NCAA basketball

From staff reports

PULLMAN – Dylan Darling, the former Central Valley High basketball star, is on the move.

PULLMAN – David Riley’s job keeps getting a little harder.

After winning the championship last season, Hurley got a new contract, increasing his salary to $5 million per year and extending it through 2029. With performance bonuses, he is up to $6.7 million. If Kentucky decides to go after the most successful coach in the game right now, it could offer record salaries, given its SEC revenue.

To honor the end of Pac-12 basketball, the Hotline plowed through decades of data to identify the greatest teams in conference history.

Gonzaga’s placement in the final edition of the AP Top 25 was fitting for a team that bowed out of the NCAA Tournament in the Sweet 16.

David Riley, the former head man at Eastern Washington for three seasons, prides himself on efficient offense. Last season, his Eagles ranked fourth nationwide in effective field goal percentage, sixth in 2-point field goal percentage, and nobody in their rotation shot worse than 35% from beyond the arc.

GLENDALE, Ariz. — If the NCAA men’s basketball tournament counts as one of the nation’s ultimate rodeos, then it just witnessed maybe the smoothest two-year case of bronco riding it ever saw. Coach Dan Hurley’s Connecticut Huskies spent Monday night finishing an unimaginable calming of the rambunctious event, becoming the first repeat national champion since Florida in 2006-07 and only the second since Duke in 1991-92. It parked a program little-known four decades ago way up high on the list at six national championships, in third place shoulder-to-shoulder with North Carolina.

Eastern Washington basketball players Ethan Price and LeJuan Watts entered the transfer portal on Monday.

A historic season in women’s college basketball ended with one more record-breaking telecast. Sunday’s victory by South Carolina over Iowa for the national championship set a viewership record for women’s basketball with 18.7 million viewers, making it the most-watched women’s basketball game ever.

After two productive seasons playing for Tommy Lloyd at Arizona, center Oumar Ballo entered the transfer portal Monday.

Coming off its best season under coach Lisa Fortier, the Gonzaga women's basketball finished 14th in the final Associated Press poll released Monday.

The Blue Devils are bringing in the nation’s No. 1 recruit, forward Cooper Flagg.

CLEVELAND – If the hair did not raise up on your neck, if something in your chest did not swell, you were insensate. This was a game that, for all the divided loyalties and warring ambitions between South Carolina and Iowa, offered something that binds. It was decades in the thankless making for women’s basketball, so when the acclamation finally came pouring down like the clouds of confetti Sunday afternoon, it seemed fitting that the champion cutting down the net was a pioneering coach in Dawn Staley, whose tremendous Gamecocks held off the NCAA Division I all-time scoring leader in the rightly celebrated Caitlin Clark, 87-75, to finish 38-0.

CLEVELAND – Raven Johnson skipped over to Dawn Staley, toothy smile beaming, ponytail bobbing behind her, for a moment of celebration. This was exactly what she wanted. The revenge tour was officially over.

Michael Ajayi will be wearing a Gonzaga uniform if he elects to continue his college career in 2024-25, but the Pepperdine transfer is keeping all options open for the time being and announced Saturday he plans to declare for the NBA draft while maintaining his NCAA eligibility.

GLENDALE, Ariz. – The sounds around this Final Four, they tell the story. This is an event for the ears, not sight, because the sounds are so unique around here.

GLENDALE, Ariz. – The road to redemption for the Purdue men’s basketball team will make a final stop in the NCAA Tournament championship game.

The last time South Carolina women’s basketball experienced defeat was 373 days ago in Dallas at the American Airlines Center.