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Adam Zagoria covers basketball at all levels. He is the author of two books and an award-winning journalist whose articles have appeared in ESPN The Magazine, SLAM, Sheridan Hoops, Sports Illustrated, Basketball Times and in newspapers nationwide.
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Saturday / November 23.

NCAA Basketball: Vanderbilt at KentuckyArkansas’ Bobby Portis was named SEC Player of the Year on Tuesday, but Kentucky dominated just about everything else.

John Calipari was tabbed the SEC Coach of the Year, Willie Cauley-Stein hauled in Defensive Player of the Year honors, Devin Booker was named the SEC’s Sixth Man of the Year and Karl-Anthony Towns continued UK’s reign on SEC Freshman of the Year accolades. The league’s coaches’ voted on the award winners.

Cauley-Stein and Towns garnered First Team All-SEC honors, while Booker and Aaron Harrison were named to the league’s Second Team. Booker and Towns were joined by classmates Trey Lyles and Tyler Ulis on the All-SEC Freshman Team, while Cauley-Stein earned his second career All-Defensive Team honor.

B9316542796Z.1_20150310013312_000_GKQA65CBA.1-0One year after a scandal threatened to derail his career, Manhattan head coach Steve Masiello is going dancing yet again.

Masiello guided Manhattan to its second straight NCAA Tournament appearance by virtue of a 79-69 victory over arch-rival Iona in the MAAC championship game at the Times Union Center in Albany.

“The greatest feeling of my life,” Masiello said, according to the Journal-News. “It’s probably been the hardest year of my life.”

Traci CarterTraci Carter is off the board to Marquette.

The 6-foot point guard from Burlington (N.J.) Life Center committed to the Golden Eagles on Tuesday following an official visit to the school this past weekend.

Carter also considered Xavier, La Salle, UConn and Memphis. He visited Xavier a week ago, and had set tentative visits for UConn and Memphis later in March.

“The thing that separated Marquette from all the other Universities was that Traci was recruited directly by Coach Wojo [ Steve Wojciechowski] and got a chance to establish a rapport with him,” Donnie Carr, Carter’s guardian, told SNY.tv on Tuesday.

“The opportunity that Traci will have to make an immediate impact and run the show from day one [was also important] And Marquette’s  recruiting class for 2015 is one of the best in the country.”

Carter joins a recruiting class already ranked No. 7 nationally by Rivals.com that includes power forward Henry Ellenson, shooting guard Haanif Cheatham, shooting guard Sacar Anim and center Matt Heldt.

10tennis-articleLargeNEW YORK — Roger Federer would “love” to win career major No. 18 this summer at Wimbledon, and says that his arch-rival Rafael Nadal could catch him “very quickly” on the all-time list if Nadal wins this year’s French Open.

The 33-year-old Federer owns 17 career Grand Slam singles titles, while the 28-year-old Nadal is tied for second place all-time with Pete Sampras at 14.

Nine of Nadal’s 14 titles have come at the French Open, where he will seek his 15th major this spring.

“Rafa particularly has the best shot [of catching Federer],” Federer said Monday at a hotel off Central Park. “If he wins the French Open a few more times and I don’t win anymore then clearly he can catch me very quickly.”

ricpitino3Louisville coach Rick Pitino will coach the Puerto Rican National Team this summer in the Pan American Games in Toronto in late July and also at the Olympic qualifying tournament in Monterrey, Mexico which runs Aug. 25 to Sept. 5.

The top two teams from that event will qualify for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Jeff Greer of the Louisville Courier-Journal reported that Louisville will play two games against Puerto Rico’s National Team and two or three against its junior team in the Bahamas, with Pitino coaching the Puerto Rican teams. Because of this arrangement, Louisville won’t travel to Spain in August

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