Villanova guard Justin Moore is helped off the floor during the the Wildcats’ win over Houston in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament on Saturday in San Antonio. David J. Phillip/Associated Press
VILLANOVA, Pa. — Villanova guard and second-leading scorer Justin Moore will undergo surgery this week for a torn Achilles tendon, a brutal blow for the Wildcats ahead of their Final Four game with Kansas.
Moore was a second-team All-Big East selection this season. The 6-foot-4 guard averaged 34.4 minutes, 14.8 points and 4.8 rebounds per outing in 36 games.
Moore was injured in the final minute of Villanova’s regional final victory over Houston on Saturday night and was on crutches during the Wildcats’ postgame celebration. He was dribbling against a defender and appeared to slip and fall. Moore then went back down after trying to get up.
The Wildcats are playing for their third national championship since 2016.
“This is a tough blow for all of us, not just because of the great player Justin is, but because of what he means to us as teammates and coaches,” Villanova Coach Jay Wright said in a statement Sunday. “As one of our captains, Justin has been an integral part of our success. He helps our team in so many ways. Every game, he guards the opponent’s best scorer and is one of the toughest rebounding guards we have had in our time at Villanova.”
MEMPHIS: The university and men’s basketball coach Penny Hardaway have been accused of serious violations of NCAA rules, including failing to cooperate with an investigation, two newspapers reported.
The Daily Memphian and The Commercial Appeal reported that they obtained copies of a notice of allegations from an investigation by the NCAA’s Independent Accountability Resolution Process.
The newspapers also obtained a response from the university denying the allegations. The university said the notice “contains no specific facts, and it is the specific facts that are imperative for the resolution of this matter.”
The allegations come after Memphis lost to Gonzaga in the second round of the NCAA Tournament last week.
Alleged infractions include four Level I and two Level II violations, according to an amended notice of allegations the university received in July 2021. Level I and Level II violations are considered the most serious NCAA infractions.
SMU: The school named Rob Lanier as its coach after he took Georgia State to the NCAA Tournament this season.
Lanier was 53-30 in his three seasons at Georgia State. He previously took Siena to the NCAA tourney in 2002, in the first of his four seasons as coach there. In between those head coaching stints, Lanier was an assistant at Tennessee, Texas, Florida and Virginia.
Tim Jankovich announced his retirement Tuesday after six seasons as SMU’s coach and a coaching career of nearly four decades that included stints as an assistant for Larry Brown and Bill Self.
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
ARIZONA STATE: The school hired Natasha Adair as head coach.
The school announced that the former Delaware coach will replace Charli Turner Thorne, who retired earlier this month after 25 years leading the Sun Devils.
A former player at South Florida, Adair spent the past five seasons at Delaware, where she went 95-58 with consecutive 20-win seasons. She was named the Colonial Athletic Association coach of the year after leading the Blue Hens to the WNIT semifinals and led the program to its first NCAA Tournament in nearly a decade this season.
Adair spent the previous three seasons at Georgetown, leading the Hoyas to consecutive WNIT appearances after taking over a program that won four games the year before she arrived. She went 35-31 in two seasons at College of Charleston after spending 14 seasons as an assistant at Wake Forest and Georgetown.
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