Sports briefs
Clemson gets nod as ACC favorite
Clemson is the preseason favorite to win a seventh straight Atlantic Coast Conference football championship.
The Tigers were picked on 125 of 147 votes from media members attending the ACC Kickoff preseason media days last week. They were selected on all but one ballot to win the Atlantic Division race.
Dabo Swinney’s Tigers last year became the first team in any power conference to win six straight league football championship games.
North Carolina waschosen to win the Coastal Division and earned 16 votes to win the league title, marking the first time the Tar Heels were named to win the division since 2016 after claiming the 2015 Coastal title.
In the Atlantic, North Carolina State was picked second behind Clemson, followed by Boston College, Florida State, Wake Forest, Louisville and Syracuse.
In the Coastal, Miami was second behind UNC, followed by Virginia Tech, Pitt, Virginia, Georgia Tech and Duke. While Clemson has been a fixture atop the Atlantic, the Coastal has been unpredictable, with each of the seven schools winning a crown from 2013 to 2019 before the league played a nondivisional format in 2020 because of the pandemic.
WVU adds basketball recruit
West Virginia has signed forward James Okonkwo for the 2021-22 basketball season.
Coach Bob Huggins announced the signing of Okonkwo on Monday.
The 6-8, 230-pound Okonkwo is a native of Maidenhead, England. He saw limited action last season at Beckley Prep in West Virginia because of a broken finger and COVID-19. He is playing AAU basketball this summer for the All-Ohio Red team.
In the NBA
The Memphis Grizzlies have agreed to trade center Jonas Valanciunas to the New Orleans Pelicans in exchange for center Steven Adams, guard Eric Bledsoe and an exchange of first-round choices in this week’s draft, a person familiar with the situation said.
The trade, first reported by ESPN, sends New Orleans’ 10th and 40th overall draft choices to Memphis for the Grizzlies’ 17th and 51st overall picks this year.
Memphis also will receive a protected 2022 first-round choice from New Orleans.