In Brief

Blowout loss at Wichita State
costs Rebels national ranking

UNLV’s 89-70 loss to Wichita State on Sunday cost the team its national ranking on Monday, with both The Associated Press and ESPN/USA Today dropping the Rebels from this week’s Top 25.

The Rebels (8-1), who were No. 18 in the AP media poll and No. 20 in the coaches’ poll last week, head up the category of “Others receiving votes” this week, trailing No. 25 Harvard in the AP poll and No. 25 Texas A&M in the ESPN/USA Today poll.

The Rebels jumped into both polls on Nov. 28 after upsetting then-No. 1 North Carolina 90-80 on Nov. 26. But they struggled to win at UC Santa Barbara 94-88 in double overtime on Wednesday and were routed 89-70 at Wichita State in a Mountain West-Missouri Valley Challenge game Sunday, precipitating their fall from the rankings.

Kentucky (8-0) beat North Carolina on Saturday and holds the No. 1 spot for a second straight week. The Wildcats received 47 first-place votes from the 65-member national media panel.

Ohio State (8-0) had the other 18 first-place votes to remain second. Syracuse, which beat Florida last week, moved up a spot to third. North Carolina, Louisville and Baylor are fourth through sixth, each advancing a place.

Also: Baylor is the unanimous choice as the No. 1 team in The Associated Press women’s poll. The Lady Bears received all 39 first-place ballots after two easy victories this week. Connecticut and Notre Dame remain second and third.

The University of Detroit Mercy honored a former coach and athletic director who turned into a college basketball icon.

The school unveiled Dick Vitale Court before the Titans hosted St. John’s. He was celebrated on the 32nd anniversary of being an analyst for ESPN. Detroit then beat St. John’s, 69-63.

Vitale led Detroit to the NCAA Tournament in 1977 after earning a bid by beating eventual champion Marquette, coached by Al McGuire.

Unsealed court records show federal investigators were looking for pornography that could be used “to sexually arouse or groom young males” for sex when they searched the home, office and locker of former Syracuse assistant coach Bernie Fine.

Fine was fired Nov. 27 after three men accused him of molesting them when they were boys.

Meanwhile, one of the three accusers, 23-year-old Zach Tomaselli, who faces sex abuse charges in Maine, admitted to The Associated Press that he sexually abused a boy when the victim was 13 and 14 years old. He said he knew the boy and worked as a counselor at a camp he attended.

MISCELLANEOUS

NHL realignment: Six divisions
to become four conferences

NHL officials have approved a radical realignment plan that will give the league four conferences instead of six divisions.

The Board of Governors approved the move at the first day of their meeting in Pebble Beach, Calif. The realignment won’t be implemented until NHL commissioner Gary Bettman discusses the new plan with the NHL Players’ Association.

The league needed to make changes to accommodate Atlanta’s move to Winnipeg this past summer. They could have switched one team from the Western Conference with the Jets, but opted for a more dramatic plan.

There will be two conferences with eight teams and two with seven teams, instead of the current format of six five-team divisions. Teams will play five or six intraconference games, and home-and-home series with nonconference teams.

Also: New Jersey Nets general manager Billy King disclosed that forward Travis Outlaw has a broken right hand. He released no information about the injury, adding he would have more to say after the player was examined by team doctors.

Outlaw signed a five-year, $35 million contract with the Nets in July 2010.

Champion Wladimir Klitschko pulled out of his heavyweight fight against France’s Jean-Marc Mormeck on Saturday after two operations in two days to remove a kidney stone. Klitschko’s promoter, Bernd Boente, said that March 3 was a possible new date for the fight in Dusseldorf, Germany.

Michael Waltrip Racing hired Brian Pattie as crew chief for new driver Clint Bowyer. Pattie was most recently crew chief for Juan Pablo Montoya and led him to a spot in the 2009 Chase for the Sprint Cup championship.

College basketball coaches Pat Summitt and Mike Krzyzewski were selected as Sports Illustrated’s sportswoman and sportsman of the year.

Tennessee’s Summitt announced in August she had been diagnosed with early onset dementia, Alzheimer’s type. She pledged to keep coaching and show others they can live their lives with the disease.

Duke’s Krzyzewski passed mentor Bob Knight on Nov. 15 when he won his 903rd game.

Time Inc. Sports Group editor Terry McDonell lauded the two Hall of Famers as “transcendent figures.”