North Carolina

Federal authorities in North Carolina on Monday arrested seven men who they said had trained with high-powered weapons as part of a terrorist conspiracy to wage an Islamic holy war overseas. The men -- including a father who, authorities said, trained in jihad camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and his two sons -- sought to provide material support to terrorists and to murder, kidnap, maim and injure people overseas, according to a seven-count federal indictment.

A onetime Army paratrooper was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison for killing a fellow soldier and wounding nearly 20 others in a sniper attack at this North Carolina base more than a decade ago. The sentence had been expected since Sgt. William J. Kreutzer, 39, of Clinton, Md., pleaded guilty earlier this month to one charge of premeditated murder and 18 other charges to avoid a possible death sentence.

Two days after Alex Rodriguez, we get Dick Vitale on steroids for North Carolina at Duke. So that makes it Psycho V (Vitale), vs. Psycho T (North Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough) vs. Psycho Fans (Cameron Crazies). Tonight's game represents the closest ESPN can get to bringing you an NCAA championship game without getting sued by CBS. It's no all-points bulletin to suggest college basketball, from November through February, has become diluted and overexposed.

The gap between No. 1 Connecticut and the rest of women's basketball is apparently a lot bigger than anyone thought. Renee Montgomery scored 21 points to help the Huskies rout No. 2 North Carolina, 88-58, on Monday night. Maya Moore added 19 points and 12 rebounds for Connecticut (18-0). The Huskies continually beat the Tar Heels' trapping defense for easy baskets and had a 53-32 edge on the boards against a team whose coach is obsessed with rebounding.

Tyrese Rice and Boston College put an end to all that talk of whether No. 1 North Carolina could go unbeaten. Rice scored 25 points in his second consecutive big game against the Tar Heels to help the Eagles stun North Carolina, 85-78, on Sunday, probably ending its run atop the early season polls.

Teams The favorites: North Carolina (28-4) -- No one in Chapel Hill is going to chant "We're No. 3!" after the Tar Heels earned the third No. 1 seeding behind Louisville and Pittsburgh. Expectations were so high some people thought Roy Williams' team might go undefeated this year. That notion ended when, after a 13-0 start, the Tar Heels lost their first two conference games.

Put this in your tobacco pipe: North Carolina didn't become the first team since Indiana in 1976 to go unbeaten. The Tar Heels weren't the greatest team of all time. The Tar Heels did sweep Duke in Atlantic Coast Conference play but let Duke win the ACC tournament and now enter the big dance with their most important ballerina, Ty Lawson, nursing a sore toe. Is this any way to win the national title? Maybe. Love this upper bracket. Look for No. 9 Butler in a close win over No.

Blake Griffin had just made the play of the game, and perhaps this NCAA tournament, an extraterrestrial -- he reached into the heavens -- one-handed dunk of an Austin Johnson lob pass. But Ty Lawson countered in less than eight seconds, slicing through the defense for a runner in the lane. That second-half sequence was Sunday's NCAA South Regional final in a capsule: The brilliance of Oklahoma's Griffin against the precision of North Carolina's Tar Heels.

Upon further review, amateur basketball in Los Angeles may not have completely dried up. The Pacific 10 Conference might even want to re-hang its shingle while our local coaches, Ben Howland and Tim Floyd -- especially Floyd -- should feel better about their upcoming performance reviews. Huh?

Want a vinyl 45 rpm single to go with that pulled pork sandwich? How about a dram of Cheerwine while you're weighing a 180-gram investment opportunity? Territory Barbecue & Records, scheduled to open May 15, plans to offer Southern-style barbecue next door to stacks of specially cured new and used vinyl. It's the creation of ex-Bad Wizard frontman Curtis Brown and former Tee Pee Records co-executive Tony Presedo.