Storm win, clinch top seed in West
WNBA: Lauren Jackson scored a season-high 33 points to help the Seattle Storm rally from an 18-point halftime deficit and beat the Phoenix Mercury 91-85 on Tuesday night in Seattle to clinch the top seed in the Western Conference.
Sue Bird added 16 points and Tanisha Wright 14 for Seattle (21-2), which won its 12th consecutive game. The Storm are 12-0 at home and 16-0 in conference play.
Diana Taurasi scored 27 to lead Phoenix (10-13), which had won three in a row. The second-place Mercury dropped 11 games behind the Storm.
Yao says he may retire from NBA
Basketball: Houston Rockets center Yao Ming is considering quitting basketball after next season if he doesn’t fully recover from his lingering foot injury.
In comments to Chinese state media, Yao sounded far from optimistic about his future.
“If the foot injury does not heal next season, I might choose to call it quits,” he said.
Yao turns 30 in September.
• Pitino may testify: Rick Pitino’s lawyer said the Louisville basketball coach might testify in Louisville, Ky., today in the case of a woman accused of trying to extort him.
Attorney Steve Pence told the AP that Pitino’s testimony could last at least half a day in the case of Karen Cunagin Sypher.
• Huggins still hospitalized: A spokesman for the West Virginia University basketball team says further testing has revealed that coach Bob Huggins broke seven ribs – not four – in a hotel room fall.
Bryan Messerly said Huggins remains in a Las Vegas hospital and should be released soon.
Roush injured in plane crash
Auto racing: NASCAR team owner Jack Roush was in serious but stable condition after walking away from a plane crash in Wisconsin.
“There are injuries. Possible surgery,” Roush Fenway Racing president Geoff Smith said in a text message to the AP. “But he walked out of the plane.”
Smith confirmed that the plane belonged to Roush, and he was flying it.
• McCombs backs race: Former San Antonio Spurs and Minnesota Vikings owner Red McCombs is a key investor backing the new U.S. Grand Prix Formula One race to be run in Austin, Texas, beginning in 2012.
TCU picked to repeat as champs of MWC
Football: TCU is still on top in the Mountain West Conference.
The Horned Frogs received all 31 first-place votes in the league’s preseason media poll.
Utah is picked to finish second in its last season before joining the Pac-10. BYU is third.
Gatlin set to retun from 4-year ban
Miscellany: Organizers say former Olympic sprint champion Justin Gatlin will make his comeback from a four-year doping ban at the Bigbank Kuldliiga meet in Tallinn, Estonia, on Aug. 3.
Spokesman Taavi Esperk said the American sprinter will run in the 100 meters at the meet.
Gatlin is also reportedly set to race at the Ergo Games in Tallinn on Aug. 8.
Gatlin won gold in the 100 at the 2004 Athens Olympics and in the 100 and 200 at the 2005 world championships.
He was one of the fastest men on the planet then, tying the 100 world record of 9.77 seconds. That run came weeks after a positive test in April 2006 for excessive testosterone and has since been erased.
• Feds seek Armstong documents: Federal investigators have subpoenaed documents from a 2004 arbitration case in which a Dallas-based company tried to prove Lance Armstrong used performance enhancing drugs.
Attorney Jeffrey Tillotson, who handled the case for SCA Promotions Inc., says his office will send the documents to federal prosecutors in Los Angeles who are investigating cheating in professional cycling.
• Murray fires coach: Fourth-ranked tennis player Andy Murray is splitting with coach Miles Maclagan after less than three years.
Murray has been coached by Maclagan since he replaced Brad Gilbert in 2007.
• More on USA Swimming watch list: USA Swimming acknowledged to the AP that it has a second list of people who are under suspicion for unscrupulous behavior, having already banned 46 coaches and officials for life, mostly for sexual misconduct. The second list is made up of inactive members.