Nathan Hoover scored 22 points with four 3-pointers and Chevez Goodwin’s dunk with two minutes left gave Wofford the lead for good, beating Samford 67-62

The candidates have been updated for college basketball’s most prestigious award.

As the college basketball season hits its halfway point and conference play is in full swing, an updated 2019-20 John R. Wooden watch list has been released.

The Los Angeles Athletic Club announced the men’s and women’s Wooden Award Midseason Top 25 lists on Wednesday. The players were chosen by a poll of national college basketball experts based on the first half of the season.

The Wooden Award is considered the most prestigious honor in college basketball. In the updated lists, the men’s preseason top 50 and women’s top 30 have both been cut down to the 25 top candidates. Duke’s Zion Williamson and Oregon’s Sabrina Ionescu won the award in 2019.

Here are the updated John R. Wooden Midseason Top 25 lists.

Men’s 2019-20 Midseason Top 25 List

• Precious Achiuwa, Memphis
• Udoka Azubuike, Kansas
• Saddiq Bey, Villanova
• Vernon Carey Jr., Duke
• Anthony Cowan Jr., Maryland
• Devon Dotson, Kansas
• Anthony Edwards, Georgia
• Malachi Flynn, San Diego State
• Luka Garza, Iowa
• Ashton Hagans, Kentucky
• Tyrese Haliburton, Iowa State
• Markus Howard, Marquette
• Tre Jones, Duke
• Tyrese Maxey, Kentucky
• Jordan Nwora, Louisville
• Filip Petrusev, Gonzaga
• Myles Powell, Seton Hall
• Payton Pritchard, Oregon
• Zavier Simpson, Michigan
• Lamar Stevens, Penn State
• Isaiah Stewart, Washington
• Tres Tinkle, Oregon State
• Obi Toppin, Dayton
• Kaleb Wesson, Ohio State
• Cassius Winston, Michigan State

Women’s 2019-20 Midseason Top 25 List

• Aliyah Boston, South Carolina
• Chennedy Carter, Texas A&M
• Kaila Charles, Maryland
• Lauren Cox, Baylor
• Elissa Cunane, NC State
• Crystal Dangerfield, Connecticut
• Rennia Davis, Tennessee
• Chelsea Dungee, Arkansas
• Dana Evans, Louisville
• Kiah Gillespie, Florida State
• Tyasha Harris, South Carolina
• Ruthy Hebard, Oregon
• Rhyne Howard, Kentucky
• Sabrina Ionescu, Oregon
• Juicy Landrum, Baylor
• Aari McDonald, Arizona
• Beatrice Mompremier, Miami
• Olivia Nelson-Ododa, Connecticut
• Michaela Onyenwere, UCLA
• Ali Patberg, Indiana
• Mikayla Pivec, Oregon State
• Satou Sabally, Oregon
• Destiny Slocum, Oregon State
• Megan Walker, Connecticut
• Christyn Williams, Connecticut

Kai Mitchell scored 19 points with six rebounds and Sam Houston State rallied to beat Southeastern Louisiana 67-62

North Carolina fell to Pitt on Wednesday, with Tar Heels coach Roy Williams standing by his comments from the weekend that this is “the least gifted” team he’s had. Senior Brandon Robinson said the team aims to change that perception.

McCarthy’s history with the Green Bay Packers has not been overlooked in his first days as head coach of the Dallas Cowboys.

Mike McCarthy’s history with the Green Bay Packers has not been overlooked in his first days as head coach of the Dallas Cowboys.

As he was officially being introduced to his new role in a press conference on Wednesday, McCarthy was faced with a difficult question—”Did Dez catch it?”

It is something that has been asked of the coach many times. The McCarthy-led Packers faced the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC Divisional Round in 2015. While the Packers held a 26-21 lead with 4:37 remaining in the game, Dez Bryant seemed to make an athletic catch near the goal line on fourth down.

What looked to be a game-changing play instead went to a game-changing challenge, when McCarthy wagered his final timeout on getting the catch overturned.

“I had one timeout, maybe four minutes left in the game,” McCarthy said on Wednesday. “And I said after the game, ‘That was one hell of an athletic play.’ I was impressed. Dez and Sam Shields, you’re talking about two great athletes going after the football. But I asked the question in regards to how the rule was written, and I was given the right answer by the referee, so then I challenged it.”

