Thursday Morning Sports Update-03/11/2021

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anthony-harris-tony-sanders-matt-zona

NCAAMBB – Men’s College Basketball
Last Night
ACC Tournament – 1st round – Greensboro Coliseum – Greensboro, BC
6 North Carolina 101,  11 Notre Dame 59

North Carolina 101, Notre Dame 59 – Bacot, UNC beat Notre Dame 101-59, advance to ACC semis
Big men Armando Bacot and freshmen Day’Ron Sharpe and Walker Kessler each had a double-double and North Carolina dominated inside in its 101-59 win over Notre Dame at the ACC tournament. No. 6 seed UNC (17-9) plays third-seeded Virginia Tech in the quarterfinals Thursday. Bacot, a 6-foot-10 sophomore, finished with 20 points and 13 rebounds. Kessler added 16 points and a career-best 12 rebounds and Sharpe had 14 points, 10 boards and a career-high six assists. Kessler added eight blocks, the most by a UNC freshman in program history and an ACC tourney single-game record. Prentiss Hubb and Nate Laszewski each scored 13 points for 11th seed Notre Dame (11-15).

Today
Big Ten Tournament – 2nd round – Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis, IN
9 Michigan State vs. 8 Maryland, 11:30 a.m.              Superhits 103.7 Cosy-FM 10:30

NCAA – Shirts or skins? Teams need only 5 to be eligible for NCAAs
All a team needs to play in this year’s NCAA Tournament is five healthy players. How about a coach? The NCAA will get back to you on that. The fluid nature of a March Madness played amid the coronavirus pandemic was apparent hours before the selection committee began meeting to hash out a 68-team bracket. NCAA executive Dan Gavitt said that as long as a team has five healthy players, it is good to go. And if that team’s coaching staff gets decimated by COVID-19? Gavitt didn’t have an answer but says the committee will discuss that this week.

NCAAWBB – Women’s College Basketball
Yesterday
Big Ten Tournament – 2nd round – Bankers Life Fieldhouse – Indianapolis, IN
7 Michigan State 75, 10 Penn State 66

Michigan State 75, Penn State 66 – Winston, Michigan St. women top Penn St. in Big Ten 75-66
Alyza Winston hit five 3-pointers, including back-to-back big shots in the fourth quarter, and scored 23 points to lift seventh-seeded Michigan State to a 75-66 win over 10th-seeded Penn State in the second round of the Big Ten Conference tournament. Shortly after Winston’s 3’s put the Spartans on top 62-56, Nia Clouden made two breakaway layups, the first on her steal and the second on Winston’s, that made it 68-58 with 3:47 to go. Maddie Burke, who scored 22 points, then hit her sixth 3 for the Lady Lions but then they missed their next four shots and the Spartans advanced to face No. 9 Indiana, the second seed.

Mid-American Conference Tournament – quarterfinals – Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse – Cleveland, OH
1 Bowling Green 63, 8 Eastern Michigan 47
2 Central Michigan 83, 7 Northern Illinois 69

Today
Big Ten Tournament – 2nd round – Bankers Life Fieldhouse – Indianapolis, IN
4 Michigan vs. 5 Northwestern, 1:00 p.m.
7 Michigan State vs. 2 Indiana, 6:30 p.m.

NCAAWBB – No. 13 Michigan has high hopes with Naz Hillmon
Naz Hillmon has helped Michigan’s women’s basketball team reach some new heights this season. The 6-foot-2 forward is averaging 25.1 points per game and earned Big Ten player of the year honors earlier this week. Her 50-point performance in a January loss to Ohio State brought even more attention on the Michigan star. Prior to that game, the Wolverines were 10-0 for the first time in school history. They also reached No. 11 in the AP poll, setting a program high. Michigan is currently at No. 13 entering the Big Ten Tournament.

NBA – National Basketball Association
Tonight
Detroit Pistons at Charlotte Hornets, 7:00 p.m.
Philadelphia 76ers at Chicago Bulls, 8:00 p.m.

NHL – National Hockey League
Tonight
Tampa Bay Lightning at Detroit Red Wings, 7:30 p.m.
Chicago Blackhawks at Dallas Stars, 8:30 p.m.

