Isiah Thomas urged C. Vivian Stringer to "get the facts" about what he said during a sexual harassment trial Friday, after the Rutgers' women's coach was quoted as saying his comments during a deposition were "disgusting."

A portion of the deposition was shown in court during the trial, in which a jury ruled that Thomas and Madison Square Garden sexually harassed former team employee Anucha Browne Sanders.

Rutgers women's basketball coach C. Vivian Stringer didn't like it when Don Imus and his producer called her players rude and racially insensitive names. She didn't like hearing Isiah Thomas defending the use of similar language, either.

"It's disgusting. You know, I turned the dog-gone set off. I thought 'has he lost his mind,' honestly," Stringer told ESPN's Doris Burke of her reaction to comments Thomas made in a videotaped deposition for a sexual harassment lawsuit against him and the owners of the Knicks.

Practice sessions likely will be more challenging than some games when Michigan State's season starts in a few weeks.

The Spartans are so talented and deep that the starters can expect all they can handle from the second-stringers.
 
They might have the most complete roster since coach Tom Izzo took over the program and built it into a national power, winning the 2000 national championship, four Big Ten titles and reaching four Final Fours.

North Carolina leads four teams from the 2007 Elite Eight in the preseason ESPN/USA Today coaches' poll, released Friday morning.

The No. 1 Tar Heels edged UCLA and Memphis for the top spot, despite the fact that the Bruins had two more first-place votes (12) than the Tar Heels (10). North Carolina had 739 points in the poll, followed by No. 2 UCLA with 734 and No. 3 Memphis with 731 points and 8 first-place votes.

Fellow Elite Eight participants Kansas and Georgetown complete the top five.

Louisville, Tennessee, Michigan State, Indiana and Washington State rounded out the top 10.

Pepperdine will be without its top returning scorer this season as guard Kingsley Costain was dismissed from the school Friday for a violation of university policy.

As a junior last season, Costain averaged 11.5 points per game for the Waves. The 5-7 Toronto native currently is fifth on Pepperdine's all-time list with 146 3-pointers.

Brook Lopez, a 7-foot sophomore who was already academically ineligible for the start of Stanford's season, has been suspended indefinitely for a violation of team rules.

The suspension went into effect Thursday. Lopez will not be able to practice or participate in any team activities while serving the suspension, coach Trent Johnson said.

Jim Boeheim has known for a while who he wanted to succeed him as head coach of the Syracuse Orange when he decides to retire, and now it's official that assistant coach Mike Hopkins is the man.

Hopkins said Tuesday that he had reached an agreement on a plan to succeed the Hall of Fame coach.

Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson will live with his penalties.

Some Hoosiers' fans and alumni may not be so inclined to accept them.

Sampson's second brush with NCAA violations in 17 months has created a stir. There are those who contend his actions have harmed the university's reputation so badly that taking away his $500,000 raise and a future scholarship do not go far enough.

USC coach Tim Floyd said he met with guards O.J. Mayo and Daniel Hackett over the weekend after multiple sources told the Daily News Mayo punched Hackett during a pickup game last month.

"I brought O.J. into my office and asked him about it, and I also spoke to Daniel," Floyd said. "They said it wasn't true."

Hackett said Mayo accidentally threw an elbow after a rebound. Hackett broke his jaw during the incident, and it will be wired shut for at least four more weeks.

Although the incident occurred Sept. 28, Floyd has been out of town for several weeks and did not speak to Mayo about it until Sunday. Several sources, including a member of the basketball team, said Mayo punched Hackett during the game. No coaches were present.

"Yeah, he punched him," a player said. "They changed the story for the media."

Hackett and Mayo denied any punches were thrown.

"No, I didn't punch him," Mayo said.

Said Hackett, "It was a hard elbow."

Telephone calls to basketball recruits have landed Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson in trouble again and will cost the team a scholarship and Sampson a scheduled $500,000 raise.

Indiana announced Sunday that the school's basketball staff exceeded NCAA limits on calls to recruits during the past year -- a period during which Sampson was prohibited from off-campus recruiting because of excessive recruiting calls when he was coaching at Oklahoma.

The new violations happened on about 10 occasions when an IU assistant coach started three-way calls that connected Sampson into an ongoing recruiting conversation with recruits, their parents or coaches, school officials said.

"We determined that the impermissible calls occurred because some staff members did not fully comply with the sanctions they were operating under," IU athletic director Rick Greenspan said in a school statement. "We are addressing the problem, and we are voluntarily extending these limitations on recruiting for another season to ensure that the full effect of NCAA restrictions or recruiting is realized."