SPORTS
WEEKEND, FEBRUARY 24-25, 2018
1B
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Prep Girls Basketball
TigerScots
bounced by
Prospectors
Weston-McEwen’s
season ends in first
round of playoffs
East Oregonian
JOHN DAY — What once
was a very promising season
came to a halt on Friday for
the Weston-
2A First McEwen girls
Round
basketball
team.
The No. 13
seed Tiger-
W-McEwen
Scots traveled
down to John
Day to take
on the No. 4
Grant Union
Prospectors in
Grant Union
the first round
of the Class
2A playoffs
on Friday, and
headed home with a 71-42
defeat.
It was the second time the
TigerScots dropped a game to
the Prospectors this season,
with Grant Union winning a
non-league game 92-54 on
Jan. 4 in Athena.
The TigerScots’ season
comes to an end with a 16-10
overall record.
The Prospectors imrpove
to 21-3 overall on the season,
and advance to the 2A state
tournament next weekend in
Pendleton. They will take on
No. 5 Faith Bible (25-2) in the
quarterfinals at Pendleton High
School on Mar. 1 at 3:15 p.m.
42
71
AP Photo/Mel Evans, File
Bank records and other expense reports that are part of a federal probe into college basketball list a wide range of impermissible pay-
ments from agents to at least two dozen players or their relatives, according to documents obtained by Yahoo Sports. NCAA president
Mark Emmert said in a statement on Friday that the allegations “if true, point to systematic failures that must be fixed and fixed now
if we want college sports in America.”
College Corruption
FBI probe documents list range of payments to top players
By AARON BEARD
AP Basketball Writer
AP Photo/Gerry Broome, File
In this 2017, file photo, North Carolina State’s Dennis Smith Jr. (4)
drives to the basket during a game against Duke, in Durham, N.C.
A balance sheet from December 2015 lists several payments un-
der “Loan to Players,” including $43,500 to Dallas Mavericks guard
Dennis Smith, who played one season at North Carolina State in
2016-17.
New details of payments to
athletes in a federal investigation
that has lurked in the shadows since
first rocking college basketball last
fall mark the latest threat to the
sport’s basic foundation, showing
the breadth of alleged corruption.
Bank records and other expense
reports that are part of the investi-
gation list a wide range of imper-
missible payments from agents to
at least two dozen players or their
relatives, according to documents
obtained by Yahoo Sports.
The depth of the violations
raises questions about the structure
of college athletics, a business
funded primarily through college
football and basketball, including
$19.6 billion in TV money for the
NCAA Tournament over the past
22 years — a hoops extravaganza
American sports fans know as
March Madness.
NCAA President Mark Emmert
said in a statement Friday the alle-
gations “if true, point to systematic
failures that must be fixed and fixed
now if we want college sports in
America.”
Yahoo said Friday that the
documents obtained in discovery
during the investigation link current
players including Michigan State’s
Miles Bridges, Duke’s Wendell
Carter and Alabama’s Collin Sexton
to potential benefits that would be
violations of NCAA rules.
Michigan State and Duke offi-
cials said Friday they didn’t believe
their players did anything wrong,
and Alabama coach Avery Johnson
said Sexton, who was held out of the
season opener for violating NCAA
See NCAA/3B
The Eagle/Angel Carpenter
Grant Union Prospector
Kaylee Wright scores on a
lay up over the Weston-McE-
wen TigerScots in Friday
night’s 2A first round play-
off game in John Day. Grant
Union won the game 71-42.
HERMISTON
Bulldogs #ChooseKindness for rivalry
By ALEXIS MANSANAREZ
East Oregonian
Signs that read “Be Kind”
and “You Are Loved” grace
the hallways and front doors
of Hermiston High.
In the wake of the recent
suicide of Hermiston student
Jenna Thomas, messages of
kindness and inclusiveness
have covered the empty
spaces of the school’s
building. They even adorned
t-shirts for Hermiston’s final
regular season home games.
