Nba

Former NBA player Oliver J. Miller was sentenced Friday to a year in the Anne Arundel County jail for pistol-whipping his girlfriend's brother in Arnold. Miller, 41, who was living with his girlfriend in Edgewater, pleaded guilty last fall to first-degree assault and carrying a handgun. "I apologize for the wrong I've done," Miller told Anne Arundel Circuit Judge Paul A. Hackner. He said he is "just a man protecting the people I love. " The allegations stemmed from a family argument at a cookout April 17 at a friend's home.

Varsity lacrosse McDonogh girls finish No. 1 in national poll Unbeaten McDonogh won its fifth straight Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland championship and extended its winning streak to 91 games to finish its season as the unanimous No. 1 team in the Nike/US Lacrosse High School Girls' Lacrosse National Top 25 poll, released Tuesday by US Lacrosse. The poll appears as part of Lacrosse Magazine's bi-weekly report on high school girls' lacrosse. The Eagles finish as the nation's top-ranked team for the fourth consecutive season after knocking off then-No.

The National Basketball Association needs to make these contract talks work or do what the National Football League did years ago and hire and play temporary replacement players ("Will there be an NBA season of any kind?" Nov. 18). Maybe then these overpriced players and owners will come to agreeable terms and fully save the NBA season. Barry Apple, Woodlawn

Colleges Terps ' Schwarzmann, Aust, Cummings receive year-end honors Synapse Sports honored three Maryland women's lacrosse players with annual awards: Katie Schwarzmann (Century) is Midfielder of the Year, Alex Aust is Attacker of the Year and Taylor Cummings (McDonogh) is Rookie of the Year. Other winners were Florida's Mikey Meagher (Goalie of the Year), Syracuse's Becca Block (Defender of the Year), Northwestern's Christy Turner (Unsung Hero of the Year)

The Knicks have signed free agent Jonathan Bender , marking the oft-injured forward's return to the NBA after a three-year absence. The 7-foot Bender, selected out of high school by Toronto with the fifth overall pick in the 1999 draft but traded to Indiana the same day, enjoyed his best season in 2001-02, when he averaged career highs of 7.4 points and 3.1 rebounds in 78 games for the Pacers. But injuries forced Bender, 28, to miss 172 games in the next three seasons before chronic knee pain sidelined him indefinitely in February 2006.

The biggest overachiever in Maryland basketball history -- maybe in the modern college game -- is trying to beat the odds again. At age 33, a decade after leading the Terps to the NCAA men's championship, three years removed from his last NBA game and now rehabilitating an injured left knee, Juan Dixon is plotting his comeback. "Don't count me out," Dixon said Thursday in his first extensive interview since being banned in February 2010 from playing in Europe after failing a drug test the previous season.

Heat: Alonzo Mourning scored 28 points Friday night as Miami clinched the final Eastern Conference playoff spot with a 106-100 victory over Milwaukee.

How about flagrant fouls? Ira Winderman Sun Sentinel No. Technical fouls are not the issue, not when you get 15 before you can incur a suspension with a 16th. If you can't retain your composure so that you are being called for a technical once every four games, you deserve to be punished. The greater point of inspection should be for flagrant fouls, where a single whistle can lead to instant ejection, as was the case this week with Timberwolves guard J.J. Barea.

Coming tomorrow: A look at the controversy surrounding the league's new composite ball, plus team previews. Tomorrow's games: Bulls@Heat, 8 p.m.; Suns@Lakers, 10:30 p.m. TV: Both games on TNT

Don Nelson set the NBA career record for victories in the Golden State Warriors' 116-107 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves, earning No. 1,333 to surpass Lenny Wilkens . Nelson is 1,333-1,061 in 31 seasons on the bench. "It's just such a neat feeling," Nelson said. "This is probably why we end up coaching, for moments like this." College baseball: Salisbury (19-5, 11-3 Capital Athletic Conference) lost, 24-5, to visiting York (16-9, 11-5). The margin of defeat was the Sea Gulls' largest in 10 years.

NBA center Jason Collins says he has gotten "incredible" support since revealing in Sports Illustrated that he is gay and thus becoming the first openly gay male athlete in one of the major team sports in this country. As that support includes congratulations from a current and former president and some of the biggest stars in his sport, perhaps that's even an understatement. What Mr. Collins has done is significant, of course, and he deserves all the good will and public support he can get. Pro basketball, baseball, football and hockey seem to be the last bastions of the "don't ask, don't tell" approach to the sexuality of their employees, if not outright hostility toward gays.

Maybe you yawned when you heard the news. Or maybe you just shrugged when you heard about Jason Collins and said: "What's the big deal?" But it's a very big deal. First active male player in a major team sport to declare he's gay? In the macho world of the NBA, where a player like Tim Hardaway once hissed "I hate gay people" before the ensuing backlash had him backpedaling like a fighter trying to avoid another haymaker? Oh, it's a very big deal. Now Collins, a 34-year-old journeyman center for six teams over 12 seasons, comes out of the closet and makes history.

Since Steve Blake went to the Los Angeles Lakers three years ago, the former Maryland point guard had rarely been much of a factor - first playing behind Derek Fisher, then Ramon Sessions and finally this season behind Steve Nash. Many Lakers fans felt as if the team had spent way too much when it signed Blake to a four-year, $16 million contract. There were times when Blake's looked like he was playing in the Bermuda Triangle rather than the Triangle offense under Phil Jackson and later Mike Brown.

Maryland coach Mark Turgeon took the two little turtle figurines out of his coat pocket and placed them on the table in front of him. Alex Len, whose mother Juliya had given Turgeon the figurines when her then 18-year-old son first committed to the Terps, sat at the coach's side. One of the figurines represented a baby turtle, the other one fully grown. “She said I am giving Alex to you as a baby, when he leaves here I want him to be a man,” Turgeon recalled Tuesday after Len announced he was leaving Maryland to make himself eligible for the NBA draft.

What has been anticipated around the Maryland basketball program for months has become reality: sophomore Alex Len will forgo the last two years of his college career, a source with knowledge of the situation said Sunday night. Yahoo Sports first reported Sunday that the 7-1 center from Ukraine has put his name into the NBA draft. It is not known whether Len, who is expected to be a lottery pick, has hired an agent. Len, who averaged 11.9 points and 7.8 rebounds for the Terps last season, had until April 28 to put his name in the draft.

Baltimore Sun reporters Jeff Barker and Don Markus and editor Matt Bracken weigh in on the three biggest topics of the past week in Maryland sports. Is Alex Len definitely leaving for the NBA and has his status gone up after he finished the season strong in the NIT? Don Markus: While the sophomore from the Ukraine has not given any indication of what he plans to do, Mark Turgeon and the Maryland coaching staff have assumed all season that this would be Len's last in College Park.

C.J. Fair is all too familiar with the history of former high school players from Baltimore who left Syracuse early for the NBA. This week, the 6-8 junior forward follows Carmelo Anthony, who as a freshman a decade ago led the Orange to its only national college basketball championship before embarking on his professional career. But Fair, who helped Syracuse reach the Final Four for the first time since 2003 with wins over Indiana and Marquette last week at the Verizon Center in Washington, is even more familiar with another former Baltimore star who also left after being one of the top freshmen in the Big East.

Alex Len played it coy Wednesday when asked if he'd return to Maryland for his junior season or declare for the NBA draft. The Terps' 7-foot-1 center actually prefaced his remarks by saying he hadn't thought about it, which is hard to believe, given he's projected as pretty much a consensus lottery pick if he goes pro. "I'm just trying to go ahead day by day and play every game," he told reporters in Greensboro, N.C., where the Terps will...