Lubbock Mayor Apologizes to Coach

A Texas mayor apologized to Hampton University’s women’s Coach Patricia Bibbs, her husband, Ezell, and assistant Vanetta Kelso, who were detained for four hours Monday and questioned by police about a con game.

“My mission today in coming here is to help remove any suspicion, any doubt about the guilt of any of the coaches and/or husbands of the Hampton staff and also to do anything that I possibly could to help preserve the dignity of Hampton University,” said Windy Sitton, mayor of Lubbock, Texas.

The Bibbs and Kelso were questioned by police Monday in Lubbock, where Hampton was preparing to play No. 12 Texas Tech. Police said a shopper had identified Kelso as the woman who tried to con her in a store parking lot that evening.

Security tapes at the store cleared the three of wrongdoing, police said.

*

Vasco Evtimov of North Carolina will have to sit out 13 more games because he played for a French team as a means of trying out for the French national team. . . . Massachusetts player Monty Mack was cleared by a Northampton judge of an accusation he attacked a woman in a campus dining hall fracas. A woman had complained to the court that Mack punched her and pushed her during a larger scuffle involving others on Nov. 1. But some students testified Friday that Mack appeared to join in to break up the fight. . . . Miami of Ohio point guard Rob Mestas will sit out four to six weeks because of a knee injury.