Houston

For Eric Futch, a standout track and field athlete at Penn Wood, it came down to two schools: Houston and Louisiana State. He made his decision two weeks ago. He just didn't tell anybody. On Wednesday, in Penn Wood's auditorium partially filled with family, friends, school administrators, and classmates, the 5-foot-11, 160-pound sprinter who holds the PIAA record in the 300-meter hurdles made his college destination public. Futch, wearing a maroon Penn Wood track and field shirt, with a backward Penn Wood hat, sat at a table draped with Houston and LSU T-shirts.

The University of Houston rolled out the big guns when Chester High track star Adonis Coles paid an official visit last month. Carl Lewis, Penn Wood graduate Leroy Burrell - how could Coles turn down a scholarship offer with Olympic gold-medal winners tugging on his sleeve? But it wasn't Houston's storied past that swayed Coles. It was a future under the tutelage of head coach Tom Tellez. "I talked to Carl Lewis. I talked to Leroy Burrell," Coles said. "But I couldn't base my decision on what they did. I decided to go there because of the coaching.

Derrick McKey's layup at the buzzer spoiled a dramatic Houston comeback and gave the Seattle SuperSonics a 98-96 victory that eliminated the Rockets from the NBA playoffs. The SuperSonics, who won the best-of-five series by 3-1, will meet the Los Angeles Lakers next. Trailing by 92-83 with 6 minutes, 25 seconds to play, the Rockets outscored Seattle, 13-4, including Sleepy Floyd's three-pointer with one second left in regulation play. Seattle went 5:05 without scoring during Houston's rally.

Charles Barkley wants to play for the 76ers against Houston tomorrow night at the Spectrum. But will he? "I think I'm playing, but that's just my opinion," said Barkley, who has been out since Nov. 4, when he suffered a bruised spleen and internal bleeding in a double overtime loss in Indianapolis. Barkley was to be re-evaluated Monday, but says he intends to ask to have that done tomorrow. "Sunday, Monday, that shouldn't make any difference," he said. "Twenty- four hours aren't going to make it or break it. I've been feeling good, haven't had any pain.

It figures to rate with the all-time wipeouts, right up there with Custer's Last Stand and the Charge of the Light Brigade. Southern Methodist at Houston. SMU coach Forrest Gregg, whose 1-4 team is an incredible 57-point underdog, isn't painting a picture of false optimism. He knows the young, inexperienced Mustangs, coming off a two-year NCAA suspension, are going into a sword fight armed with a butter knife. "I don't get into point spreads, but (the 57-point line) doesn't surprise me," Gregg said.

Jennifer Gillom scored 29 points as the Phoenix Mercury beat the visiting Los Angeles Sparks, 73-68, last night to win the Western Conference title. In Thursday semifinals, Charlotte (15-13) visits Houston (18-10), the Eastern Conference winner at 7:30, and Phoenix (16-12) hosts New York (17-11) at 9:30 p.m. The league championship will be held on Saturday at 4 p.m. New York, which finished second in the East, closed out its season with a 79-72 overtime win over Cleveland before 18,051 fans at Madison Square Garden last night.

In the older days of college basketball, Temple might have had a chance in such a one-sided arrangement by sitting on the ball. If the game were slow-pitch softball, the Owls might have been spared by the 10-run rule. A boxing match? A white towel thrown into the ring, or a cry of "no mas," perhaps. But this was big-time college football. There was no plug to be pulled. And yesterday, the Temple Owls were invited to play a patsy role to the finish. Right there, in the dome this city's professional football fans refer to as "The House of Pain," Houston inflicted a 65-7 hurting on the Owls, a score that will do nothing positive for Jerry Berndt's rebuilding program.

Villanova, apparently left for dead by its offensive ineptitude, turned to its defense to rescue a 63-60 victory over Houston in the first round of the Sugar Bowl Classic last night. Junior forward Mark Plansky's 18-foot jumper with 6 seconds left provided the difference for the Wildcats (7-3). In tonight's final, Villanova will face South Carolina, which defeated Vanderbilt, 96-91, in double overtime last night. The Cats won despite a 5-for-22 shooting performance by guard Harold Jensen, usually their best shooter, and despite being outrebounded, 32-25.

Pennsylvania Republicans head to Houston this weekend, hoping their limping party gets back in the race for president, but some are also hoping to get a Texas boost for themselves. It's called "having an agenda. " Just as Gov. Casey went to New York last month to push his anti-abortion views, and Democratic Senate contender Lynn Yeakel went to push her candidacy, there's a handful of Republicans headed to Houston mostly to push themselves: U.S. Rep. Thomas Ridge of Erie, who flirted with running for governor in 1990, is more than flirting now. Casey cannot seek re-election in 1994.

