Page 23 - Florida Sentinel 4-8-16 Edition

Sports
Shaquille O’Neal And Allen
Tim Duncan Becomes 3rd Player In NBA History To Win 1,000 Games
TIM DUNCAN
Tim Duncan's career
milestones ticker flickered brightly once again Tuesday night, when the San Antonio Spurs defeated the Utah Jazz 88-86, giving Duncan his 1,000th career victory.
Duncan contributed 3 points, 2 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 blocks in the win to join Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1,074) and Robert Parish (1,014) as the only players in NBA history to reach 1,000 regular-season wins.
Russell Westbrook Ties Magic Johnson For Most Triple-Doubles In Past 30 Years
RUSSELL WESTBROOK
It took only 27 minutes and three quarters, but Russell Westbrook tied Magic Johnson for the most triple- doubles in a single season in the past 30 years with 13 points, 14 rebounds and 12 as- sists in the Oklahoma City Thunder's 124-102 romp of the Denver Nuggets on Tuesday.
Westbrook, who was named the Western Confer- ence Player of the Month ear- lier in the day, has four games left to pass the mark Johnson set in 1988-89. If Westbrook does, then he'd tie Johnson's mark of 18 set in 1981-82. Westbrook posted seven triple-doubles alone in March - - the most in a calendar month since Michael Jordan had seven in 1989 -- and has had nine since the All-Star break.
It's not just that West- brook tosses up triple-doubles like they're habit; it's the speed in which he does it. His one on Tuesday came in only 22 game minutes.
Westbrook has had seven triple-doubles in fewer than 30 minutes in his career, the most in the shot clock era (1954-55). Magic Johnson is second with four; five players are tied with three, including Stephen Curry, Larry Bird and Bob Cousy. This season alone, Westbrook has recorded four sub-30-minute triple-doubles. The rest of the NBA combined has one (Nicolas Batum).
UConn Caps Perfect Season
Iverson Top Basketball Hall Of Fame Class
With Fourth Straight Title
Shaquille O’Neal, Tom Izzo, Jerry Reinsdorf, Sheryl Swoops, Yao Ming and Allen Iverson have been elected to the Naismith Basketball of Fame class of 2016.
O’Neal was elected to 14 NBA All-Star teams in his ca- reer. He won the Rookie of the Year award with the Or- lando Magic after being se- lected with the No. 1 pick in the 1992 draft. He went on to win four NBA champions and took home the Finals MVP honors on three occa- sions. He was the NBA’s MVP in 2000. He ranks sev- enth all-time in scoring, sixth all-time for shots made, 14th in rebounds and eighth in blocks in the NBA. He was selected to 14 All-NBA teams, including eight First Team selections, during his career.
Iverson also lived up to expectations after being drafted with the No. 1 pick of the 1996 draft by winning the Rookie of the Year award. He was named the 2001 NBA MVP and finished his career with the seventh highest scoring average and ranked 12th all-time in steals and 23rd in points.
Ming played with the Houston Rockets from 2002 to ’11 before injuries derailed his career. The 2002 No. 1 overall pick made eight All- Star teams before retiring. At 7’6”, he was the tallest player when he was in the league.
SHAQUILLE O’NEAL And ALLEN IVERSON
He is second in the Rockets’ all-time blocks list and sixth for total points and total re- bounds.
Despite this year’s first- round exit in the NCAA tour- nament, Izzo has made seven Final Four appear- ances and won 524 games with the Michigan State Spartans. He won the 2000 NCAA title as the Spartans defeated Florida.
Swoops led Texas Tech to the 1993 NCAA champi- onship with 47-points in the title game. She was the first player signed by the WNBA and won three MVP trophies from 2000 to 2005. The three-time WNBA champion was also a member of six WNBA All-Star teams.
Reinsdorf won six NBA titles as the owner of the Chicago Bulls in the ’90s.
Former NBA referee Dar- rell Garretson, coach John McLendon and play- ers Zelmo Beaty and Cum- berland Posey will be added to the Hall of Fame posthumously.
