Sports briefs for August 1, 2005

Monday, Aug. 1, 2005 | 9:28 a.m.

NIT sues NCAA over season finale

The NCAA will be in court today for the start of an antitrust trial that strikes at the heart of one of the nation's most popular sports events, the Division I men's basketball tournament.

In U.S. District Court in New York, the National Invitation Tournament is challenging the NCAA's requirement that teams attend its championships if invited. The NIT, a once-prominent postseason basketball tournament now greatly overshadowed by the concurrent NCAA event, contends teams should have a choice. That could open the postseason to entrepreneurs or prompt the top schools to organize themselves, as in football.

Even a less extreme outcome could devalue the NCAA's cash cow, a tournament that accounts for at least 90 percent of its revenue. Should the NCAA be found to have intentionally harmed the NIT through an illegal monopoly, there's also the possibility of a large financial judgment, which is tripled in antitrust cases.

"The potential here is significant," said Gary Roberts, a sports law expert from Tulane University. "The NCAA is at some risk."

The NCAA says member schools were within their legal rights to create the rule at issue, and that it wasn't intended to harm the NIT. Further, it says consumers benefit from a single national championship and that the statute of limitations has run out anyway. The rule was formed in 1982.

Roberts said: "It appears to the average person as a silly issue because nobody wants to play in the NIT. But that wasn't always the case. The NIT's argument is that this is the way it is because of that rule."

Americans drafted in record numbers

Eight U.S.-born players were selected in the first round of Saturday's NHL draft, surpassing the previous record of seven in the first round in 1986 and 2003.

The selections of Bobby Ryan to Anaheim second overall and Indianapolis native Jack Johnson (third overall by the Carolina Hurricanes) marked only the second time in the history of the draft that two American-born players were selected in the top three.

But the trend didn't stop in the first round. Sixty-one of the 229 players selected on Saturday were Americans, marking the highest percentage of Americans (26.7 percent) ever taken in an NHL draft.

By comparison, just 16 American-born players were taken a decade ago, a percentage of just 14.6.

The Red Wings wanted to know by this past weekend whether the 40-year-old Yzerman planned to accept the offer, but both sides agreed to talk today after having trouble getting in touch Sunday.

-- Sun wire services