UNDATED (AP) — Alabama coach Nick Saban is retiring after winning more national championships than any other major college football coach. Saban won seven national championships and turned Alabama back into a national powerhouse that included six of those titles in 17 seasons. He made the announcement Wednesday. Saban led the Tide to nine Southeastern Conference championships and won his first national title at Alabama with a 14-0 season in 2009. Titles came again in 2011, 2012, 2015, 2017 and 2020. He also won a national title with LSU in 2003.
PHOENIX (AP) — Nick Saban's Alabama dynasty helped fuel the Southeastern Conference's unprecedented dominance in college football over the last 20 years. Saban retired Wednesday after 17 seasons leading Alabama. He won six national championships with the Crimson Tide and one with LSU in 22 seasons as a head coach in the SEC. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey compared him to SEC greats in other sports such as Skip Bertman, who won five College World Series with LSU baseball, and the late Pat Summitt, who led Tennessee’s Lady Vols to eight NCAA basketball championships.
PHOENIX (AP) — NCAA President Charlie Baker has given his first state of college sports address since taking over the the job in March. At the NCAA convention, Baker laid out goals for growing the college sports fanbase, dealing with issues related to the rise of legal wagering and continuing the conversation he started with a proposal to create a new tier of Division I where athletes would be paid by their schools. The speech came a little more than a month after he sent a letter to D-I member schools with a potentially ground-breaking idea for a new subdivision at the top of college sports.
STARKVILLE, Miss. (AP) — Tolu Smith scored 23 points, including a three-point play with 14.7 seconds remaining, to lead Mississippi State to a 77-72 win over No. 5 Tennessee. The win marked Mississippi State’s first win over a Top 5 team since defeating Oklahoma in December of 2002. The Vols are the fourth top five team to lose in the past 24 hours as No. 1 Purdue, No. 2 Houston and No. 3 Kansas also were beaten. Freshman Josh Hubbard led Mississippi State (12-3, 1-1 in SEC) with 25 points, highlighted by a 5 of 10 showing from 3 point territory. Dalton Knecht scored 26 of his 28 points in the second half for Tennessee (11-4, 1-1).
UNDATED (AP) — Kentucky has been crowned the all-time No. 1 team after a review of 75 years of AP Top 25 polls for men's college basketball. The Associated Press began ranking teams in January 1949 with Saint Louis at No. 1, though the Wildcats would soon take over the top spot. Teams were awarded points based on where they landed on each ballot. Kentucky had 17,852 points and North Carolina had 17,268. Duke, Kansas and UCLA rounded out the top five. Louisville was sixth, Arizona seventh and Indiana, Syracuse and Michigan State made up the top 10.
OXFORD, Miss. (AP) — Jaemyn Brakefield scored 28 points, Jamarion Sharp added a school-record nine blocked shots and Mississippi dominated the second half to defeat Florida 103-85. Brakefield was 11 of 16 from the field and the Rebels outscored Florida 21-10 in the opening seven minutes of the second half to build an insurmountable 65-50 lead. The Gators never got closer than 13 points again. Matthew Murrell scored 23 points, Allen Flanigan had 17 and Jaylen Murray added 12 in a balanced Ole Miss attack. The Rebels finished 39 of 66 from the field, including 8 of 20 from the 3-point line, led by Murrell with three 3-pointers. Walter Clayton Jr. led Florida with 23 points.
ATHENS, Ga. (AP) — Justin Hill scored 19 points, Noah Thomasson added 15 and Georgia never trailed in a 76-66 victory over Arkansas for its 10th straight win. Georgia, which is 10-0 at Stegeman Coliseum this season and 23-4 in coach Mike White’s two seasons, also ended a three-game skid against Arkansas. Hill and Thomasson were each 6-of-13 shooting overall with three 3-pointers. Hill was 4 of 5 at the free-throw line. RJ Melendez added 10 points Georgia (12-3, 2-0 Southeastern Conference). Tramon Mark scored 24 points and grabbed seven rebounds for Arkansas (9-6, 0-2).
UNDATED (AP) — The AP Top 25 is celebrating its 75th anniversary. A data-driven compilation of every poll over the years found that Kentucky is the all-time No. 1 program. But plenty of teams can lay claim to being the best of the best. Among them are the 1955-56 San Francisco team of Bill Russell, the three unbeaten UCLA teams led by John Wooden in the 1960s and '70s, and the 1975-76 team led by Bob Knight at Indiana that remains the last to finish off an undefeated season.
