Smart missed what would have been the final Bedlam Series game of his career and watched the Cowboys fall by three to rival Oklahoma. He missed a road trip to Baylor against fellow bubble team Baylor and watched them fall in overtime to the Bears. And OK State already was on a four-game losing streak when all of this began. There’s still time, though. After returning in a comfortable home victory Saturday over Texas Tech, Smart has four regular-season games remaining in his college career: at TCU, home to Kansas and Kansas State, at Iowa State....

The Sooners got off to an early start with a Ryan Spangler jumper and led the Great Danes the entire way. The Great Danes managed to get within five points of the Sooners in the middle of the second half, but Oklahoma went on a 9-2 run that kept Albany at an arm’s length. Spangler’s two rebounds and two free throws during the final two minutes gave the Sooners the final kick to seal their win....

Oklahoma State will lose on practice per week because of Level One APR penalties. The NCAA released its annual APR report on Wednesday. The APR — Academic Progress Rate — is a measure of eligibility and retention for Division student-athletes and serves as an indicator of eventual graduation rates. MORE: Coach rankings | SN’s 10 all-time greatest Oklahoma State players Nine schools are ineligible for the postseason in 2014-15, including Alabama State, Florida A&M, Mississippi Valley State, Prairie View A&M, St....

The Sooners offense clicked in the first half of Saturday night’s Oklahoma-TCU Big 12 matchup, scoring 38 points to MORE: Week 11 highlights, scores TCU’s sixth-best defense in the country was seemingly no match for Mayfield, who lit up the Horned Frogs in the first half for 299 yards and three TDs. He finished with 333 yards through the air and another 50 on the ground, leaving little room in the debate of best player in the country....

The oldest coach in NFL history actually just retired at the end of the 2020 season. 73-year-old, at the time, Romeo Crennel broke the previous 53 year long record when he was named interim coach of the Houston Texans in October 2020. Crennel had worked in the NFL since 1981, but this was his first time in the head coaching position. The previous record that Crennel broke last year was held by George Halas, who was 72 years old when he retired after 1967....

The University of Mississippi has officially posted a listing for the school’s head football coach, meaning Luke’s title as interim head coach will remain just that: interim. MORE: Freeze allegedly made calls to escort service for years Luke has does the best he can since taking over after Hugh Freeze was forced to resign amid a sex scandal. It even looked as if the Rebels would have a decent season after starting 2017 2-0....

After missing practice Sunday for what was called a “personal matter,” Nkemdiche was admitted to Baptist Memorial Hospital in Oxford, Miss., on Monday, according to Rivals.com. No reason was immediately given for Nkemdiche’s hospitalization, though the report said he was conscious as of Wednesday night in the hospital’s intensive care unit. MORE: Week 12 picks | Henry Heisman favorite | Will LSU win another game? Nkemdiche is listed as questionable for the team’s game Saturday against No....

According to shipping data obtained by Reuters, a superyacht affiliated with the billionaire arrived in the city of Bodrum on Monday. It had recently departed waters near the European Union, which has enacted sanctions against him. The ship, named Solaris, is 460 feet long and sails under a Bermuda flag. Ship monitor Marine Traffic says that the ship was previously docked in Barcelona until March 8. While Turkey is not officially a member of the European Union, the country is considered a “candidate country” for a probable future inauguration....

At least a couple hockey players headed to Sochi next month say they're buying it. Sidney Crosby, the captain of Team Canada, and Max Pacioretty, a forward for Team USA, both said Wednesday that they trust the security teams charged with protecting the estimated 213,000 visitors and 2,300 athletes in town for the Games. "They would send us there only if it was safe, and I have faith in our country and the other countries as well that they feel the security is tight enough," Pacioretty said before his Montreal Canadiens played Crosby's Pittsburgh Penguins....

And already, the two nations are living up to the hype. The United States racked up five gold medals, starting with Chase Kalisz and Jay Litherland going No. 1 and 2 in the men’s 400-meter individual medley, while Australia finished the first set of Olympic finals strong with a world record time in the women’s 4x100 freestyle relay, along with two other medals. Kalisz and Litherland started off the evening for the United States with two top medals, but Emma Weyant and Hali Flickinger had a big showing for the Americans in the women’s 400 individual medley as the pair earned silver and bronze medals, respectively, behind Japan’s Yui Ohashi....

