Rose leaves Cavaliers for ‘personal matter’

November 25, 2017 at 12:00a.m.

CLEVELAND

Injured point guard Derrick Rose has been excused from the Cavaliers to handle a personal matter.

A team spokesman said Friday that Rose, who has been sidelined with an ankle injury, has not been with the team since Wednesday and there is no timetable on when he’ll return.

ESPN is reporting that the former league MVP is “re-evaluating his future in the NBA.”

Rose has played in just seven games this season and has been slowed by a left ankle injury sustained on Oct. 20 in Milwaukee. He’s averaging 14.3 points per game in his first season with Cleveland.

Rose’s career has been slowed by knee injuries. He sat out the 2012-13 season and played only 10 games the following year due to injury.

He signed a one-year, $2.1 million contract this summer with Cleveland to be the team’s backup point guard but was rushed into a starting role as Isaiah Thomas is out with a hip injury.

Arkansas fires Bielema moments after loss

FAYETTEVILLE, ARK.

Arkansas has fired coach Bret Bielema after five disappointing seasons, moments after a season-ending 48-45 loss to Missouri on Friday.

The loss left Arkansas with a 4-8 record, capping only the second losing season of Bielema’s 12-year career. It also left him with a 29-34 record in his five seasons with the Razorbacks, including 11-29 in the SEC.

It was a shockingly poor performance from a coach who led Wisconsin to three Rose Bowl appearances before being hired at Arkansas from Wisconsin after the 2012 season.

Interim athletic director Julie Cromer Peoples informed Bielema of his firing moments after Friday’s loss.

More gold stripped from Russians

Steven Holcomb remains a winner of three Olympic medals. He will have held only one of them.

Another round of International Olympic Committee sanctions against Russian athletes who were found to have participated in doping at the 2014 Sochi Games came down Friday, headlined by bobsledder Aleksandr Zubkov being stripped of the gold medals he won in two- and four-man events.

Holcomb, who died in May, will posthumously move up one spot from bronze to silver in each of those races, once the medals are formally reallocated.

“It’s going to be weird for his family and it’s going to be weird for us,” U.S. veteran push athlete Chris Fogt, who was part of Holcomb’s four-man team in Sochi, said after the IOC decision Friday. “I’d like to think that we would be all together when it happens. And when we get those medals, we’re not going to have him there.”

A half-dozen U.S. bobsled and skeleton athletes are going to benefit from the Russian medalist disqualifications.

Skeleton racer Matt Antoine and bobsledders Holcomb, Fogt, Steven Langton and Curt Tomasevicz all left Sochi with bronzes and will be getting silvers.

Skeleton racer Katie Uhlaender will be getting her first medal, with her finish upgraded from fourth to bronze. And combined, they’ll be collecting a total of $45,000 in additional bonus money from the U.S. Olympic Committee, which rewards medal performances.

Carrick sidelined due to irregular heartbeat

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND

Manchester United midfielder Michael Carrick says he hasn’t played since September because of an irregular heartbeat.

Carrick says he underwent tests after “feeling strange” during a League Cup match against Burton Albion on Sept 20. He then had a procedure called a cardiac ablation.

In a statement released Friday, Carrick says “I feel fine now. I’d like to reassure everyone that I’m healthy and back training hard with the team.”

The game against Burton was the 36-year-old Carrick’s only appearance this season.

Associated Press