Minnesota is expected to hire Colorado State's Niko Medved as its next head coach, sources told ESPN.

Medved's season ended Sunday night, with Colorado State losing 72-71 at the buzzer to 4-seed Maryland in the second round of the NCAA tournament. The Rams had won 11 straight games, including a Mountain West conference tournament championship and a first-round win over 5-seed Memphis in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

This will mark a return home for Medved, a Minneapolis native who attended the University of Minnesota and spent a year with the Gophers as an assistant coach in 2006-07.

Medved has led Colorado State to the NCAA tournament in three of the past four seasons, winning a game in each of the past two. The Rams went 25-6 in 2021-22, earning a 6-seed in the NCAA tournament but losing to Michigan in the first round.

Last season, Colorado State earned a First Four berth, where it blew out Virginia, 67-42, before losing to Texas.

In seven seasons with the Rams, Medved went 143-85.

Before taking over in Fort Collins, he spent one season at Drake and four seasons at Furman. He won a share of the Southern Conference regular-season title in 2017 with the Paladins.

At Minnesota, Medved replaces Ben Johnson, who was let go earlier this month after four seasons with the Gophers. He went 56-71 during his time at the helm.

The Gophers haven't been to the NCAA tournament since 2019 under Richard Pitino and haven't advanced past the first weekend of the tournament since Clem Haskins led them to a Final Four in 1997.

Xavier's Sean Miller has reached an agreement to be the next head coach of the Texas Longhorns, sources confirmed to ESPN on Monday.

Miller is a veteran head coach who has led teams to 13 NCAA tournament appearances in his career, including in two of the past three seasons at Xavier. Miller has won 487 games and brings a winning percentage of more than 71%.

He will replace Rodney Terry, who was informed Sunday that he would not return to lead the Texas program.

Terry took over on an interim basis after Chris Beard was suspended in 2022, and he was given the official job after leading Texas to the 2023 Elite Eight. He guided the Longhorns to the NCAA tournament in each of the past two seasons but didn't advance out of the first weekend in either year.

Xavier defeated Texas in the First Four on Wednesday, erasing a 13-point deficit to win 86-80. The Musketeers shook off a 1-4 Big East start to reach the NCAA tournament, winning their final seven regular-season games and racking up victories over Marquette, UConn and Creighton. Xavier finished tied for fourth in the league at 13-7.

Miller had prolonged success as the head coach at Arizona, including four regular-season Pac-12 titles and three appearances in the Elite Eight. In his first stint at Xavier from 2004-05 through 2008-09, he led the school to four NCAA tournaments, including an Elite Eight run.

Xavier rehired Miller in 2022 after he was fired from Arizona in the wake of missing the NCAA tournament in 2019 and 2021. Miller's success at Arizona waned amid the shroud of the federal basketball investigation, which included five Level I allegations against the school.

Miller, a Pittsburgh native, began his coaching career immediately after a four-year playing career at Pitt. He spent time as an assistant coach at Miami (Ohio), Pitt, NC State and Xavier before being promoted to replace Thad Matta as the Musketeers' head coach in 2004.

News of Miller's agreement was first reported by the Austin American-Statesman.

Iowa has hired Drake's Ben McCollum as its next men's basketball coach, the school announced Monday.

McCollum just finished his first season at Drake, leading the Bulldogs to a 31-4 record and the program's first appearance in the NCAA tournament's round of 32 since 1971. They won the Missouri Valley Conference's regular-season and tournament titles before beating 6-seed Missouri in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Drake lost to Texas Tech in the second round on Saturday.

McCollum won Missouri Valley Coach of the Year honors and was named a semifinalist for the Naismith Coach of the Year award.

McCollum, an Iowa City native, replaces Fran McCaffery, whom Iowa dismissed earlier this month after 15 seasons as the Hawkeyes' head coach. He was the school's all-time wins leader with 197 and led the program to seven NCAA tournament appearances.

Iowa hasn't advanced past the first weekend of the NCAA tournament since 1999.

Prior to taking over at Drake, McCollum was one of the most successful college basketball coaches in the country at Division II Northwest Missouri State. He led the Bearcats to four Division II national championships and a 394-91 record during his 15 seasons at the helm.

