PHILADELPHIA – Alex Karaban played like a man trying to keep his career alive on Sunday night.

UConn’s all-time winningest player scored a career-high 27 points to lead the Huskies back to the Sweet 16 for the third time in his career with a 73-57 win over fellow blue-blood UCLA at Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia.

Karaban made nine of...Read more

SAN DIEGO — All high drama requires a setting.

Sunday, that setting was San Diego.

Forever searing our city into the pleasure synapses of many thousands of New Yorkers, a driving layup at San Diego State’s Viejas Arena sent St. John’s University to its first Sweet 16 since 1999.

The basketball banked off the glass as the clock hit 0.00....Read more

TAMPA, Fla. — Florida’s hopes for a rare repeat came to a stunning conclusion as ninth-seeded Iowa bounced the Gators from the NCAA Tournament.

A 3-pointer with 4.5 second by 6-foot-10 Spaniard Alvaro Folgueriras ended Florida’s national championship bid during a 73-72 loss to Iowa Sunday night at Benchmark International Arena.

Point ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — If the lack of an upset on Friday in Philadelphia’s NCAA Tournament games left fans disappointed, the consolation prize was a high-level contest to start Sunday’s doubleheader.

No. 6 seed Tennessee and No. 3 Virginia treated a full and loud arena to a terrific game that came right down to the end, with the Volunteers ...Read more

BOSTON — A season-worst fourth quarter doomed the Boston Celtics on Sunday in a home loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Boston went 5 for 27 in the final period — with two of its makes coming by deep reserves in garbage time — as it fell 102-92 at TD Garden to a Minnesota team that was playing without injured All-Star Anthony Edwards.

...Read more

NEW YORK — No longstanding NBA scoring records were hurt in the making of the New York Knicks’ 145-113 victory over the Washington Wizards on Sunday. As for the egos of the players suiting up for the nation’s capital? That’s a completely different story.

Clobbering Time was in full effect at Madison Square Garden, where the Knicks — ...Read more

Both teams were tanking, but Sunday at Golden 1 Center still turned into a night where young and fringe rotation players on each side were asked to step up.

The Sacramento Kings entered the day in fourth place in the draft lottery standings, a half-game behind the Nets for third. Brooklyn arrived on a six-game losing streak, playing without ...Read more

TAMPA, Fla. — Bryan Hodgson is leaving USF after one season to become the men’s basketball coach at Providence College.

Hodgson, 38, led USF to a 25-9 record, American Conference regular-season and tournament titles, and an NCAA Tournament berth this season. The Bulls lost 83-79 to Louisville in a first-round game Thursday in Buffalo, N.Y. ...Read more

The drought is over. For the first time in 27 years, St. John’s is headed to the Sweet 16.

Dylan Darling delivered a dramatic, buzzer-beating lay-up to give fifth-seeded St. John’s a 67-65 win over fourth-seeded Kansas in San Diego on Sunday in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Kansas had rallied back from a 14-point second-half ...Read more

ST. LOUIS — As it turned out, a 2025-26 Kentucky men’s basketball season that featured more dramatic ups and downs than “The Beast” ended in the only manner it could have:

With one more wild roller coaster ride.

Coach Mark Pope’s Cats began their NCAA Tournament Midwest Region round of 32 game against Iowa State scalding hot.

The ...Read more

DENVER — Winning has often been a burdensome enterprise for the Denver Nuggets the last few weeks. They’ll take every blowout they can get, regardless of the opponent.

They earned their second consecutive victory Sunday afternoon with a 128-112 rout of the Portland Trail Blazers at Ball Arena. Nikola Jokic went for 22 points, 14 rebounds ...Read more

CHICAGO — Too often over the course of the past five weeks, Billy Donovan found himself forgetting.

It happened in quiet moments, a too-rare phenomenon since the trade deadline upended the Chicago Bulls roster. The team was struggling. Most of the players whom Donovan had spent the last four years pouring into were scattered across the ...Read more

ST. LOUIS — A grueling Kentucky basketball season came to a disappointing end Sunday afternoon.

The Cats led 2-seeded Iowa State by double digits in the early going — sparking hopes that they might pull off a March Madness upset — before the Cyclones took over in the second half and ended UK’s season with an 82-63 victory in the second ...Read more

DETROIT — He’s the hottest player in the NBA. Not even the NBA’s technical foul rule can slow Luka Doncic down.

The NBA rescinded Doncic’s 16th technical foul, the league announced Sunday, allowing Doncic to avoid a mandatory one-game suspension that would have kept him out of Monday’s game against the Eastern Conference-leading ...Read more

ST. LOUIS — The other Miami, the one in Ohio, got so much attention for its historic undefeated regular season that much of the nation seemed to have missed the most dramatic turnaround story in college basketball this season.

The Miami Hurricanes, under 37-year-old first-year coach Jai Lucas, tied an NCAA record for the largest victory ...Read more

MIAMI — The long game rarely has been the game of preference for the live-in-the-moment Miami Heat, save, perhaps, for when Pat Riley and Andy Elisburg amassed in advance every possible cent of salary-cap space ahead of the 2010 free-agency haul of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.

In that regard, news this past week of a seemingly ...Read more

ST. LOUIS — Selection Sunday delivered Missouri a fine turn of fortune, you might recall:

First, it wasn’t relegated to playing in a First Four/play-in game in Dayton, Ohio, as it appeared could happen. Beyond that, the Tigers also were somehow sent to St. Louis with what figured to be a substantial home-court advantage against Miami — ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — Welcome to the Lakers, Luke Kennard.

The Lakers’ midseason acquisition made the game-winning three-pointer in the team’s 105-104 win over the Orlando Magic on Saturday, extending the Lakers’ winning streak to nine.

Kennard, the NBA’s leading three-point shooter, found himself wide-open on the wing off a baseline out-...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — Welcome to the Lakers, Luke Kennard.

The Lakers’ midseason acquisition made the game-winning 3-pointer in the team’s 105-104 win over the Orlando Magic on Saturday, extending the Lakers’ winning streak to nine.

Luka Doncic notched his 40th 30-point game of the season with 33 points and eight assists, but he was assessed...Read more

March is not when an NBA team wants to get creative with its losses.

And yet here stand the Miami Heat, staggered by a four-game losing streak that now includes Saturday night’s 123-122 loss to the Houston Rockets at Toyota Center.

Last Saturday, an awful start led to a home loss to the Orlando Magic.

Tuesday night, blitzed in the fourth ...Read more