Kentucky Tops A.P. Preseason Poll
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kentucky is No. 1 in The Associated Press preseason Top 25 for the second straight season.
Kentucky is No. 1 in The Associated Press preseason Top 25 for the second straight season.
Connecticut was the unanimous choice atop the Associated Press women’s basketball poll. South Carolina was second, the university’s best ranking since Jan. 3, 1982.
Hawaii fired its basketball coach, Gib Arnold, a little more than two weeks before its first regular-season game.
The one-year scholarship has come to be viewed as similar to an employment contract, while four-year awards are seen as more in the spirit of amateurism.
Lawyers involved in a class-action suit brought by former college athletes to reform N.C.A.A. head-injury policies said on Thursday they thought the agreement would be tweaked but ultimately accepted.
Several changes, including the N.C.A.A.'s decision not to ask student-athletes to sign statements allowing promotional use of their likenesses, come amid growing unrest over the amateur model of college sports.
Mark Emmert, the president of the N.C.A.A., is an unapologetic target of detractors as his organization faces legal challenges to its amateurism model.
Kendrick Payne, a former defensive lineman in college at California, watched the O’Bannon case unfold a few miles from where he works as a driver for a ride-sharing company.
A key front in the effort to reform the N.C.A.A. is medical coverage for college athletes, some of whom have become burdened with costs to treat their injuries.