Connecticut completed its historic run to a fourth consec- utive national championship with an 82-51 win over Syra- cuse on Tuesday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapo-
lis.Breanna Stewart, Mo- riah Jefferson and Morgan Tuck became the only players in NCAA college basketball history, men or women, to win four titles. The championship also marked the 11th overall for Huskies coach Geno Au- riemma, who moved past
legendary UCLA men's coach John Wooden.
UConn finished the season at 38-0, the sixth unbeaten season in program history, and extended its winning streak to 75 games.
Greg Hardy Says In ESPN Interview He Has Never Hit A Woman
Defensive end Greg Hardy, who remains un- signed in free agency, denied Monday during a one-on-one interview that he has ever hit a woman.
Hardy was discussing the 2014 incident involving for- mer girlfriend Nicole Holder in Charlotte, North Carolina, when he was a member of the Carolina Pan- thers, and denied he had ever hit her.
"I've never put my hand on any woman," Hardy said.
"In my whole entire life, no sir," he said, adding that he was raised never to hit a woman and that violence against his siblings -- brother or sister -- wasn't tolerated.
GREG HARDY
After his comments were aired on ESPN, Hardy was called out by former Panthers teammate Steve Smith Sr. on Twitter. The receiver, now with the Baltimore Ravens, tweeted an excerpt of Hardy's interview and said he is an advocate against do- mestic violence. In 2014, he talked about the abusive rela- tionships his mother was in when he was a child.
Villanova Returns As Heroes
To A City Starved For Winners
Michael Jordan Congratulates Allen Iverson On Making HOF
The police have been escort- ing the Villanova Wildcats around for weeks now, turning on the flashing lights so the team’s buses can travel unim- peded to practice and game sites in New York, Louisville and Houston.
But it wasn’t until the Wild- cats, fresh off their epic na- tional championship win over the North Carolina Tar Heels, pulled out of the airport and onto Interstate 95 South, bound for a welcome-back rally on campus, that the real- ity of what his team had just accomplished finally hit coach Jay Wright.
It was a little before 6 p.m. when the convoy of three buses took to the highway, the peak of evening rush hour in the clogged city of Philadel- phia. Only no one else was on the road -- not on I-95 or I- 476, commonly called the Blue Route by locals. No one was anywhere nearby, save the trio of news helicopters that hov- ered above, tracking the buses back home.
Police had closed the roads temporarily, assuring the Wildcats a speedy return to the campus celebration.
“You know, obviously we had the police escort in Hous-
ton and other places, but you don’t really know what it’s like in those places," Wright said.
Wright was not alone in his daze and wonder. Less than 24 hours after Kris Jenkins' buzzer-beating 3- pointer gave Villanova a na- tional title for the ages, the players were still trying to comprehend it all. They had watched the replay of the shot -- or, in Daniel Ochefu's case, the entire game -- on a constant loop, calling it up on their phones, via social media, in their hotel rooms and on the chartered plane. They still couldn’t believe it.
They weren't doubting the final shot. Jenkins is ar- guably the best pure shooter on the team, and the play is one the Wildcats practice every day. No, they couldn't believe that the whole thing had happened at all.
“I’m at a loss for words," Jenkins said. “I don’t know what to say. I’m still in shock."
By James Herbert | NBA writer
After watching his beloved North Carolina Tar Heels lose at the buzzer to Vil- lanova in the NCAA champi- onship game on Monday, Michael Jordan was not too upset to congratulate a peer.
On a bus, he approached Allen Iverson and gave him a hug and some kind words. Earlier in the day, Iverson was officially an- nounced as part of the Nai- smith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame’s 2016 class.
Almost immediately after- ward, Iverson re-posted the video to his Instagram ac- count. This should come as no surprise, if you know how the esteem in which he holds Jordan.
Iverson, in fact, showed up to the Hall of Fame an- nouncement wearing Air
MICHAEL JORDAN And ALLEN IVERSON ...That’s mutual respect
Jordan shoes. This is despite being almost synonymous with Reebok.
“I am Reebok for life but today I’m paying tribute to the man who gave me the vi- sion, the Greatest of All Time, MJ,” Iverson wrote in an Instagram caption.
On a day like this, Iver- son surely received congrat- ulations from all sorts of people. It is unlikely any of them were more meaningful than what was captured in the video above.
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