Under McCollum, Northwest Missouri State won 11 straight MIAA regular-season titles to end his tenure (and 12 total). Before he was named head coach, the program had won just four MIAA titles over the previous 62 seasons. The Bearcats went 38-0 in 2018-19 and suffered just one loss in both the 2016-17 and 2019-20 seasons.

When the Utah Jazz hosted the Toronto Raptors on March 14, it should have been an opportunity to end a seven-game losing streak at home against a below-.500 team. And after missing six of those seven games, Jazz leading scorer Lauri Markkanen was in the starting lineup.

Instead of a matchup between All-Star forwards Markkanen and Scottie Barnes, fans watched a fourth quarter filled with rookies and reserves from both teams. Markkanen did not return for the second half, while Barnes and Toronto's other veteran starters (RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley) played only the first two minutes of the final period before leaving for good.

With the game on the line, the teams finished with a combined five rookies on the court and just one player (Utah forward Brice Sensabaugh) averaging double-figure scoring this season. The Raptors won and pushed the Jazz's losing streak to eight. Utah also took a step closer to securing one of the league's three worst records -- which provides the best odds at securing the No. 1 pick in the draft.

Over the final few weeks of nearly every season, there are two races in the NBA standings: one to secure playoff positioning, and another for the best draft lottery odds.

But with the combination of Duke star Cooper Flagg -- a generational prospect -- and the usual rebuilding teams (including the Jazz, Raptors and Washington Wizards) joined by several others (the Philadelphia 76ers, San Antonio Spurs and New Orleans Pelicans) that have had their seasons cut short because of a series of injuries, the race to the bottom is breaking new ground.

Despite recent rules to prevent star players from sitting out too many games, the issue of tanking won't go away. And though NBA insiders mull new ways to curtail the practice, the league's worst teams are finding new ways to rack up late-season losses.

"These next few weeks," one NBA executive said, "could be the worst tanking stretch we've ever seen."

Why do NBA teams tank?

Anyone involved in the league's annual race to the bottom will tell you it's a miserable process. Trying to finish with as few wins as possible isn't something franchises normally aspire to do.

But those involved will also say securing a high draft pick is the surest path to winning at the highest level. And no one expects that to change soon.

"Philosophically, I'm not aware of anyone making a serious push to eliminate our current philosophy of the draft, which is to award top picks to teams that are most in need of talent," Evan Wasch, the NBA's executive vice president of strategy and analytics, told ESPN. "That is a fundamental tenet of our current draft system."

That system, which the NBA last changed in 2019, rewards teams with a sliding scale of odds to land one of the top four spots in the draft based on its annual lottery in May. The three teams with the worst records each receive a 14% chance of landing the top pick in the draft and a 52.1% chance of getting one of the top four. (Those odds slide down to the lottery team with the best record, which has a 0.5% chance of winning the top pick in the draft and a 2.1% chance of landing a top-four selection.)

The lottery exists for a reason. Getting a high lottery pick is the more direct way to land a franchise-changing talent that is required, at least historically:

Over the past 45 years, five title-winning teams weren't led by a player who would win, or had won, the NBA's MVP award: last year's Celtics, the 2019 Toronto Raptors and the Detroit Pistons in 1989, 1990 and 2004.

Among those remaining 40 teams, one of the following 14 players was a member of at least one of them: Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Julius Erving, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O'Neal, Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Dirk Nowitzki, LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Giannis Antetokounmpo or Nikola Jokic.

Five of those 14 players -- Johnson, Olajuwon, O'Neal, Duncan and James -- were taken first overall. And only four -- Bryant, Nowitzki, Antetokounmpo and Jokic -- were picked outside the top seven spots.

Even among those five outlier teams, only the Kawhi Leonard-led Raptors featured a player who was taken outside the top three. The 2004 NBA Finals MVP was Chauncey Billups, selected third overall in 1997, the same spot that current Celtics stars Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum were selected in 2016 and 2017, respectively. Meanwhile, Isiah Thomas, the talisman of those 1989 and 1990 champion Pistons, was taken second overall in 1981.

Over the past 45 years, five NBA champions were led by a player taken outside the top seven spots in the draft.

