Sports in 2 Minutes

From The Associated Press

UCLA earns third straight Final Four bid

PHOENIX—After reaching the Final Four for the third straight time, UCLA coach Ben Howland called these Bruins “by far the best” of the three.

The other two didn’t have freshman Kevin Love, who had 19 points and 10 rebounds as the top-seeded Bruins blitzed Xavier 76-57 Saturday to earn their record 18th overall trip to the Final Four.

Love was picked as the most outstanding player of the West Regional.

It’s the Bruins’ longest string of Final Four appearances since they closed the John Wooden era with nine straight trips and added a 10th consecutive trip in 1976 under his successor, Gene Bartow.

At times on Saturday, Howland’s Bruins looked every bit as dominant as Wooden’s finer squads, annihilating a proud Xavier team that had set a school record for victories.

Hansbrough leads UNC past Louisville

CHARLOTTE, N.C.—This time, North Carolina got to celebrate instead of heading to the locker room to wait for next year. Tyler Hansbrough and his top-seeded Tar Heels just wouldn’t be denied a trip to the Final Four again.

Hansbrough had 28 points and 13 rebounds Saturday night to help the Tar Heels hold off Louisville 83-73 in the East Regional final. Playing in front of a partisan home-state crowd, they reached the national semifinals for the first time since winning the championship in 2005.

The Tar Heels (36-2) advanced to play the Kansas-Davidson winner next Saturday at San Antonio.

Davis vows to return from thyroid cancer

PHOENIX—Diagnosed with thyroid cancer, Arizona Diamondbacks left-hander Doug Davis decided he wanted to keep pitching until his April 10 operation.

And he said he expects to pitch again soon after that.

“It’s going to take me down for a while but not out for good,” said Davis, who spoke at a news conference after facing the Colorado Rockies in a Chase Field exhibition Friday night.

“I know I’m not going through this alone,” the 32-year-old Davis said. “I know I’ve got all the help in the world, and I’m definitely optimistic of the outcome.”

Stoudemire dominates as Suns beat Nets

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J.—The Phoenix Suns have a share of first place in the Pacific Division because Amare Stoudemire had another monster game and Shaquille O’Neal did the unexpected — he made his free throws.

Stoudemire had 33 points and 15 rebounds and O’Neal stunned everyone, hitting 7 of 10 from the free-throw line in a 110-104 win over the New Jersey Nets that put the Suns into a first-place tie with Los Angeles Lakers with nine games left in the regular season.

“This was very important,” said Stoudemire, who was 12 of 15 from the field. “It was a big game for us. Not only did it put us in first but we leave this trip with a .500 record. We feel good about it.”

The Suns had a lot of big efforts from a lot of players on a night that Steve Nash struggled playing with a shoulder spasm. The All-Star point guard finished with 10 points and 11 assists. He was only 2 of 9 from the field, but both 3-pointers came in the fourth quarter.

Roush’s “intellectual espionage” was a mistake

MARTINSVILLE, Va.—Michael Waltrip gave a less sensational version Saturday of how his team came to be in possession of a part belonging to one of Jack Roush’s teams, saying that what Roush asserted was “intellectual espionage” was merely a mistake.

“We didn’t know anything about having it until January when they called and said, ‘You have our swaybar,’ and we said, ‘We do?’ We told them that we would find it and give it back to them and that’s what we did,” Waltrip said before practice Saturday.

The comments came a day after Roush painted a far more sinister picture of the incident, saying the part was stolen, the team that stole it tried to have parts made to fit onto it and that he feared letting on that he knew they even had the part because he figured “it would wind up in the river” rather than be given back.

Roush said he considered getting a search warrant to take to the shop and find the part, but one of his employees called the team without his knowledge and the part was returned.