Friday's Sports in Brief
COLLEGE BASKETBALL
The Duke women’s basketball team ended its season Friday amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“The student-athletes on the Duke women’s basketball team have made the difficult decision to conclude their current season due to safety concerns,” said Michael Schoenfeld, Vice President for Public Affairs & Government Relations and Chief Communications Officer for Duke University.
“We support their decision, as we have supported the choices made by all student-athletes at Duke during this unprecedented time. Duke will maintain our current schedule of competition in other sports and will continue to observe our rigorous health and safety protocols, which include daily testing for all student-athletes and are based on guidance from leading medical experts.”
The men’s basketball team planned to keep playing.
The women’s basketball team has been on pause since Dec. 16 because of two positive COVID-19 tests and contact tracing within the program’s travel party. The Blue Devils (3-1) postponed games against Miami, N.C. State and UNC Wilmington. The team’s next scheduled contest was against Louisville on Thursday.
The Blue Devils are the first Power Five team to drop out after starting this season. The Ivy League opted out of playing winter sports in November before the basketball season started. A few other schools also decided not to play.
PRO BASKETBALL
BOSTON (AP) — Basketball Hall of Famer K.C. Jones, an Olympic gold medalist and two-time NCAA champion who won eight straight NBA titles during the Celtics’ Bill Russell era and then coached the Boston teams with Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish to two more championships in the 1980s, has died. He was 88.
The Celtics said Jones’ family confirmed that he died on Friday at an assisted living facility in Connecticut, where he had been receiving care for Alzheimer’s disease for several years.
“K.C. was the nicest man I ever met. He always went out of his way to make people feel good, it was such an honor to play for him,” Bird said in a statement. “His accomplishments are too many to list, but, to me, his greatest accomplishment was being such an outstanding person to all who had the privilege of knowing him, I will miss him dearly.”
Jones is one of seven players in history to have won an Olympic gold medal, an NCAA championship and an NBA title. He won two more NBA crowns as an assistant coach and was the Celtics head coach when they went to the NBA Finals four straight years from 1984-87, winning it all in ’84 and again two years later with a team that won a then-record 67 regular-season games and went 15-3 in the postseason.
GOLF
Golf Hall of Famer Greg Norman shared photos on social media Friday suggesting he has been hospitalized with COVID-19.
The 65-year-old Australian posted a video on Instagram on Thursday night saying he was experiencing coronavirus symptoms, then posted photos Friday showing himself in a hospital bed.
“This sums it all up,” he wrote. “My Christmas Day.”
Norman’s son, Greg Norman Jr., also said on social media that he and his wife, Michelle, have tested positive. The Normans played in the father-son PNC Championship in Orlando, Florida, last weekend.
The elder Norman said Thursday that he had flu-like symptoms, including a mild fever, a cough, aches and pains, and a mild headache. He said he took a virus test Tuesday that came back negative, but he was in self-quarantine anyway.
He was apparently admitted to a hospital Friday, sharing a photo of himself in a hospital bed and another of a medical professional in head-to-toe personal protective equipment.
SOCCER
MEXICO CITY (AP) — The man who coached Club Leon to Mexico’s soccer championship less than two weeks ago has been hospitalized with pneumonia related to COVID-19, the club announced.
The team’s official Twitter account said in a brief post that Ignacio Ambriz was “stable, under medical observation and evolving in a favorable manner.”
Leon defeated Pumas 2-0 on Dec. 13 to win the Apertura championship in Mexico’s twice-a-year season system. The team earned 40 points during the tournament — just three short of the short-season record.
Ambriz, 55, played as a defender for several clubs in the Mexican league and was capped 64 times for the national team, which he captained at the 1994 World Cup.
As a coach, he led Puebla, San Luis, Guadalajara, Queretaro, America and Necaxa before taking over at Leon in 2018.