NPR Sports

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Responding to outrage from around the nation after videotape of men's basketball coach Mike Rice assaulting his players and spewing homophobic slurs at them was aired on ESPN, New Jersey's Rutgers University fired Rice at mid-morning Wednesday.

The 44-year-old "visibly distraught" Rice, WABC in New York reports, told reporters earlier in the day that:

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Some other news - Jay-Z is expanding his business empire. Music is not enough; his newest venture is sports management services. NPR's Wendy Kaufman reports.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DIAMONDS FROM SIERRA LEONE")

JAY-Z: (Rapping) I'm not a businessman. I'm a business, man.

It being the start of baseball season, that means we've been inundated by predictions — who'll win the divisions and the pennants and the World Series? We know two things on this subject. In every sport, at the start of the season, the experts are bound and determined to make these long-range predictions. And second, they are invariably wrong.

Italian Paolo di Canio's appointment as coach of the struggling Sunderland Football Club has reignited an old controversy over his comment in 2005 that "I am a fascist, not a racist" in describing his political beliefs at the time. After his appointment as Sunderland coach was announced Tuesday, he said it was "stupid and ridiculous" for that statement to be raised again after his many attempts to clarify it. DiCanio had an excellent record as a player. Though he had a fiery temperament, he was also honored for sportsmanship.

The Connecticut women cruised into the Division I basketball championship's Final Four Monday night with an 83-53 win over Kentucky. In the evening's other matchup, California squeaked by Georgia, 65-62.

The Final Four's other two slots will be filled Tuesday night. Notre Dame faces Duke, while Tennessee takes on Louisville. (Check the brackets here. The games are being broadcast by ESPN.)

Fans are returning to Major League Baseball parks for a new season. Let's take a break from the intensity of college basketball's March Madness, and talk about the beginning of the long and winding Major League Baseball season.

The Elite 8 in the women's college basketball tournament will have a different look than expected. Top-seed Baylor was knocked out by Louisville on Sunday.

In Sunday night's NCAA men's basketball tournament, Louisville guard Kevin Ware suffered a gruesome injury. Coach Rick Pitino rallied the team and led them to a victory over Duke. When accidents like this happen, coaches are tasked with rallying team members and keeping them focused.

I was out of the house, as it happens, for most of the first half of yesterday's Louisville-Duke game, and when I got home and looked at Twitter, before I turned on the TV, there was a huge stack of stuff to read, and the first thing that caught my attention about the game was this.