NCAA places Baylor on probation

The NCAA put Baylor on three years of probation Wednesday after an investigation turned up hundreds of impermissible telephone calls and text messages sent to prep recruits by coaches and assistants on the basketball teams.

The violations were considered to be major infractions, and they were announced less than a week after the Bears women’s team won the national championship with the first 40-0 season in NCAA history.

Still, it could have been much worse for Baylor. All of the penalties were proposed by the school and accepted by the NCAA after a review of nearly 900,000 phone and text message records found that 738 texts and 528 calls were against the rules.

The NCAA said men’s Coach Scott Drew failed to monitor his program and will be suspended for two Big 12 Conference games next season, in addition to recruiting restrictions. Women’s Coach Kim Mulkey also received recruiting restrictions.

Besides Baylor’s win over Notre Dame for the women’s title, Drew’s team won a school-record 30 games and reached the NCAA regional finals.

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UCLA’s Brendan Lane, a seldom-used junior forward, will transfer to Pepperdine and be immediately eligible next season because he is scheduled to graduate at the end of the spring quarter in June. Lane averaged 1.6 points and 1.8 rebounds in 19 games last season.

—Ben Bolch

ETC.

Woods is taking three-week break

Tiger Woods is taking a three-week break before returning to golf in the Wells Fargo Championship at Charlotte, N.C.

Woods announced that he will resume an up-and-down season May 3-6 at Quail Hollow, where he won in 2007. He also committed to the Players Championship the following week. A year ago, he injured his left Achilles’ tendon and withdrew after nine holes at TPC Sawgrass. Woods missed the next three months.

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The Montreal Canadiens are interested in talking to Luc Robitaille, the Kings’ president of business operations, and Ron Hextall, the Kings’ assistant general manager, about the general manager job that opened when Pierre Gauthier was dismissed. However, any potential interviews of Robitaille and Hextall would not take place before the Kings’ season ends.

—Helene Elliott

Serena Williams is on the U.S. Fed Cup roster for matches against Ukraine on April 21-22, but her sister Venus is not.

Venus recently returned to action after being sidelined for more than six months. She learned last year that she had an autoimmune disease, Sjogren’s syndrome.

Joining Serena, a 13-time Grand Slam champion, on the team picked by captain Mary Joe Fernandez were Christina McHale, Sloane Stephens and Liezel Huber.

The best-of-five-match series will be on clay at Kharkiv, Ukraine.

The country that wins will be promoted into the main Fed Cup group in 2013 and be able to compete for the title.

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Third-seeded Jelena Jankovic of Serbia defeated Laura Robson of Britain, 6-4, 7-6 (8), to reach the second round of the e-Boks Open at Copenhagen.

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Two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Al Unser Jr. pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated and racing on a New Mexico freeway.

The retired racer entered the plea a day before he was set to go to trial on aggravated DWI, drag racing and reckless driving charges. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail, but a judge deferred that in favor of 364 days of supervised probation.

Unser was arrested in September after he was accused of racing another car in his sport utility vehicle and driving more than 100 mph near Albuquerque. Authorities say Unser smelled of alcohol, his speech was slurred and his blood-alcohol content was twice the legal limit of 0.08.

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The Chicago Bears agreed to a one-year contract extension with Lance Briggs, keeping the Pro Bowl linebacker through the 2014 season.

Financial terms were not released.