STEUBENVILLE, Ohio – Across a remarkable couple of hours Thursday, JoAnn Gibb, a slight but tough-minded forensic specialist for the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, sat on a witness stand in a small, third-floor courtroom here and read the contents of hundreds of teenage text messages – explicit and vulgar, at times celebratory and at other moments desperate and pathetically sad.

They were culled from the cell phones of 17 kids, seized in the investigation that led to two Steubenville High School football players being charged with the August 2012 rape of a 16-year-old West Virginia girl after a night of partying. It is one of the largest cell phone culls in the state's history, and the contents of those messages intensified the trial in this football-mad, aging steel town.

"It was an extraordinary level of evidence and detail," said Katie Hanna of the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Assault and a veteran observer of sexual assault cases. "I've never

Read More »from Steubenville suspect's text messages paint disturbing picture of night of alleged rape

STEUBENVILLE, Ohio – It's the photo that sent shock waves around the globe and put an unmovable spotlight on the Steubenville rape scandal, the trial of which opened Wednesday with graphic testimony flying inside and snow squalls swirling outside here in this old steel town on the Ohio River.

In the photo, a slumped and seemingly passed out 16-year-old West Virginia girl is being carried, her wrists grasped by Steubenville Big Red football player Trent Mays, her ankles by teammate Ma'lik Richmond.

A photo taken of the two suspects holding the 16-year-old girl was shown during testimony. (Anonymous)Her head is sagged back, her hair dragging on the floor. She looks, if not dead, then incapacitated. With the context of the two boys having been charged with her rape, the natural reaction of anyone of any measure of decency was horror.

This looked like an innocent girl being hauled off for … well.

Even months after the photo hit the Internet courtesy of an affiliate of the hacking group Anonymous, it remains a visceral cornerstone of this hotly debated and closely followed case

Read More »from Opening day of Steubenville rape trial focuses on key photo of girl

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Last Sunday, four days before his NFL pro day and the final chance to impress scouts and general managers that he's worth millions of dollars, Denard Robinson found a couple hours to slip in something of a calf workout. He did it by securing a spot on the aisle of the sixth row of Section 126 at the University of Michigan's Crisler Center, a.k.a. the Maize Rage student cheering section.

There he spent two hours hopping up and down, clapping in rhythm, and taking part in a series of choreographed cheers and dances to lift the Wolverine basketball team past Indiana. (Alas it didn't work: The Hoosiers won 72-71).

Robinson said he planned on studying later that night, most likely for a challenging physics class, one of five courses he's taking this semester so he can earn a degree in sociology.

"I'm graduating on May 4," he said matter-of-factly during halftime of Sunday's basketball game, before proudly flashing his trademark smile.

In short, Shoelace

Read More »from Denard Robinson works toward his Michigan degree as he preps for NFL draft

STEUBENVILLE, Ohio – "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" was wrapping up on the television inside the blue-collar, downtown bar here, which actually is a description of just about every bar in this old, sagging steel town on the Ohio River.

Steubenville football is among the winningest programs in the country. (Yahoo! Sports)

Conversation centered on mill layoffs, the cost of COBRA health insurance and the relative attractiveness of Alicia Keys – she performed on "Ellen" – until the local 5 o'clock news came on with the latest updates in the trial set to begin Wednesday of two Steubenville High football players, each charged with the August 2012 rape of a passed-out West Virginia girl.

It wasn't long before almost everyone in the place was arguing with each other. Loudly.

The case of Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond, both 16, continues to polarize this town of almost 20,000 in eastern Ohio. From the crassness of the charges to the videotape of the alleged incident, to the influence of the legendary local football program ("Roll, Red, Roll") on the investigation,

Read More »from Steubenville rape trial divides Ohio town

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Jordan Morgan's potential game-winning tip bounced and bounced and bounced and bounced and bounced and finally rolled off the rim, the final gasp of this gloriously intense test of wills with the improbable final score: Indiana 72, Michigan 71. Tom Crean directs his team from the bench during the second half. (AP)

The Hoosiers had a stunning, final-minute, come-from-behind victory for their first outright Big Ten title in two decades. Michigan, meanwhile, was left with a crushing loss – a five-point lead gone across the last 38 seconds – and a stadium full of shrieks of disbelief after Morgan's miss.

Right in the middle of it all was Tom Crean. He's the one who rebuilt the Indiana program. The coach who connects and teaches his guys as well as anyone in college hoops. The sideline force of nature who, there is no denying, tends to rub a lot of people not wearing Crimson and Cream the wrong way.

That would soon include Michigan assistant Jeff Meyer, once a part of Kelvin Sampson's IU staff – a group Crean has routinely

Read More »from Under Tom Crean's frenetic guidance, Hoosiers keep cool heads to win Big Ten title outright

The split of the Big East Conference should soon become official. Seven Catholic schools will get the name, history and contract to stage the conference's basketball tournament in Madison Square Garden. The schools that also play football, of which only Connecticut is a founding member, will get some $100 million and a new league, perhaps named the America 12.

Couple that with this year's departure of mainstays Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Notre Dame (to the ACC) and next year of geographic fit Rutgers (to the Big Ten), and there are plenty of deep sighs and sure to come sepia-toned essays about how next week is the last of the true Big East basketball tournaments, lots of Louie (Carnesecca) and Big John (Thompson) kind of stuff.

Everyone will say how it'll never be the same.

And it won't, of course.

Except, in a different way, it could be just as good.

The Big East might no longer be the top basketball conference in the country – it'll lack some powerhouse programs

Read More »from Death of Big East tournament? Not so fast

In the recent annals of college sports it is virtually unheard of for a coach to be hired by the same school twice. You come, you leave (regardless of the reason) and you never return.

Tim Floyd has coached at UTEP the past three seasons. (AP)While there's an occasional second run for an aging legend – Kansas State rehiring football legend Bill Snyder – it's extremely rare.

This would seem even more rare for a coach who resigned in the middle of a wild NCAA investigation citing a lack of support from his administration.

Yet two weeks ago in Phoenix there was Tim Floyd, who coached the University of Southern California basketball team from 2005-09, meeting with the school's current athletic director, Pat Haden, and athletic department CFO Steve Lopes about a potential return engagement in Los Angeles.

They talked for three hours and, according to an industry source, left open the possibility of meeting again when the season is over.

It was an interview that, from the outside, was as unexpected as it was telling about Floyd's

Read More »from USC's talks with Tim Floyd about possible return speaks to coach's role (or lack of) in NCAA probe

In something out of central casting for a network sit com – NASCAR's version of Beauty and the Beast – Danica Patrick's crew chief, Tony Gibson, is a decidedly blue collar Southerner who prefers hog-hunting, gun-shooting and admiring camouflage when he's not trying to help a refined, fashion-conscious, occasional swimsuit model win stock car races.

"It's an odd marriage," acknowledged Gibson, the accomplished 48-year-old veteran of NASCAR garages. "My wife said, 'You're an old-school, red-neck, been-around kind-of racer. And now you get this fancy girl.' But in the end, Danica wants to win. And so do I."

"What we do for fun is different," Patrick, 30 and in her first full-time season on NASCAR's elite Sprint Cup circuit, added. "But our personalities are very similar. We both are very serious [about racing] but we like to have a lot of fun."

Other than a shared love of fast cars and a desire for the winner's circle, each admits there isn't much in common.

Patrick hails

Read More »from The odd couple: Danica Patrick and Tony Gibson