That's why NBA teams tank. And this year is no exception.

How have teams tanked this season?

When the NBA enacted the "player participation policy" before the 2023-24 season, tanking teams were not the target. The league's goal was to ensure healthy stars weren't sitting out games. However, the rules also require lottery-bound teams not to shut down their star players without a legitimate injury.

The Jazz ran afoul of the policy earlier this month and were fined $100,000 for not making Markkanen available for a game March 5 against the Wizards "and other games."

A small price to pay for a top pick, but with escalating fines -- the next violation would cost the Jazz $250,000 -- the team took an alternative strategy in the March 14 loss to Toronto.

Markkanen's usage in that game was an extreme version of what the Raptors have done since the All-Star break: benching their key players in clutch time.

Over that span, Toronto has played 37.5 "clutch" minutes by the definition of NBA Advanced Stats (the margin within five points in the last five minutes of regulation, or in overtime). The Raptors have given more of those minutes to players signed midseason or on two-way contracts (a combined 46) than leading scorers Barnes and Barrett (43).

Meanwhile, the Jazz have limited Markkanen to four of their 25 clutch minutes since the All-Star break. Notably, Utah has been careful about playing Markkanen against other lottery-bound teams. The games Markkanen has missed this season have come against opponents with a combined .450 winning percentage, compared with .545 for the teams he has faced.

Starting Jazz center Walker Kessler has continued to sit out games, including Utah's loss to Toronto. That game was listed as a "DNP-CD" -- did not play, coach's decision -- after Kessler was previously listed as out due to rest in six games, including the one missed by Markkanen that resulted in a fine.

"[Fans] know we're going through rebuilding seasons, but I do think that our players are playing the games in a way that our fans still enjoy watching,"Jazz coach Will Hardy said earlier this month. "Our young players play really hard and we're imperfect, and some nights are sloppy and ugly and all those things, but I do think the competitive spirit, the energy of the youth of these guys is something that our fans enjoy watching.

"For our team, it's been a point of pride that I don't care who's on the court, I want our fans to know that our team is going to play with a ton of passion and joy."

Wasch said the NBA will continue to monitor player availability, particularly qualifying stars like Markkanen, but expressed no issue with teams leaving starters on the bench in key moments.

"We are not in the business of policing rotations in that way," Wasch said. "For the league to step in and say that a team chose to play one player over another player and that was the wrong decision, I think that's a bit of a slippery slope. ...

"And oh, by the way, some of those [younger] guys actually go win the game."

Flagg seen as a generational prospect worth tanking for

Entering the college season, there was still some question whether Flagg was the best prospect eligible for the 2025 draft. The Rutgers' duo of Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper was in the mix, along with Baylor guard VJ Edgecombe, who had starred internationally with the Bahamas in FIBA Olympic qualifiers last summer.

With Flagg in contention for National Player of the Year despite being one of the youngest players in college basketball, that debate has been settled. NBA scouts on teams racing to the bottom are instead pondering just how high Flagg ranks among recent No. 1 overall prospects.

"What makes him unique is the combination of the fact that, even by freshman standards, he's young," a scout said of Flagg, who won't even turn 19 until December. "And, in spite of that, he's been productive in every phase of the game against elite competition."

The consensus among analytics experts at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference earlier this month placed Flagg around the 85th percentile of No. 1 picks -- that is, better than 85% of those players selected.

Since 2005, the first draft with the NBA's current age limit, Flagg's 5.2 projected wins above replacement player (WARP) rank third among top picks, behind only Anthony Davis (2012) and fellow star Duke prospect Zion Williamson (2019). Like Flagg, both Davis and Williamson inspired intense races to the bottom of the standings.

Any stats-based projection will heavily emphasize a prospect's production relative to his age, and that's where Flagg stands out. His main competition for National Player of the Year, Auburn fifth-year senior forward Johni Broome, is more than four years older.

As the scout noted, most players Flagg's age are still finishing their prep careers as seniors in high school. Because Flagg reclassified in summer 2023, going into his last year at Montverde Academy in Florida, he would be the second-youngest player at the time they were drafted No. 1, behind only LeBron James. (And younger, in fact, than high school draftees Kwame Brown and Dwight Howard.)