NHL – ESPN, NHL announce comprehensive 7-year agreement
The National Hockey League and ESPN are together again. The two sides announced a seven-year agreement beginning next season that includes four Stanley Cup Finals, the NHL All-Star Game and comprehensive streaming rights. ESPN has a long history with the league but hasn’t aired games since 2004. Under the new agreement, the Stanley Cup Final will air on ABC in four of the seven years, beginning next season. It also includes 25 regular-season games, with the likely breakdown being 15 on ESPN and 10 on ABC. ESPN and ABC will also have first choice of which conference final series to air.

MLB – Spring Training
Yesterday
Philadelphia Phillies 6, Detroit Tigers 4
San Francisco Giants 7, Chicago Cubs 6
White Sox were off

Today
Detroit Tigers at Toronto Blue Jays, 1:07 p.m.
Chicago Cubs at Colorado Rockies, 3:10 p.m.
Chicago White Sox at Cincinnati Reds, 8:05 p.m.

NFL – NFL sets salary cap at $182.5 million, down 8% from 2020
The NFL’s salary cap will be $182.5 million per team in the upcoming season, a drop of 8% from 2020. The league’s loss of revenues due to the coronavirus pandemic caused the first decrease in the cap since 2011, which followed an uncapped season. Free agency begins next Wednesday, though the “legal tampering” period starts Monday. The NFL is close to agreement on extensions of its broadcast contracts, but those deals won’t affect the 2021 season. Last summer, the players’ union and league agreed to a cap minimum of $175 million, but that number jumped by $5 million in February and was set at $182.5 million on Wednesday. Now the scrambling begins for a number of teams that are significantly over the cap.

CFL – CFL, XFL set for discussions about potential partnership
Twenty-six years after being released by the Calgary Stampeders, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is looking at re-establishing his Canadian Football League ties. The CFL and XFL revealed Wednesday they’re poised to begin serious discussions about a potential partnership. Neither side would say who initiated the talks, only that they’ve agreed to collaborate on ways to grow football. Johnson, an actor and former pro wrestler, is a co-owner of the American-based XFL.

Olympics – Thomas Bach re-elected as IOC president until 2025
Thomas Bach has been re-elected as president of the International Olympic Committee. His final four-year term has an immediate focus on this year’s delayed Tokyo Games. The German lawyer was unopposed and won the vote 93-1 following an opening eight-year mandate dominated by the Russian doping scandal and the first Olympics to be postponed in peacetime. Bach says Tokyo is “the best prepared Olympic city ever” and the games will open on July 23 despite the COVID-19 pandemic. He says the question is not whether the Olympics will take place but how.

AHL – American Hockey League
Tonight
Grand Rapids Griffins at Rockford IceHogs, 7:00 p.m.

MHSAA – High School Sports
Last Night
Boys Basketball
Sturgis 62, Dowagiac 44
Edwardsburg 46, Niles 33
Allegan 50, Plainwell 47
Eau Claire 53, Decatur 47

Girls Basketball
Decatur 55, Eau Claire 4
Sturgis 34, Dowagiac 20
Edwardsburg 68, Niles 18
Otsego 50, Paw Paw 27
Three Rivers 50, Vicksburg 47
Plainwell 54, Allegan 32
Saugatuck 57, Hartford 38

Boys Swimming at Diving
St. Joseph 93, Portage Northern 85

Tonight
Boys Basketball
New Buffalo at Lake Michigan Catholic, 7:30 p.m.              News/Talk/Sports 94.9 WSJM
Benton Harbor at Schoolcraft, 7:00 p.m.
Kalamazoo Central at Battle Creek Central, 7:00 p.m.
Vermontville Maple Valley at Comstock, 7:00 p.m.
Kalamazoo Phoenix at Kalamazoo Hackett, 6:00 p.m.

Girls Basketball
New Buffalo at Lake Michigan Catholic, 6:00 p.m.              News/Talk/Sports 94.9 WSJM
St. Joseph at Portage Central, 7:00 p.m.
Lakeshore at Kalamazoo Central, 7:00 p.m.
Lawrence at Michigan Lutheran, 7:30 p.m.
Buchanan at Berrien Springs, 7:00 p.m.
Lawton at Watervliet, 7:00 p.m.
Bridgman at Parchment, 5:30 p.m.
Mattawan at Portage Northern, 7:00 p.m.
Battle Creek Lakeview at Gull Lake, 7:15 p.m.
Marcellus at White Pigeon, 7:30 p.m.
Comstock at Vermontville Maple Valley, 6:00 p.m.