The Bay Area’s three men’s NIT teams, Stanford, Santa Clara and USF, were all knocked out of the tournament on Sunday in home losses by a combined eight points.

Stanford fell into a double-digit hole in the first half at Maples Pavilion and, after battling back to take a lead, fell to Kent State 77-75.

The Cardinal’s top performers were seniors Maxime Raynaud (22 points, 10 rebounds, four blocks) and Jaylen Blakes (23 points, five assists), who played their final games for Stanford.

Blakes led a first-half rally to cut a 12-point deficit to one, but Kent State responded and stretched its lead to 43-34 at the half. With 15 minutes left, Stanford took its first lead since the game’s opening minutes, but Kent State again hit back with a run led by Jalen Sullinger, who finished with 34 points.

Stanford finishes its first season under Kyle Smith at 21-14, its most wins in a decade.

Meanwhile, Carlos Stewart Jr.’s 3-pointer to tie the game in the final seconds rimmed out, and Santa Clara fell at home to Alabama-Birmingham 88-84 after leading by 17 points early in the second half.

Christoph Tilly and Elijah Mahi led a 15-5 SCU run out of the halftime break that pushed the lead to 59-42 before the Blazers came storming back, making nine of 10 shot attempts over four minutes to tighten the game to 65-63. A bit later, an 8-1 run gave the Blazers the lead for good.

Stewart led the Broncos (21-13) with 19 points as Christoph Tilly added 17 points and 12 rebounds.

San Francisco (25-10) lost to Loyola-Chicago 77-76 in a game that featured 14 lead changes and eight ties, mostly down the stretch. Malik Thomas scored a career-high 36 for the top-seeded Dons, including making all 17 of his free-throw attempts, but Loyola’s Jayden Dawson nearly matched him with 35 points of his own.

USF trailed by 13 points in the first half before ending the half on a 17-8 run to close within 36-32 at the break. Thomas scored 24 points after halftime, including a 3 from the top of the key with 1:17 left to give the Dons a one-point lead, but Dawson made a layup to retake the lead with just under a minute left.

Thomas’ reverse layup in the final seconds missed, and Jason Rivera-Torres’ putback attempt was after the buzzer sounded.

— Michael Nowels

Sacramento State to hire ex-Kings star Bibby >> Former Sacramento Kings star Mike Bibby will be hired as the basketball coach at Sacramento State, a source confirmed to The Associated Press.

Bibby won an NCAA title as a player at Arizona in 1997 and then starred in the NBA for 14 seasons, with his biggest success coming in seven seasons with the Kings.

Bibby retired in 2012 and has experience coaching in high school in Arizona but has not coached above that level.

The Hornets went 7-25 this season under interim coach Michael Czepil, who was promoted last spring after David Patrick left to take a job as associate head coach at LSU.

Texas hires Xavier’s Miller as coach >> Texas hired Xavier’s Sean Miller to take over the Longhorns basketball program, turning to the coach who had just knocked them out of the NCAA Tournament a few days earlier in an attempt to spark a program that struggled in its first season in the Southeastern Conference.

The move comes just a day after Texas fired Rodney Terry, and less than a week after Miller and Xavier knocked the Longhorns out of March Madness in a First Four game. Xavier was beaten in the next round by Illinois.

For the 56-year-old Miller, it’s the second time he is leaving Xavier, a Catholic school in Cincinnati that plays in the Big East, for a bigger program.

He coached the Musketeers from 2004-09 before leaving for Arizona. He then returned to Xavier in 2022 after he was fired after being ensnared in a 2017 FBI investigation into corruption in college basketball.

Medved leaves Colorado State for Minnesota >> Minnesota hired Colorado State’s Niko Medved, agreeing to a six-year contract with the Twin Cities-area native and former student manager for the Gophers who had the Rams within one basket of the Sweet 16.

Medved was the front-runner from the start to succeed Ben Johnson, who was fired on March 13 after going 56-71 overall and 22-57 in the Big Ten in four years on the job.

Women’s basketball

Phillips out as SJSU coach >> San Jose State is searching for a new women’s basketball coach as the school announced April Phillips would not return to the role.

Phillips headed up the Spartans’ program for three seasons, amassing a 23-71 record, including a 10-22 season this winter, which saw just three wins in 18 Mountain West games. San Jose State finished 10th in the 11-team league and lost to Fresno State in the first round of the conference tournament earlier this month. SJSU was just 8-46 in conference play over Phillips’ tenure.

The Spartans will begin an “immediate national search” for Phillips’ replacement to lead a program that has never made an NCAA Tournament.

NBA

Ex-Laker Davis returns to Mavs’ lineup >> Anthony Davis returned to the Mavericks after a six-week injury absence. He played 27 minutes while on a minutes restriction against Brooklyn. He scored 12 points with six rebounds, three assists, a steal and a block in a 120-101 win.

Davis hasn’t played — and had been listed as out — since injuring his groin in his Dallas debut on Feb. 8. That was about a week after the seismic trade that sent Luka Doncic to Los Angeles and enraged many Mavericks fans.