what to expect when he first met Unseld. Unseld’s father, after all, was basketball royalty and the face of the franchise.“He was probably the most well-known person in D.C. besides the president,” Brown said.Unseld’s father, Wes, coached the Wizards from 1988 to 1994.Tim DeFrisco/Allsport, via Getty ImagesBut rather than come off as entitled, Wes Unseld Jr. was a sponge for information, Brown said. He was always asking questions, always seeking ways to improve and always willing to do the dirty work — no, really. Brown recalled how the coaches were meeting after practice one morning when one of them spilled some popcorn. Unseld practically jumped out of his chair before returning with a broom and a dustpan.“I knew right then and there that he was authentic,” said Brown, now an assistant with Golden State. “This was a guy who could’ve skipped two or three steps if he wanted to. But he didn’t skip any.”When the Wizards had an unexpected opening for an advance scout — someone who visits arenas far and wide to watch future opponents and write reports for the coaching staff — Unseld was in the right place at the right time. It was a promotion and an immediate test.“I had no idea what I was doing,” said Unseld, who leaned on Brown for guidance. “We lived right around the corner from each other, so I’d go over there to spend time, and we’d watch film and he would help talk me through some of the things, like what to look for and how to organize my thoughts.”Unseld, Brown said, would often visit just so that he could watch him watch film.“He wouldn’t even want to say anything because he didn’t want to bother you,” Brown said.At the time, scouting was still in a relative “Stone Age,” Brown said. Laptops? Forget it. The reports were by hand. Unseld had detailed forms that he used to draw up plays and record other minutiae from the games he watched. But that was only half the challenge: In the early days, he needed to find a fax machine so that his handiwork would beat the coaching staff back to the office by 6 a.m.“You’d find the nearest 24-hour Kinko’s or a grocery store that was within walking distance of the hotel,” Unseld said. “It was a lesson in self-reliance: You found a way to make it work.”The technology eventually improved to the point where Unseld could email them. But it was painstaking work, and the travel was nearly as incomprehensible as the hours were. He was routinely on the road for 20-plus days out of the month. His personal record, he said, was 28 straight days living out of a suitcase.He later spent another six seasons as an assistant on the Wizards’ coaching staff. But when he left for Golden State in 2011 — the team had offered him a more prominent position — Unseld doubted he would ever return.“It’s not that I didn’t want to,” he said. “But it was just one of those things where you think that if there’s going to be an opportunity, it would be somewhere else.”Hired by the Wizards last summer, Unseld has found that some aspects of his new job were impossible to anticipate, no matter how many years he had to prepare for such a role. He went so far as to cite the team’s travel schedule, which he was responsible for planning before the start of the season.“When you’re trying to project it, you’re just like: ‘Oh, this is great. We’ll travel on this day, and then we’ll stay over that night,’” Unseld said. “And then, when you’re living through it, you’re like: ‘What the hell was I thinking? This is awful.’ I don’t think you can ever understand the depth and scope of everything that comes with this position until you’re in it.”It has been an uneven season for the Wizards, who have been hindered by injuries and will finish the season with a new-look lineup. They rank among the bottom third of the league in both offensive and defensive rating, and Beal can opt for free agency this summer. But Unseld said he was excited about the future, describing Porzingis as a “very talented piece” of the puzzle.Above all, Unseld is learning as he goes, same as ever, back where it all began.“It’s amazing,” he said, “how it’s played out.” More