Nov 15, 2022 3 min read

WVU overcomes slow start

Tre Mitchell scored 21 points and West Virginia overcame a sluggish start to beat Morehead State 75-57 on Tuesday night.

Coach Bob Huggins earned his 919th career win, moving within one of Jim Calhoun for third place all-time among Division I coaches, behind only Jim Boeheim of Syracuse and recently retired Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski.

Jimmy Bell and Mo Wague added 10 points apiece for West Virginia (3-0), which has won every game by double digits.

Alex Gross scored 12 points and Mark Freeman had 10 for Morehead State (2-2).

Emmitt Matthews scored seven of his nine points during a 21-4 run and West Virginia extended a nine-point halftime lead to 65-39 with 7:25 remaining.

In baseball

Anthony Rizzo is staying with the New York Yankees, agreeing Tuesday to a $40 million, two-year contract.

Rizzo gets $17 million in each of the next two seasons, and the deal for the first baseman includes a $20 million team option for 2025 with a $6 million buyout. Rizzo had opted out of his previous contract with New York, giving up a $16 million salary for 2023.

• Outfielder Joc Pederson and left-hander Martín Pérez were the only players to accept $19.65 million qualifying offers from their former teams on Tuesday and end their free agency.

Pederson decided to stay with the San Francisco Giants and Pérez with the Texas Rangers.

Aaron Judge, Jacob deGrom and Xander Bogaerts were among those who declined the offers, joined by Dansby Swanson, Trea Turner, Willson Contreras and Carlos Rodón along with Chris Bassitt, Brandon Nimmo, Nathan Eovaldi and Tyler Anderson.

• Reliever Rafael Montero finalized a $34.5 million, three-year contract to remain with the World Series champion Houston Astros.

In the NFL

Los Angeles Rams receiver Cooper Kupp will have surgery on his sprained right ankle, sidelining the Super Bowl MVP for at least the next four weeks while on injured reserve.

Starting left tackle Alaric Jackson will miss the rest of the year because of blood clots, and starting right guard Chandler Brewer will be out four to six weeks after knee surgery.

Kupp, the AP’s Offensive Player of the Year last season after winning the triple crown of receiving, sprained his ankle in the Rams’ 27-17 loss to Arizona last Sunday. He needs surgery Wednesday that is likely to sideline the Rams’ top offensive player for several weeks, but the Rams did not rule out a return this season for their top offensive playmaker.

In college football

Former Washington State football coach Nick Rolovich has sued the university and Gov. Jay Inslee after he was fired last year for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

The lawsuit, filed last week in Whitman County Superior Court, names the university, athletic director Patrick Chun and Inslee as defendants. Inslee, a Democrat, had required that state employees get vaccinated, or receive a specific exemption, to keep their jobs.

Rolovich contends Chun and other university officials were “hostile” when they denied him a religious exemption and fired him from his $3 million a year coaching job midway through the 2021 season. Rolovich was the highest-paid public employee in the state at the time and had more than three years left on his five-year contract.

Rolovich is Catholic and said in the lawsuit that he applied for a religious exemption from the vaccine requirement.