Basketball

NEW ORLEANS - Breanna Stewart put on quite a show to help Connecticut finally vanquish Notre Dame. The stellar freshman scored a career-high 29 points to go with four blocked shots, leading the Huskies to the national championship game with an 83-65 win over Notre Dame on Sunday night. The Huskies will face Louisville in the championship game Tuesday night in an all-Big East final after the Cardinals rallied to beat California, 64-57, in the other NCAA semifinal. UConn will be going for its eighth national championship to match Tennessee for the most in women's basketball history.

NEW ORLEANS - Skylar Diggins has accomplished nearly everything she could have imagined in her career at Notre Dame. The only thing missing is a national championship. To get another chance at that elusive title, Diggins will have to help the Fighting Irish women beat Big East rival Connecticut for an unprecedented fourth straight time this season. Sunday night's meeting in the national semifinals might be the final chapter in a rivalry that has become the nation's best. Notre Dame heads to the Atlantic Coast Conference next season.

NEW ORLEANS - Philadelphia basketball star Dawn Staley is expected to receive the highest honor in her storied career as a Class of 2013 inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. The official announcement of Staley's induction is expected at the NCAA Men's Final Four in Atlanta Monday morning. But several sources with knowledge of some of the inductees confirmed she will be among the group. The 12 finalists, which also include former 76ers star player and coach Maurice Cheeks, were announced at the NBA All-Star game in February.

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. - Athletic life went on at Rutgers without Tim Pernetti on Friday. The football team rested before Saturday's scrimmage, and the baseball team and women's lacrosse team hosted games. Pernetti resigned as athletic director Friday. It was two days after the university fired head basketball coach Mike Rice after the coach appeared on a videotape physically assaulting his players, throwing basketballs and yelling antigay slurs at them. Pernetti left in the wake of the controversy largely because there were calls for his firing from faculty and supporters after he and other university administrators elected not to fire Rice when the video surfaced last fall.

Trey Burke, the sophomore point guard who led Michigan to the Final Four, was named Thursday as the Associated Press' college basketball player of the year. Burke and Cazzie Russell (in 1966) are the only Michigan players to win the award. The Big Ten player of the year, Burke averaged 19.2 points, 3.1 rebounds, and 6.7 assists. He received 31 votes from the 65-member national media panel that selects the weekly top 25. Jim Larranaga, who led Miami (29-7) to the Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season and tournament titles, was selected as coach of the year.

Minnesota has picked 30-year-old up-and-comer Richard Pitino, the son of Louisville head coach Rick Pitino, to take over for the fired Tubby Smith, the school announced Wednesday night. In his one season at Florida International, the younger Pitino led the Panthers to an 18-14 record, the school's first winning season in 13 years. At Florida International, Pitino inherited a program that was short on talent. The Panthers went 11-9 in the Sun Belt Conference, the most wins since joining the league in 1998-99.

RUTGERS SAID it would reconsider its decision to retain basketball coach Mike Rice after a videotape aired showing him shoving, grabbing and throwing balls at players in practice and using gay slurs. The videotape, broadcast Tuesday on ESPN, prompted scores of outraged social media comments as well as sharp criticism from Gov. Christie and LeBron James. Athletic director Tim Pernetti was given a copy of the video in late November by a former employee. He suspended Rice for three games a month later, fined him $50,000 and ordered him to attend anger-management classes.

NEWARK, N.J. - Rutgers said it would reconsider its decision to retain men's basketball coach Mike Rice after a videotape was televised showing him shoving, grabbing, and throwing balls at players in practice and using gay slurs. The videotape, shown Tuesday on ESPN, prompted scores of outraged social-media comments as well as sharp criticism from Gov. Christie and Miami Heat star LeBron James. Athletic director Tim Pernetti was given a copy of the video in late November by a former employee.

Kevin Ware was back on the Louisville campus Tuesday after his release from an Indianapolis hospital. Two days earlier, millions had watched the sophomore guard break his right leg on a horrifying play while trying to block a shot. He tweeted Tuesday, "Back to my brothers I go. " Local all-stars. Two Big Five players, La Salle's Ramon Galloway and Villanova's Mouphtaou Yarou, are on the West roster for the National Association of Basketball Coaches' Reese's Division I College All-Star Game on Friday at the Georgia Dome.

Rollie Massimino loves this time of the season, the NCAA tournament, and the Final Four, which obviously bring back memories of the crowning achievement in a coaching career that has reached 57 years. Massimino, who won 357 games in 19 seasons as Villanova head coach and led the Wildcats to the 1985 national championship, was named as one of the inductees into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame. The induction ceremony will take place Nov. 24 in Kansas City, Mo. The official announcement came Monday, the 28th anniversary of the Wildcats' 66-64 victory over Georgetown for the national championship.