University of Minnesota senior guard Rachel Banham scored 60 points in a double-overtime 112-106 win at Northwestern on Sunday, matching women’s college basketball’s Division 1 single-game record set by Cindy Brown of Long Beach State in 1987. Banham was 19 for 32 from the field, 8 for 15 from 3-point range, and 14 for 16 from the free throw line . . . Nicole Boudreau scored a season-high 26 points, while Kelly Hughes chipped in 17 points and 10 rebounds, but it was not enough as Boston College (13-10, 1-9 ACC) lost, 86-78, to North Carolina (13-12, 3-7) at Conte Forum . . . Princeton scored the first 8 points of overtime and then made enough foul shots to hold off Harvard, 92-83, at Lavietes Pavilion. AnnMarie Healy and Shilpa Tummala scored 21 points each for the Crimson (8-10, 3-2 Ivy). Michelle Miller led the Tigers (14-4, 3-1) with 28 points . . . Samantha DeFreese became the 19th player in Northeastern women’s basketball history to hit 1,000 career points when she scored 22 in the Huskies’ 61-52 loss to James Madison (16-5, 9-1 CAA) at Cabot Center. DeFreese needed only 16 to reach the milestone. She also grabbed 10 rebounds for her 16th career double-double for the Huskies (8-14, 3-8) . . . In men’s basketball, Shonn Miller and Rodney Purvis led five Connecticut players in double figures with 16 points each and the host Huskies (17-6, 7-3 American Athletic) took an 85-67 victory over East Carolina (10-13, 2-8) for their third consecutive win and sixth in seven games.
Tennis
Gasquet defends his title
Top-seeded Richard Gasquet overcame abdominal pains to defend his Open Sud de France title with a 7-5, 6-4 win against Paul-Henri Mathieu. Dropping serve twice in the first set, Gasquet rallied from 3-0 down by breaking Mathieu’s serve three times on the way to a 13th career title and third at the Montpellier event . . . Victor Estrella Burgos rallied from a set down to beat Thomaz Bellucci, 4-6, 7-6 (7-5), 6-2, to retain his title on clay in the Ecuador Open in Quito . . . Belinda Bencic and Martina Hingis sent Switzerland to the Fed Cup semifinals in April with a 3-2 win in Leipzig, Germany, defeating Andrea Petkovic and Anna-Lena Groenefeld, 6-3, 6-2, in the deciding doubles match. The Swiss will play the Czech Republic, which beat Romania, 3-2, in Bucharest . . . Caroline Garcia beat Camila Giorgi, 6-3, 6-4, as France clinched a spot in the Fed Cup semifinals with a 4-1 win over Italy in Marseille. The French will play the Netherlands, which upset last year’s finalist Russia when Kiki Bertens beat Svetlana Kuznetsova, 6-1, 6-4, to give the Dutch an unassailable 3-0 lead in Moscow . . . Venus Williams clinched victory for the US Fed Cup team against Poland in the Group II first round, advancing her team to the World Group playoff in April. Williams routed Poland’s No. 2 player, Magda Linette, 6-1,6-2, in Hawaii.
Winter Sports
Gut closes gap with Vonn
Lara Gut won her first Super-G race of the Alpine skiing season to cut into Lindsey Vonn’s overall World Cup lead. Vonn captured Saturday’s downhill. Gut is now 87 points behind Vonn in the race for the overall title . . . Former overall World Cup champion Carlo Janka won the super-G men’s test event for the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics in Jeongseon, South Korea, by a large margin, clocking in at 1 minute, 26.16 seconds for a 0.82-second advantage over Christof Innerhofer . . . Maximilian Arndt won a four-man bobsled World Cup race in St. Moritz, Switzerland, to take the European title . . . In Oslo, Therese Johaug beat Ingvild Flugstad Oestberg by 3:46.5 for the biggest margin of victory ever in a women’s World Cup cross-country skiing event . . . Speedskaters Marianne St-Gelais and Charles Hamelin won 500-meter races at a short track World Cup meet in Dresden, Germany.
MiSCELLANY
Lynch hints at retirement
Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch may have given indication he’s retiring. Lynch sent a tweet during the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl with a pair of cleats hanging from a power line, along with an emoji depicting a peace sign. Lynch’s tweet was immediately followed by statements of thanks and congratulations from teammates including Richard Sherman and Bruce Irvin. Messages left for Lynch’s representatives were not immediately returned . . . Los Angeles Clippers guard Austin Rivers is expected to miss up to six weeks with a broken left hand . . . Barcelona tied its all-time record of 28 soccer games without a loss, defeating last-place Levante, 2-0, in a La Liga match in Madrid.