Before the anticipated
Pendleton-Hermiston double-
header Tuesday, athletic
director Larry Usher, along
with other school and district
officials, demonstrated kind-
ness that came in the shape
of said t-shirts, and cupcakes
decorated with both Herm-
iston and Pendleton logos that
were given to students before
the game.
“Hermiston High School
has experienced more than
our fair share of tragedy in the
last couple of years when it
comes to our students,” Usher
said.
In 2016, 14-year-old
Hermiston student James “JJ”
Hurtado was murdered. And
earlier this year, the school
lost a recent alumnus with the
death of Hayden Simon.
With those losses in mind,
Hermiston decided to use its
resources to celebrate friendly
sportsmanship. As Hermiston
gets ready to move into the
WIAA next season, the Bull-
dogs have already said there
will be no football games
between the two schools next
year, and no future basketball
games are currently planned.
So, when the two teams
faced each other on the court
for the last time in what may
be a while, they wanted their
message to be clear.
“Along with our district
leadership in Tricia Mooney
and our building leadership,
we made a choice to forgo
some of the negative rhetoric
that comes with a rivalry
game and choose kindness
instead,” Usher said.
Photo courtesy of Hermiston ASB Twitter
Before Tuesday’s Pendleton-Hermiston doubleheader
at Hermiston High, #ChooseKindess t-shirts were dis-
tributed to HHS students to promote a theme of inclu-
siveness.
Sports shorts
Pendleton alum Robinson wins Big
Sky championship in heptathlon
One year after falling just one spot short,
Pendleton alumnus Donte Robinson finally earned a
Big Sky conference championship.
Robinson, a junior track and field athlete at Port-
land State, won the Big Sky Indoor
championship in men’s heptathlon on
Friday with 5,248 points across the six
events. He was tied with Sacramento
State’s Max Jette going into the
final event, the 1,000 meter run, but
Robinson’s time of 2:51.65 beat Jette
by four seconds to take first.
Robinson
Robinson’s 5,248 points were a
personal best, clearing his previous best of 5,230
set at last year’s Big Sky Championships, and he
remains second all-time in PSU history. H trails
only the 5,432 points earned by Nick Trubachik in
2010.
Robinson also set personal bests in the
60-meter hurdles (8.31) and the pole vault (13-09).
OSAA denies Salem-Keizer appeal,
stays in league with Bend schools
“The bobsled Gods
are upset at us for
something.”
— Nick Cunningham
One of two members of the U.S.
the two-man bobsled team said
as they prepare for the final day
of bobsled competition. Barring
some miracle Sunday, the U.S.
men are going home without an
Olympic bobsled medal for the
first time in 12 years.
The OSAA and hearings officer W. Michael
Gillette denied an appeal from Salem-Keizer
Public Schools on Friday, meaning the five
Salem-area schools will join a
league with three Bend schools
beginning next school year.
Salem-Keizer appealed
the OSAA classification and
districting committee’s decision
to place the three Bend schools — Bend High,
Mountain View and Summit — in the same
Class 6A league as McKay, McNary, South
Salem, Sprague and West Salem, arguing that
the OSAA did not stick to its own rules such
as minimizing travel time and costs, among
others, when making up the classification
proposals.
The average round-trip travel from Salem to
Bend will be 268 miles, or roughly five hours
non-stop.
THIS DATE IN SPORTS
1960 — Bill Cleary’s four
goals lead the United States
to a 9-1 victory over West
Germany in the hockey cham-
pionship round of the Winter
Olympics in Squaw Valley,
Calif.
1980 — The United
States hockey team wins
the gold medal with a 4-2
victory over Finland at the
Winter Olympics in Lake
Placid, N.Y.
2002
—
Svetlana
Feofanova breaks the pole
vault indoor world record for
the fourth time this month,
clearing 15 feet, 6 1/2 inches
at the Gaz de France meet.
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