Trinidad Loses Big Before Fight

Welterweight champion Felix Trinidad lost 18 pounds to reach the division limit of 147 pounds for tonight’s International Boxing Federation fight against Hugo Pineda in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Trinidad (34-0) was up to 164 pounds, according to his doctor, Roberto Munoz Zayas. He will go into this bout at 146 and is favored to remain undefeated and set up a big-money September date with Oscar De La Hoya.

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A new deal between promoter Don King and a major casino operator, Park Place Entertainment Corp., means the heavyweight rematch between Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis will take place in Las Vegas, most likely on Nov. 13. Park Place owns the Las Vegas Hilton, Flamingo Hilton and Bally’s in Las Vegas and has also agreed to buy Caesars Palace. Park Place officials say the fight will either be at one of those properties or be held as a joint venture with another Las Vegas resort, presumably the new Mandalay Bay. . . . Dave Hilton Jr. scored a third-round knockout of Stephane Ouellet on Friday to retain the Canadian middleweight title at Montreal.

College Basketball

Hoping to stave off a bidding war for one of college basketball’s top young coaches, Florida agreed to a five-year contract with Billy Donovan worth $700,000 per season after he led the Gators to the round of 16.

The deal will replace the $500,000-per-year extension Donovan signed last year. It will make him the third-highest paid coach in the Southeastern Conference, behind Tubby Smith of Kentucky and Nolan Richardson of Arkansas.

Donovan, who turns 34 Sunday, said he had been contacted by other schools last season, but had no intention of leaving regardless of his contract status.

The University of Michigan is investigating allegations that a booster had dealings with men’s basketball players after being banned from associating with the team in 1997, the Detroit Free Press reported.

Provost Nancy Cantor said a four-member faculty committee would review athletic department reforms begun in 1997 as a result of an NCAA-mandated probe of Ed Martin’s contacts with former players and coaches. The school also will review safeguards implemented by the athletic department.

Furman women’s Coach Sherry Carter has filed a federal complaint, saying she should be paid as much as men’s Coach Larry Davis.

Neither Carter nor Furman officials would discuss specifics of coaches’ salaries or contract lengths--the school is private so such information need not be disclosed--but Carter referred to “a big pay discrepancy.”

Jurisprudence

A grand jury in Texas indicted a man arrested at the apartment where former Dallas Cowboy Mark Tuinei went to get heroin the night he died from an overdose.

Keelan Charles Murray, 20, was arrested May 6 at the apartment on charges of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver.

But Mike Carnes, an assistant district attorney, said Murray is not a suspect in Tuinei’s death.

Tennis

Zuzana Lesenarova of the University of San Diego outlasted Marissa Irvin of Stanford, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-3), to win the NCAA women’s championship at Gainesville, Fla. In doubles, Amanda Augustus and Amy Jensen of California won their second consecutive title by defeating Vanessa Castellano and Marissa Catlin of Georgia, 4-6, 7-5, 6-1.

Unseeded Eric Drew of Washington made it an all-American semifinals at the NCAA men’s championships for the first time since 1989. Drew eliminated the last foreigner in the field in Athens, Ga., Texas Christian sophomore Esteban Carril of Spain, 6-4, 6-4.

Joining Drew in today’s semifinals are top-seeded James Blake of Harvard, second-seeded Jeff Morrison of Florida, and Stanford’s four-time All-American, Ryan Wolters. Drew will face Morrison.

Miscellany

Juan Montoya, the 23-year-old Colombian rookie who is aiming for a record-tying fourth consecutive CART victory today in the Motorola 300, will start from the pole for the second consecutive race.

Montoya drove his Honda-powered Target-Chip Ganassi Racing Reynard around the 1.27-mile Gateway International Raceway oval at Madison, Ill., at 182.778 mph, beating runner-up Paul Tracy’s 182.195.

Stephen Woods, an agent who harshly criticized the union during the NBA lockout, will remain decertified, an arbitrator ruled. Woods, who represented Kevin Willis of the Toronto Raptors, is now barred from negotiating player contracts, but said he plans to appeal.

An arbitration panel upheld the three-month suspension imposed on American swimmer Gary Hall Jr. last year for a positive marijuana test. Hall, winner of two relay gold medals at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, allegedly tested positive for marijuana at a meet in Phoenix on May 15, 1998. Hall appealed, but a three-man panel upheld the ban.

The Cincinnati Bengals have lost backup running back Brandon Bennett for the 1999 season because of a torn ligament in his left knee, suffered during a workout Thursday near his home in South Carolina.