In Brief

COLLEGES

Image-wary North Carolina
fires embattled coach Davis

North Carolina fired football coach Butch Davis on Wednesday, saying the past year of turmoil amid an NCAA investigation into improper benefits and academic misconduct was doing too much damage to the school's reputation.

The school issued a statement announcing Davis' dismissal nine days before the start of preseason practice. Chancellor Holden Thorp said the decision was not prompted by any changes in the ongoing NCAA investigation, but said he "lost confidence in our ability to come through this without harming the way people think of this institution."

The school has scheduled a news conference for today to discuss the change, which followed a closed-door meeting of the school's board of trustees. Team spokesman Kevin Best said plans for an interim coach also would be discussed today.

North Carolina's players report for training camp Aug. 4 and start practice the following day.

Also: Gunner Kiel, the nation's top-ranked high school quarterback, has committed to play at Indiana for coach Kevin Wilson.

The 6-foot-4-inch, 220-pound Kiel passed for 2,645 yards and 36 touchdowns as a junior at Columbus (Ind.) East. He also rushed for 238 yards and seven touchdowns.

Kiel's older brother, Dusty, is a sophomore quarterback for the Hoosiers, and both are nephews of former Notre Dame QB Blair Kiel.

UCLA senior point guard Jerime Anderson was suspended for at least the team's season opener after his arrest on suspicion of grand theft.

UCLA spokesman Ryan Finney said Anderson was arrested on campus Tuesday night for the alleged theft of a laptop.

Anderson will miss the Bruins' game against Loyola Marymount on Nov. 11. His status will be re-evaluated as the legal process continues.

Three-time champion North Carolina and first-time participant Butler headline the field for the 2012 Maui Invitational.

The rest of the teams that will play at the Lahaina Civic Center are Illinois, Marquette, Mississippi State, Southern California, Texas and Division II Chaminade, the host school.

North Carolina won the tournament in 1999, 2004 and 2008. After their last two appearances, the Tar Heels went on to win the NCAA championship.

mISCELLANEOUS

NBA owners, players to resume
contract negotiations Monday

NBA owners and players will resume talks toward a new collective bargaining agreement Monday, a month after the lockout started, a person with knowledge of the plans told The Associated Press.

Though representatives from the sides have been talking and met on multiple occasions since July 1, this will be the first meeting to include commissioner David Stern, union executive director Billy Hunter, owners and players, the person told the AP.

The sides were still far apart on numerous economic issues when owners voted to lock out the players after the old collective bargaining agreement expired at the end of the day June 30.

Also: Jalen Rose was sentenced to 20 days in jail for a March drunken-driving crash near Detroit, despite a recommendation that the ESPN analyst and former NBA player not serve jail time and the public support of several prominent figures, including Detroit mayor Dave Bing, a former NBA player.

When he pleaded guilty in May to driving while intoxicated, Rose told the judge he drank six martinis before crashing his SUV along a snowy road in West Bloomfield Township.

The man who posed as a teenager to play high school basketball in West Texas was sentenced to three years in prison after reaching a plea deal.

Guerdwich Montimere, 23, pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual assault and three counts of tampering with government records.

The naturalized U.S. citizen from Haiti came to Odessa posing as a ninth-grader. Playing as 15-year-old Jerry Joseph, Montimere was 21 when he played one season at Odessa Permian High and helped the Panthers to the state playoffs.

In addition to falsifying government records, Montimere was charged with having sex with a 15-year-old girl.

Federal prosecutors urged a judge to honor a jury's verdict finding baseball great Barry Bonds guilty of obstruction of justice. Prosecutors filed court papers in San Francisco opposing Bonds' demand that the verdict be tossed out or he be granted a new trial.

A jury found Bonds guilty of obstructing a grand jury when he gave a rambling answer when asked if his trainer ever gave him injectable substances. Bonds argues his answer was rambling but not evasive. The jury failed to unanimously decide three perjury charges filed against Bonds.

Prosecutors argued the jury had ample evidence in which to convict Bonds of obstruction, including testimony that his trainer supplied other players with injectable substances.