Less than a month later, Omicron’s prevalence in the United States has grown exponentially—and experts don’t expect infection rates to drop anytime soon. “We’re getting close to where we were last year in late December. It’s alarming,” George Jour, MD, an advisory board member and clinical consultant at Innovative Health Diagnostics, told Verywell. “The next three weeks to four weeks, essentially with the holidays, will be very crucial for the new year....

Before the horrible body count of today’s attacks emerged, ordinary Iraqis expressed a variety of opinions, some sympathetic, some not, about the attack at Virginia Tech. Many of the people interviewed by NEWSWEEK had mixed feelings. “I feel sorry that there are innocent civilians getting killed for no reason. We in Iraq have tasted this curse and we know how difficult it is to lose a loved one,” says Khalid Mohammed, a 33-year old civil engineer....

A woman screams, “He raped me!” One of two men standing near her shouts, “It’s all a big mistake!” Are these men the attackers? Or are they good Samaritans trying to help the woman? I can’t tell for sure. I order them to halt and show me their hands, but they keep yammering at me and won’t stand still. One man, looking out from the screen, begs me to lower my handgun, a 9mm Beretta that fires rubber slugs....

Goal’s Week 7 MLS Power Rankings We are still six weeks away from Arena having to make that choice, and as we have learned through the years, the injury bug has a way of making such decisions for coaches. But what if all of Arena’s best attacking options are available? Who will he put on the bench? The better question: Why not start all three? As much as some Altidore critics might suggest he’s the expendable one of the three, the reality is his hold-up play and significantly improved passing make him too valuable a presence up top to leave out when healthy....

The role of Amsterdam’s founders in the slave trade has been debated for years, but amid a global reckoning with racial injustice following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, calls have increased for the Dutch to take accountability for the city’s instrumental place in the slave trade, the Associated Press reported. “It is time to engrave the great injustice of colonial slavery into our city’s identity. With big-hearted and unconditional recognition,” Mayor Femke Halsema said....

On Tuesday, Princess Mako registered her marriage, declined ceremonies and said it was a necessary choice for her to protect her and her husband’s hearts and life. This sounded more like survival and relief, than a happy occasion. By protocol for a female royal, Mako lost her royal status upon marriage. Japan has long had an underlying “purge” culture which scapegoats those who don’t fit the expected mold. Bullying almost feels like a favorite pastime, a collective habit supported by daytime TV, social media and in communities and institutions one belongs....

And as countless festival organizers and chambers of commerce have realized, the longer visitors stay, the more they spend. As the summer season draws to a close, communities across the world—from outsize cities to modest villages—are counting the rewards of tapping into this booming cultural economy. This year Europe alone will stage some 400 arts festivals, ranging from the Reykjavik Jazz Festival to the Edinburgh International Festival of music, opera and theater, which last month celebrated its 60th anniversary....

Perhaps in the best of worlds, this would be so. But in Iraq these days, the best is often the enemy of the good. America is still at war; its soldiers die every day. And in war, you shoot first and ask questions later. Still, it’s tempting to consider how much easier America’s job would be, if only it were seen to be more on the right side of international law....

That, at least, is the way many on an increasingly edgy Wall Street would like to imagine Greenspan’s daily ruminations in the tub. The chairman himself has never made clear exactly how serious a believer in the “New Economy” he really is. Nonetheless, evidence is growing that he has come closer than ever to shaking off his nagging worry that the long-running economic recovery and even longer-running bull market are a bubble ripe for the bursting....

If Kevin stays straight, it may be due in part to the efforts of the Boston Streetworkers, a publicly funded program that works with 1,500 troubled youths. It is one of many different types of “violence intervention” programs being tried around the nation. All seek to stem the escalating pattern of teenage rage, frustration and violence found on so many American streets. While there are occasional downturns in the mayhem and the murder, the numbers today have never been more discouraging....