Griner repeats as unanimous pick

Miscellany: Brittney Griner keeps piling up the accolades.

The 6-foot-8 Baylor senior became only the third player to be a two-time unanimous choice on the Associated Press’ women’s basketball preseason All-America team, receiving all 40 votes from a national media panel Tuesday.

Griner joined former UConn star Maya Moore and Duke great Alana Beard in that select club.

Griner wasn’t the only unanimous choice on the preseason team. Delaware senior Elena Delle Donne and Notre Dame senior Skylar Diggins were also on all 40 ballots. Stanford’s Chiney Ogwumike (23 votes), Maryland’s Alyssa Thomas (19) and Baylor’s Odyssey Sims (19) rounded out the squad. It’s the first time there’s been a tie for the final spot since the team began in 1995-96.

Only five other players have been unanimous selections – Courtney Paris, Chamique Holdsclaw, Diana Taurasi, Seimone Augustus and Candace Parker.

• NCAA approves stiffer penalties: The NCAA’s board of directors passed a package of sweeping changes that will hold coaches more accountable for rule-breaking offenses and threaten rogue programs with longer postseason bans and fines that could cost millions of dollars.

Coaches say it’s about time.

“Throughout history, the only way to keep civilization and to keep things in order is to have very strong rules and enforce them,” said Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer, who won two national titles at Florida.

The NCAA believes it has fixed the problem of swift justice, too, by approving an increase in the number of infractions committee voting members, from 10 up to 24.

The plan is to split the full committee into smaller panels, all of which could hear cases and allow as many as 10 meetings to take place annually instead of the five that have traditionally been held.

Violators found to be in “serious breach of conduct” with aggravating circumstances could face penalties similar to those imposed on Penn State earlier this year following the Jerry Sandusky scandal – a four-year postseason ban and a $60 million fine.

• NHL players will receive payments: Locked-out NHL players are expected to get back last season’s escrow payment today.

According to the union, players are set to be given 7.98 percent of what they earned last year, plus interest, on the day they were to have received their second paycheck of the currently delayed season.

There have been no labor negotiations since Oct. 18, when the union countered a league offer with three proposals. Those were all quickly rejected by the NHL. The league has canceled all games through Nov. 30.