Jimmer Fredette and Nolan Smith top AP All-America voting

Senior guards Jimmer Fredette of Brigham Young and Nolan Smith of Duke were the leading vote-getters on the Associated Press All-America team announced Monday.

Freshman Jared Sullinger of Ohio State, junior guard Kemba Walker of Connecticut and senior forward JuJuan Johnson of Purdue also are on the team.

Fredette, the nation’s leading scorer at 28.5 points a game, received all but one of 65 votes from the national media panel that selects the top 25. Smith, who led the Blue Devils to a No. 1 ranking for 10 weeks this season, got 61 votes.

Fredette is BYU’s first All-American since Danny Ainge in 1981.

Arizona’s Derrick Williams and San Diego State’s Kawhi Leonard made the second team. USC’s Nikola Vucevic and Long Beach State’s Casper Ware were honorable mention.

Georgia Tech picked Dayton Coach Brian Gregory to rebuild its beleaguered basketball program, which fell on hard times after reaching the national championship game in 2004. Gregory replaces Paul Hewitt, who was fired shortly after his fourth losing season in six years.

The 44-year-old Gregory coached at Dayton for eight seasons, posting a record of 172-94. He guided the Flyers to a pair of NCAA appearances, reaching the second round in 2009 with an upset of West Virginia. Dayton also won the NIT in 2010, beating North Carolina in the championship game.

Bradley hired Kent State’s Geno Ford as coach. The 36-year-old Ford led Kent State to its second consecutive Mid-American Conference regular-season title this season. The Flashes finished 25-12 and lost in the quarterfinals of the NIT.

FOOTBALL

NFL players are defending their decision to disband the union, saying employers cannot force workers to unionize, and dissolution is “not akin to turning off a light switch.”

The players made the statements Monday in a court document filed in response to the NFL’s assertion decertification was “a sham.”

Lawyers for Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees and six other NFL players are asking a federal judge to halt a lockout imposed by owners, saying an injunction is needed to “stop the irreparable harm being inflicted today.” A hearing on the issue is scheduled for April 6 in St. Paul, Minn.

Owners locked out the players on March 11 shortly after players filed an antitrust suit and injunction request. Four former players, including Hall of Fame defensive end Carl Eller, sued the NFL on Monday, hoping to join the antitrust suit

A New York judge says the NFL must be limited in how much money it can recover when injured NFL players receive state workers’ compensation awards. Judge Paul Crotty wrote in a decision Friday that the NFL sometimes wants to recover more money than it is entitled to receive to offset its salary and benefits expenses for injured players.

The NFL Players Assn. says the ruling protects a significant benefit for former players.

ETC.

Top-ranked Caroline Wozniacki lost to Germany’s Andrea Petkovic, 7-5, 3-6, 6-3, in the fourth round at the Sony Ericsson Open at Key Biscayne, Fla.

Petkovic, seeded 21st, hit her first ace to close the opening set and another on match point.

Wozniacki, who won her 14th career title a week ago at Indian Wells, failed to convert a set point leading 5-4 in the opening set.

No. 16-seeded Maria Sharapova scored her first win over a top-five player in more than three years, beating No. 4 Samantha Stosur, 6-4, 6-1.

Two-time champion Roger Federer reached the fourth round by beating Juan Monaco, 7-6 (4), 6-4. Federer, who slipped to third in the rankings last week, hit 31 winners and had only 20 unforced errors.

Three-time WNBA MVP Sheryl Swoopes, 40 is returning to the league, signing a deal with the Tulsa Shock. Swoopes averaged 15.8 points, 5.0 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 2.2 steals per game in her career and was part of the league’s inaugural season in 1997.

A co-defendant in the Michael Vick dogfighting case was sent back to prison for 11 months for violating terms of his supervised release, including talking to the NFL star at a Virginia Beach nightclub last summer and then lying to his probation officer about it. U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson told Quanis Phillips he had “failed miserably” during the past year, citing a list of transgressions: failing to report run-ins with police, failing a drug test, refusing to attend a mandatory mental health appointment and being convicted of reckless driving and driving on a suspended license.