Morning Briefing April 3, 2010
Basketball
Ohio State’s Evan Turner, a 6-foot-7 junior swingman who averaged 20.3 points, 9.2 rebounds and 5.9 assists, was named The Associated Press player of the year Friday after receiving 54 votes from the 65-member national media panel.
Kentucky freshman John Wall was second with nine votes.
Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim was selected the AP’s coach of the year, receiving 39 votes, while Kansas State’s Frank Martin was next with eight.
Kobe Bryant is staying with the Los Angeles Lakers for another three years.
The deal means the Lakers achieved two main objectives going into the season — signing Bryant, 31, and Pau Gasol to extensions.
Financial terms of Bryant’s deal weren’t announced. Gasol signed earlier in the season.
Former Boise State coach Rod Jensen was named the new men’s basketball coach at the College of Idaho.
Jensen was an assistant at Boise State from 1983 until 1995 and head coach from 1995-2002, posting a 109-93 record. After being fired at Boise State, Jensen served as an assistant at the University of Virginia and the University of North Carolina Greensboro.
New Boise State men’s basketball coach Leon Rice announced the hiring of two assistants.
Dave Wojcik was named the associate head coach while Jeff Linder will be the No. 2 assistant.
Wojcik, 41, was the No. 2 assistant at Wake Forest for the 2009-10 season and has been an assistant to Lefty Driesell at James Madison and the late Skip Prosser at Xavier.
Linder, 32, comes to Boise from San Francisco, where he was the associate head coach.
Baseball
Seattle’s Chone Figgins hit his first home run of the preseason and finished with three hits and four RBIs and the Mariners tied the Colorado Rockies 11-11 at Albuquerque, N.M.
Football
Organizers of the Meineke Bowl terminated their title sponsorship agreement effective after this year’s game, which means there will likely be a different name for the event in 2011.
South Korean Song-Hee Kim shot a 4-under 68 in the Kraft Nabisco Championship at Rancho Mirage, Calif., to top a leaderboard loaded with majors winners.
Kim has top-10 finishes in all three events this year as she chases her first LPGA Tour victory. Her two-day total of 7-under 137 gave her a one-shot lead over majors winners Cristie Kerr (67), Karen Stupples (69) and top-ranked Lorena Ochoa (70).
Bryce Molder birdied four of the last seven holes for a 6-under 66 and a one-stroke lead in the Houston Open at Humble, Texas.
Molder had a 9-under 135 total on Redstone’s Tournament Course.
First-round co-leader Cameron Percy (69) and fellow PGA Tour rookie Alex Prugh (66) — a Spokane native — were tied for second, and Lee Westwood (68), Anthony Kim (69), Joe Ogilvie (67) and Kevin Stadler (70) were 7 under.
Soccer
Former Gonzaga standout Brian Ching will be sidelined for at least several weeks after hurting his left hamstring while playing for Major League Soccer’s Houston Dynamo, an injury that could hamper the American forward’s preparations for the World Cup in June.
— The Associated Press