Although Flagg's age and production don't guarantee he'll join the list of No. 1 picks who have produced championships, they explain why teams are chasing new ways to ensure they can draft him.

What solutions are being discussed around the league?

The NBA has been willing to make changes, but they usually take time to manifest.

What could be the next anti-tanking measure? We canvassed sources around the league for ideas as to what, if anything, could be done to improve the closing months of the season:

1. Flatten the lottery odds even more

The NBA draft used to have a lottery where all nonplayoff teams had the same chance to move up. That ended after the Orlando Magic won the top spot in 1992 and 1993. In the latter season, when No. 1 pick Shaquille O'Neal was a rookie, the Magic had the best record of any lottery team at 41-41. One executive suggested a further flattening of the odds from where they're currently are following the 2019 adjustment.

This comes with a clear downside: give too many teams the same odds at the top pick, a few might weigh whether pushing for the postseason is better than a chance at a franchise-altering prospect.

2. Count wins instead of losses after the All-Star break

Under the current system, teams at the bottom are rewarded for losing as many games as possible during the final two months of the season. What if that concept was turned on its head?

By making a portion of the second-half schedule (post-All-Star break or the final 20 games, for example) work in the opposite fashion -- the most wins during that stretch would determine the lottery odds -- it would obviously create a system where bad teams would have every reason to play hard and play their stars.

Take last season for an example. The Spurs had an 11-44 record (.200) before the All-Star break, but then went 11-16 (.407) afterward. By adding their pre-break wins and post-break losses (and vice versa), the Spurs' "lottery record" of 27-55 -- despite an actual mark of 22-60 -- would get rewarded with better lottery odds for remaining competitive during that final stretch.

"It would incentivize everyone to compete to the end," an executive said.

Here is how last season's lottery standings would have changed if this rule had been in place for games after the All-Star break:

The big winners are two teams that pushed hard to make the postseason (Houston and Golden State) and the Spurs, who were competitive through the end of the regular season. The Raptors and Jazz, meanwhile, each lost a ton of games in the closing weeks of the regular season in attempts to keep their protected first-round picks. (Utah succeeded, Toronto did not.)

That leads us to another proposal from coaches, scouts and executives:

3. Rework (or remove) pick protections

The most flagrant cases of tanking are from teams hoping to keep their lottery draft pick. The Dallas Mavericks tanking their final couple of games in 2023 to keep a top-10 protected pick is the most egregious recent example. (The decision to tank cost the Mavericks $750,000 but netted them starting center Dereck Lively II, who was a key contributor to the team that reached the 2024 Finals.) This season, 76ers hope to keep their top-6 protected selection for June after injuries derailed their campaign.

Multiple sources told ESPN a simple way to reduce tanking would be removing mid-lottery pick protections. Either have the pick be top-4 protected -- meaning the team jumps in the lottery -- lottery protected, or unprotected. That tweak would remove the most egregious examples of tanking.

"One of the goals of lottery reform was really to smooth out outcomes within the lottery so that no team would look at it and say there's a significant benefit to me being the third lottery team as opposed to the fourth, or the eighth lottery team as opposed to the ninth," Wasch said. "That's something we had focused heavily on.

"Of course, the pick-protection issue kind of cut the other way on that. If a team has a top-10-protected pick, it actually matters a lot whether they finish with the 10th-worst record or the 11th-worst record. That is a dynamic that we're seeing."

4. Have lottery odds determined by how those teams fare against each other

An idea floated by an executive was to have the 14 lottery teams ordered by how they fare against one another during the regular season. Teams have a reason to compete in every game, and especially against these other lottery-bound teams.

This one, though, comes with an obvious problem: The teams on the fringes of the play-in games, and in it, could potentially be pushed to play for a top pick in the draft instead of competing for the playoffs.

5. Enforce the current rules

Some people around the league believe the current system is fine. Bad teams exist, and fighting for lottery positioning is just part of the sport.

But with the onset of teams trying to sink to the bottom of the standings, some sources argued that cutting down on the influx of teams sitting healthy players would fix many of the current complaints, rather than tweaking the system any further. "Let's start there," one executive said.