Rockets Fever broke into a cold, fearful sweat after Houston lost at home Friday night to fall into a 1-1 NBA Finals tie with the New York Knicks. The largest city in Texas has been through this kind of panic before, with the football Oilers blowing huge leads in playoff games, the baseball Astros posting one of the best records in the major leagues over the 1980s, but never making it to the World Series, and the Rockets losing in the NBA Finals in 1981 and 1986. That's why the Rockets made a TV commercial a couple of weeks ago, one in which a fan with a radio to his ear all but throws himself off the ledge of a high-rise when the game announcer says, "But wait, Olajuwon was fouled!"

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. - Saving the Big East Conference is the highest priority here at the conference's spring meetings. Quite an agenda item. But in reality, the decisions that will determine the league's fate will be made by other conferences. "Somebody in the Big 12 decides, 'This is what we're going to do,' " Connecticut women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma said. "Everybody in the Big East is going, 'Holy [shoot]. What happens to us?' It's just the craziest thing.

Colt McCoy returned to work with the Cleveland Browns on Monday not knowing how much longer he'll have a job. McCoy participated, as expected, in the team's voluntary offseason conditioning program just days after Cleveland drafted his likely successor, Oklahoma State QB Brandon Weeden. The Browns selected Weeden, a former minor-league pitcher in the New York Yankees' system, in the first round on Thursday and the team is expected to start the 28-year-old this season as a rookie.

Whitney Houston fans have maligned Bobby Brown as a bad influence on his ex-wife. But the "My Prerogative" singer says he's not to blame for the late diva's death. "It's just unexplainable how one could, you know, [say that I] got her addicted to drugs," Brown tells Matt Lauer in a chat to air Wednesday on Today. "I'm not the reason she's gone. " Brown, 43, says it was Houston who introduced him to hard drugs such as crack. Brown says he was devastated to hear Houston was still on drugs.

Bill Coren, Strath Haven girls' track and field coach, is nervous. Nervous that his 4x800-meter relay team, a year after placing fourth in the Penn Relays Championship of America, won't advance past the preliminary heats Thursday. Nervous that the field is too deep and talented. Nervous about Megan O'Dell. "I'd be 100 percent certain that we'd make it to the finals of the Penn Relays with her running, but with Megan - Megan is a quarter-miler and we're stepping her up to the half," Coren said.

For Eric Futch, a standout track and field athlete at Penn Wood, it came down to two schools: Houston and Louisiana State. He made his decision two weeks ago. He just didn't tell anybody. On Wednesday, in Penn Wood's auditorium partially filled with family, friends, school administrators, and classmates, the 5-foot-11, 160-pound sprinter who holds the PIAA record in the 300-meter hurdles made his college destination public. Futch, wearing a maroon Penn Wood track and field shirt, with a backward Penn Wood hat, sat at a table draped with Houston and LSU T-shirts.

A subsidiary of Resource America Inc., a Philadelphia real estate investment firm, said it paid $11.4 million for a half-occupied Houston apartment complex with 856 units. Fannie Mae had foreclosed on the property in August 2010, after the former owners defaulted on an $18.6 million loan. The estimated replacement cost of the apartment complex is $53 million, the buyer, Resource Real Estate Opportunity REIT Inc., said. - Harold Brubaker

Whitney Houston was lying face down in her bathtub of her Beverly Hilton room when she was discovered by her personal assistant on Feb. 11. This and other sometimes grisly details about the diva's death were revealed with the release of her official autopsy report by the Los Angeles Coroner's Office. Houston's cause of death remains the same: a combination of drowning, heart disease, and cocaine use. But the report suggests the cocaine, and other drugs, played a much larger part in her death.

A small quantity of white powder recovered at the Beverly Hilton hotel room in L.A. where singer Whitney Houston died has been identified as cocaine, sources tell TMZ. Cocaine and heart disease were contributing factors in her Feb. 11 accidental drowning death. Meanwhile, mom, Cissy Houston, 78, says in her first interview since the tragedy that she wishes things were different. "There's nothing I can do about it," she told MY9 TV (WWOR), a Fox affiliate in Secaucus, N.J.. "There's nothing nobody else can do about it. If I thought I could do something to bring her back, that's exactly what I'd do, but I know that's impossible.

The Bodyguard, Whitney Houston's 1992 film debut, crystallized the late pop sensation's success as a woman for all media. Commemorating both the 20th anniversary of the movie that nearly wasn't and the life of the talent that is no more, Warner Home Video releases a Blu-ray video of this film Tuesday that had a longer gestation than an elephant. On Wednesday, The Bodyguard will have a one-night-only revival on a big screen near you, the ideal context for fans to sing along with Houston's renditions of "Queen of the Night" and "I Will Always Love You," songs that made the film's soundtrack one of the best sellers in history.

LOS ANGELES - Whitney Houston was a chronic cocaine user who had the drug in her system when she drowned in a hotel bathtub, coroner's officials said Thursday after releasing autopsy findings that also noted that heart disease contributed to her death. The disclosure ended weeks of speculation about what killed the Grammy-winning singer Feb. 11, on the eve of the Grammy Awards. Houston was found submerged in the bathtub of her room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, and her death was ruled accidental.