College Basketball

Et cetera United's Pontius, ex-Terp Zusi make MLS Best XI D.C. United midfielder Chris Pontius was named to the MLS Best XI side. Pontius, United's longest-tenured player, set career highs in goals (12), games (31), games started (26), minutes (2,339), shots (71) and shots on goal (29). Six of his 12 goals were game-winners, Steve Rammel tied for third in MLS. The honor is voted on by players, club management and media. Sporting Kansas City midfielder Graham Zusi (Maryland)

FRIDAY'S TELEVISION HIGHLIGHTS NBA Oklahoma City@Boston NBA7:30 H.S. foot. CIF-SS Playoffs, Semi.: Teams TBA FCS10:30 C. foot. Texas Christian@Texas (T) ESPNU7 a.m. Florida State@Maryland (T) CSN11 a.m. Syracuse@Temple ESPN211 a.m. Ohio@Kent State ESPNU11 a.m. Nebraska@Iowa 2, 7Noon Marshall@East Carolina CBSSN2 LSU@Arkansas 13, 92:30 Utah@Colorado FX3 West Virginia@Iowa State 2, 73:30 Washington@Washington State 45, 53:30 South Florida@Cincinnati ESPN7 Wake Forest@Notre Dame (T)

For the second straight year, The Baltimore Sun has counted down the best returning Division I college basketball players from this area. Players were chosen based on previous college accomplishments and projections for the 2012-13 season. College coaches, sports information directors, writers and others were consulted in compiling this list t-No. 16: Omar Strong, Texas Southern The 5-foot-9, 176-pound point guard was Texas Southern's leading scorer at 13.3 points per game, shooting 38.9 percent from 3-point range.

Four players remain in the running for the title of Baltimore's best Division I college basketball player. DePaul's Cleveland Melvin dispatched Xavier's Isaiah Philmore in the last round of voting, setting up a final-four matchup with Maryland's Nick Faust, who won the fan vote over Delaware's Devon Saddler. On the other side of the bracket, Syracuse's C.J. Fair topped Drexel's Damion Lee. Fair will face DePaul's Brandon Young, an upset winner over Notre Dame's Eric Atkins.

Questions abound for several in-state Division I college basketball team as their regular-season schedules begin Friday. Loyola returns most of its core playing group and faces the pressure of repeating as MAAC champions. Can the Greyhounds make it two NCAA tournament appearances in a row? Towson and Navy, meanwhile, are starting from the bottom. Ed DeChellis' Midshipmen are mired in a 22-game losing streak, while Pat Skerry's Tigers struggled through a 1-31 season a year ago. Two first-year coaches - UMBC's Aki Thomas and Mount St. Mary's Jamion Christian - will be tasked with starting the rebuilding processes in Catonsville and Emmittsburg, respectively.

Cleveland Melvin probably snuck up on more than a few teams during a 2010-11 season in which he was named Big East Rookie of the Year. But there was no element of surprise last season, when the Lake Clifton grad put up 17.5 points and 7.4 rebounds per game for the Blue Demons. “Coming into the season, [DePaul coach Oliver ] Purnell told me everyone is going to know who I am now,” Melvin said. “Obviously, that's what happened. Teams started putting more pressure on me and being more physical.

Et cetera UM women picked for 2nd in ACC in hoops Maryland was picked in the Atlantic Coast Conference preseason women's basketball poll to finish second, and the Terps had a conference-best three players on the 10-member All-ACC preseason team: 2011-12 ACC Player of the Year Alyssa Thomas , senior Tianna Hawkins and junior Laurin Mincy . After garnering the league's top individual honor as a sophomore, Thomas was voted the league's Preseason...

[6:00 UPDATE] The Harrison twins have picked Kentucky. Maryland fans weap. Under Amour employees continue searching for their next next big thing. -------- Aaron and Andrew Harrison, 6-5 twin guards out of Texas, will announce where they plan to play college basketball next year at a 5 p.m. press conference scheduled to be televised on ESPNU today . They're supposedly picking between defending national champion Kentucky and still-rebuilding Maryland. Wildcats head coach John Calipari has had 15 players drafted into the NBA in his three years coaching in Lexington.

The list of high-major college basketball players who finished their high school careers in Howard County public schools is a short one. It's so short, in fact, that just one player over the past 10 years fits that criterion. Georgetown sophomore Greg Whittington , Oakland Mills class of 2011, knows that he's a member of an increasingly exclusive club. But as he prepared for his freshman season with the Hoyas last year, where he came from was the furthest thing from his mind.

The signing of Terrell Vinson with Massachusetts in the spring of 2009 was celebrated as a significant recruiting coup for Derek Kellogg . After all, the then-first-year Minutemen basketball coach had just convinced ESPN.com's No. 46-ranked player in the 2009 class to join his rebuilding mid-major-plus program instead of several high-major teams, including Cincinnati, Georgetown and Louisville. Vinson, a 6-foot-7, 220-pound wing from St. Frances, said he couldn't have been more oblivious to the hype surrounding his arrival in Amherst.