Ultimately, getting a top pick remains the surest path to landing a franchise-changing player. But the NBA has already tried to curtail tanking, from flattening the lottery odds to creating the play-in games to give more teams reason to play through the end of the regular season. "I think there have been a lot of positive trends that we've seen," Wasch said.

But Wasch also indicated that tanking, and ways to address it, could come up with the NBA's competition committee.

"Coming off this season, it would be reasonable to expect that we would re-engage with our competition committee," Wasch said. "And see if there's anything they might want to explore to tackle the issue."

WASHINGTON -- Washington Nationals TV play-by-play announcer Bob Carpenter is saying, "See you later!" to the club after this season, his 20th in the role with the club's local broadcaster, the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network.

Carpenter announced his plans at the start of MASN's telecast Monday from Nationals Park, where the team was scheduled to host the Baltimore Orioles in an exhibition finale. Washington is set to open the regular season Thursday against the visiting Philadelphia Phillies.

Three weeks ago, Major League Baseball announced that the Nationals and Orioles ended a legal fight over television rights, allowing Washington to get out of its MASN deal and find a new broadcast partner for 2026.

Carpenter joined MASN in 2006, the year after the former Montreal Expos moved to Washington and began playing as the Nationals.

His signature home run call is a pause-filled "See ... you ... later!"

The 72-year-old announcer previously was on TV for the St. Louis Cardinals and also has worked for the Mets, Twins and Rangers in the majors, plus University of Oklahoma basketball telecasts, in addition to ESPN and other networks.

He has been nominated for six Emmys.

Carpenter also is known for creating his version of a baseball scorebook.

TAMPA -- The New York Yankees have signed left-hander Ryan Yarbrough to a one-year contract, the team announced on Monday.

The deal is worth $2 million guaranteed with another $250,000 in performance bonuses, a source told ESPN.

To make room on the 40-man roster, the Yankees placed right-hander Luis Gil on the 60-day injured list with a right lat strain.

Yarbrough, 33, had been with the Toronto Blue Jays in spring training before opting out of his contract Sunday because he was informed that he wouldn't make the team's Opening Day roster. Yarbrough said the agreement came together between Sunday night and Monday morning. He said he chose the Yankees over other clubs.

The Yankees have not yet announced the signing. They must create a spot on their 40-man roster to make room for Yarbrough.

Yarbrough said the plan is for him to pitch for the Yankees in their final exhibition game Tuesday against the Miami Marlins. Yarbrough last pitched Tuesday for the Blue Jays. He threw 42 pitches across 1 innings.

"At this point, ready to rock and roll," said Yarbrough, who reported to the Yankees' clubhouse Monday morning.

Yarbrough spent his first five-plus seasons with the Tampa Bay Rays and has since bounced around; the Yankees are his fifth team since the start of the 2023 season. Yarbrough, who is entering his eighth major-league season, said he was not yet informed how he will be used, though the Yankees are expected to use him as a reliever.

Yarbrough has made 68 starts in his career, but he has been mostly a long reliever in the majors. Last season, he compiled a 3.19 ERA over 98 innings in 44 games, all in relief, for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Blue Jays as he continued to flummox hitters with an arsenal that didn't include high-octane velocity from a three-quarters arm slot.

Yarbrough's fastball averaged 86.2 mph last season, which ranked third-slowest among qualified pitchers. His 16.3% strikeout rate ranked in the sixth percentile.

"I think it's just a weird look, something they're not used to seeing," Yarbrough said, "Especially from my slot and from the left side. And then I think the biggest thing has just been keeping guys off balance, multiple pitches, being able to throw them at any time. Just keeping guys guessing up there. Attacking guys and staying ahead."

LOS ANGELES -- Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts is still dealing with an illness and his return remains uncertain.

Betts, who missed the Dodgers' first two games of the regular season at the Tokyo Dome last week and was sent back to Los Angeles to continue recovering, was a late scratch for Sunday's exhibition win against the Los Angeles Angels.

Betts told reporters he hasn't been able to keep down solid food without vomiting for two weeks and has lost about 15 pounds during that time.

