8B SPORTS
THE UNIVERSITY HARRY KANSAN
NBA
WEDNESDAY.NOVEMBER 11,2009
Denver Nuggets win by a free throw
Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah loses control of the ball as Denver Nuggets center Nene defends during the first half Tuesday in Chicago. The Nuggets scored a last-second free throw for a 90-89 victory against the Bulls.
Team scores final point after Bulls' shot overturned
ASSOCIATED PRESS
CHICAGO — Chauncey Billups hit the go-ahead free throw with six-tenths of a second left and the Denver Nuggets beat the Chicago Bulls 90-89 on Tuesday night after a potential winning jumper by Brad Miller was overturned following a replay review.
Billups was fouled by Kirk Hinrich on a drive and then intentionally missed the second free throw after making the first to break the tie. Joakim Noah grabbed the rebound, and the Bulls nearly pulled it off.
After a timeout, Miller caught the inbounds pass from Hinrich and, in one motion, buried a jumper from the top of the key. The crowd went wild. So did the Bulls, but it didn't last.
After a lengthy review, the officials ruled time had expired, and the Nuggets snapped a two-game losing streak.
Carmelo Anthony scored a season-low 20 points for Denver, while Billups added 17, and Kenyon Martin had 15 points and 14 rebounds after missing a game with a bruised left fibula.
who had won three straight.
Derrick Rose led Chicago with 22 points, while Luol Deng scored 21, and Joakim Noah had a careerhigh 21 rebounds for the Bulls.
Both teams struggled from the outside, with the Bulls hitting 4 of 18 3-pointers and the Nuggets 5 of 16.
There was never really a big run
It was at 87-83 after Anthony tracked down a loose ball following a broken play by the Bulls and Martin dunked with 1:56 left.
Hinrich buried a jumper to
make it a two-point game and then picked up a loose ball after a missed 3 by John Salmons, keeping the possession alive. After Noah missed a layup, Rose converted to tie it at 87 with 33 seconds left.
Named the NHLs first star of the week one day earlier, ignila opened the scoring with his
team-leading ninth of the season
14:55 in.
Iginla, who has scored five times during the streak, took a return pass from Olli Jokinen and put a shot through traffic past Jaroslav Halak from the top of the right faceoff circle.
The Canadiens, who lost 4-3 in Calgary on Oct. 6, have dropped five of seven overall.
Kiprusoff made 25 saves and improved to 10-3-1 this season as Calgary won its fourth straight to begin a four-game trip. It was his 31st career shutout, his first since Feb. 12, when he turned aside 36 shots in a 2-0 win over Los Angeles.
Halak stopped 30 shots for Montreal, which has lost its last three games at the Bell Centre.
Flames forward Curtis Glencross sat out the first game of his three-game suspension. Glencross was suspended by the league on Monday for his hit to another player's head.
Associated Press
COLLEGE BASKETBALL
NCAA blocking rule concerns coaches
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The rule, approved by the NCAA in June, requires secondary defenders to establish position outside of the area directly below the rim to draw a charging call. Essentially, if a player is standing in an imaginary circle beneath the rim and makes contact with a shooter, it's an automatic blocking foul — no matter if the player has position or not.
North Carolina coach Roy Williams likes the idea and hopes
it will curb some of the violent collisions under the basket that can lead to injuries. He said his concern is there nothing to define the area beneath the rim, forcing officials to make judgment calls on
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The season has just started and already a new rule designed to clarify some of the foul calls has some coaches concerned.
"The decision to make the imaginary circle underneath the rim, I think that was not the best decision," Williams said Tuesday during a conference call with NCAA officials. "I think our officials are really going to have a difficult time with that. I would have been in favor of putting down a dotted line, if that's what we're going to do."
Calgary's winning streak continues with Montreal
where the player was standing.
MONTREAL — Mikka Kiprusoff got his first shutout of the season and Jarome Iginla extended his goal-scoring streak to four games, leading the Calgary Flames to a 1-0 victory over the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday night.
The NCAA won't have that,
leaving it up to the officials to
The rule was put in to stop players from sliding under shooters as they came down after taking a shot. The NBA instituted a similar rule a few years ago, putting a dotted line on the floor to clearly define whether a defender was under the basket.
determine if the defender was in the 18-by-24-inch area while still trying to keep track of everything else that's going on.
"The decision to make the imaginary circle underneath the rim, I think that was not the best decision."
"Playing underneath the basket just to draw a foul as a guy's coming down is not a good play and I understand the reason for it, but I'd like to give the officials a little help and put the dotted line in there like the NBA," said Williams, whose team opened defense of last year's national championship Monday night with a 88-72 win over Florida International.
ROY WILLIAMS North Carolina coach
NHL
Several other new rules or points of emphasis were put into place to take away some of the rough play that's become common in college basketball.
Officials will pay closer attention to 3-second calls to eliminate some of the wrestling matches underneath the basket, and have been instructed to call fouls if a
player's balance, rhythm, speed or quickness is impeded, not just if it provides an advantage.
Officials also will be allowed to use replay to determine flagrant fouls. Even if a foul isn't considered flagrant, they're being encouraged to call intentional or technical fouls instead of downgrading to a regular foul.
Those rules Williams had no problem with. He agreed the game is getting too physical and something needs to be done.
"For me and some of my coaching friends, we all have the same opinion, we are concerned with the aggressiveness and the rough play, the physicalness of the game," Williams said.
BIG 12 FOOTBALL
Nebraska's Matt O'Manion, left, celebrates an interception against Oklahoma with teammate Prince Amukamara Saturday in Lincoln, Neb. The team upset No. 20 Oklahoma 10-3.
Starting safety O'Hanlon has tough journey at Nebraska
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
LINCOLN, Neb. — First, he had to try out just to make the team.
Then he had to endure three years on the scout unit, serving as practice meat for the guys who actually played in games.
This week, Nebraska safety Matt O'Hanlon was named the defensive player of the week in the Big 12 and, according to one outfit, the nation.
The senior safety was a big part of Nebraskas 10-3 victory against the Sooners on Saturday, tying the school record with three interceptions and making a career-high 12 tackles.
In February 2005, O'Hanlon was among 50 or 60 other hopefuls who showed up at the Cook Pavilion rec
center for a tryout. He ran 40- and 10-yard dashes, and a couple other drills in front of strength coaches.
No football coaches attended
O'Hanlon was the only one to get a callback, and it didn't come for almost two weeks.
"In all reality," he said, "if I hadn't made the team, I would have been done."
The tough times were just starting for O'Hanlon. Callahan operated NFL-type practices with the starters getting the overwhelming majority of the work. O'Hanlon might have gotten two or three live snaps in a typical practice. He wondered if he should have stayed at South Dakota.
The hiring of Bo Pelini in December 2007 gave O'Hanlon a chance to start over. O'Hanlon said Pelini told the team that everyone was on equal footing, regardless of what other schools recruited him or how many stars he was awarded by recruiting services.
O'Hanlon beat a host of players for the No. 1 free safety job last season and finished third on the team with 52 tackles.
The 5-foot-11, 200-pound O'Hanlon might never play another down of organized football after this season. If not, that's OK. He plans to move back to Bellevue with his wife and begin his career as a special-education teacher.
"It's amazing I've come this far," he said.