McCarthy said he was not even going to challenge the play until he talked to official Gene Steratore, who clarified the NFL’s catch rules. The play was then overturned, and the Packers moved on to the NFC Championship game.

McCarthy added that Stephen Jones, the son of Jerry Jones and Dallas’s executive vice president, “since got [the rule] changed on the competition committee.”

So, McCarthy admits Dez caught it—almost. 

“It was a great catch, I can say now,” McCarthy said with a laugh. “But it wasn’t then, technically.”

The Calgary Flames and defenseman Rasmus Andersson have agreed to a six-year, $27.3 million contract extension.

CALGARY, Alberta — The Calgary Flames and defenseman Rasmus Andersson have agreed to a six-year, $27.3 million contract extension.

The deal was announced Wednesday.

The 23-year-old native of Sweden has three goals, nine assists and 33 penalty minutes in 44 games for Calgary this season – his second full season with the NHL club.

The 6-foot-1, 214-pound defender, selected by the Flames in the second round of the 2015 NHL draft, totaled 12 goals and 49 assists in 110 games over his first two pro seasons with Stockton of the AHL. He also played in the 2018 AHL All-Star game.

The Horned Frogs’ men’s basketball program joins the list of schools to receive the letter from the NCAA.

Texas Christian is the latest school to receive a Notice of Allegations from the NCAA regarding its men’s basketball program, the school confirmed to Sports Illustrated Wednesday.

That brings the known number of programs receiving NOAs in relation to the federal investigation of college basketball to five. The others: North Carolina State, Kansas, Oklahoma State and USC. More are expected to be delivered early in 2020.

The specific allegations of NCAA violations made by NCAA Enforcement against TCU is not known, and the school did not release the NOA. TCU did supply a statement to SI Wednesday night saying, “TCU has received a Notice of Allegations from the NCAA enforcement staff specific to former assistant mens basketball coach Corey Barker. There were no other individuals involved or additional allegations against the university. Per NCAA rules, because there is a pending case, TCU is not permitted to comment further.”

The NCAA does not release its Notices of Allegations and declined comment to SI Wednesday.

TCU fired Barker after allegedly receiving a bribe in exchange for directing players toward certain financial managers and/or agents once they turned professional.

Four other assistant coaches were charged with crimes and several men were convicted in federal court or accepted plea agreements in relation to the scandal, which has largely faded from public view. However, activity is ongoing behind the scenes at the NCAA level. At least four other schools that were involved prominently in the federal cases remain under investigation: Auburn, Louisville, Arizona and LSU.

NCAA Enforcement was on a faster timetable to deliver NOAs in 2019 before the association’s Committee on Infractions leaders asked during the fall for a slowdown so it could “better manage” the complex cases. The amount of overlapping information and individuals within the cases required some streamlining and uniformity before proceeding, according to committee chair Carol Cartwright. The pace picked up again in late November.

Of the schools that have been charged, only North Carolina State has submitted a response to its NOA thus far. The Wolfpack, and former coach Mark Gottfried, are vigorously disputing some of the allegations against them.

Creighton, another school that parted ways with an assistant coach who was caught up in the FBI investigation, declined to confirm or deny whether it has received an NOA from the NCAA. The school did release a statement to SI saying, “Creighton University continues to fully cooperate with the ongoing NCAA investigation regarding men’s basketball, and is adhering to the confidentiality of this process.”

In a related development, the upcoming extortion trial of famed lawyer Michael Avenatti will bear watching. Avenatti, who is charged with trying to extort Nike, has made pretrial filings that continue his longstanding allegations that the shoe and apparel giant was engaged in criminal activity in its youth basketball division. Yahoo Sports reported this week that among the filings are recorded phone conversations and transcripts of recordings with Nike executives that allegedly illuminate under-the-table payments to players or their families.

The federal investigation of the sport largely centered on criminal behavior by Adidas employees on behalf of Adidas-backed programs. Avenatti’s information could conceivably widen the scope of the scandal to include Nike-funded programs.

However, the feds are seeking to keep much of Avenatti’s information under seal. Previously, the government has limited public dissemination of information gathered during the FBI investigation. Numerous FBI-taped conversations featuring prominent college basketball coaches, which would be coveted by NCAA investigators, remain under seal.