"I mean, I feel great," Betts told reporters in Los Angeles. "Like, my body feels great. I've been able to work out. I've been able to do pretty much everything but eat, which is strange. So, the symptoms have kind of gone away, I just have to figure out how to get my stomach to kind of calm down."

The perennial All-Star said so far, all his blood work and other routine testing have been normal. Betts won't play in Monday's exhibition at Angel Stadium, and he's a long shot for the Dodgers' opening day game on American soil on Thursday against the Detroit Tigers.

"It's just hard to fathom not eating and going to play a game," Betts said. "So it looks like I'm just going to be light for a little bit. Maybe I play uphill a little bit for the beginning of the season. But no, I just want to play, man. I'm tired of sitting, tired of throwing up, tired of doing all this. I really just want to play."

Betts is making the transition to full-time shortstop after playing most of his career in right field and second base. The 2018 AL MVP hit .289 with 19 homers and 75 RBIs last season, helping the Dodgers win the World Series.

Novak Djokovic is through to the last 16 of the Miami Open after a 6-1 7-6 (7-1) win over a spirited Camilo Ugo Carabelli.

The Serb, seeded fourth, looked on course for a comfortable victory against the Argentine world number 65 when he took the first set in just 34 minutes and broke early in the second.

But lucky loser Ugo Carabelli began to show more resistance, breaking back immediately and forcing the tie-break.

But the 24-time Grand Slam champion showed his class and comfortably took the tie-break 7-1 to seal victory.

The win moves Djokovic onto 411 wins in ATP Masters 1000 events, moving him ahead of Rafael Nadal and into top spot on the all-time list.

The 37-year-old, seeking a seventh Miami Open title, will play Lorenzo Musetti in the last 16 after the Italian beat Canada's Felix Auger-Aliassime 4-6 6-2 6-3.

Elsewhere, Greece's Stefanos Tsitsipas, seeded ninth, is out after a 7-6 (7-4) 6-3 defeat to American 24th seed Sebastian Korda, while Bulgaria's Grigor Dimitrov beat Russian Karen Khachanov 6-7 (7-3) 6-4 7-5.

Britain's Emma Raducanu is through to the last 16 of the Miami Open after opponent McCartney Kessler retired injured at the start of the second set.

Raducanu had been utterly dominant and needed just 30 minutes to take the first set 6-1.

An early break in the second set saw the 22-year-old race into a 3-0 lead, before American Kessler, 25, was forced to retire because of a back issue.

"I could tell something was up and it is hard to stay focused when your opponent is struggling," Raducanu said in her courtside interview. "I wish her a speedy recovery because she has been playing so well.

"I am happy with my focus, it is such a big part of tennis. I haven't been at this stage of a tournament for a while.

"I returned really well and put pressure on the serve, imposing myself from the first game."

Raducanu came into the tournament with five defeats from six matches since the Australian Open and last week ended her partnership with coach Vladimir Platenik after only two weeks.

"I think it's a different approach this week," she added. "I think five minutes before the match I was playing spike ball with the team. It helps me to relax.

"When I'm playing my best tennis I'm really expressing my personality. I'd say I'm a bit of a free spirit so I don't need restrictions or being told what to do.

"I think when I'm being really authentic, that's when I'm playing my best."

Raducanu will play Amanda Anisimova in the next round after the American defeated Mirra Andreeva 7-6 (7-5) 2-6 6-3.

The 17-year-old Russian has risen to sixth in the world after winning the previous two WTA 1,000 events at Indian Wells and Dubai.

Bath: De Glanville; McConnochie, Ojomoh, Redpath, Muir; Russell, Spencer (c); Obano, Dunn, Du Toit; Roux, Ewels, Bayliss, Pepper, Barbeary.

Replacements: Annett, Van Wyk, Stuart, Hill, Underhill, Schreuder, Butt, Coetzee.

Gloucester: Barton; Wade, Harris, S. Atkinson, Llewellyn; Carreras, Williams; Knight, Blake, Fasogbon; Clarke, Thomas, Clement, Ludlow (c), Ackermann.

Replacements: Singleton, Rapava-Ruskin, Gotovtsev, Jordan, Taylor, Englefield, Atkinson, Hathaway.

Sin bin: Christian Wade (52 mins)

Referee: Sara Cox