Colleges

Texas Southern got its first NCAA men’s basketball tournament victory on Wednesday night, a 64-46 rout of North Carolina Central in a First Four game at Dayton, Ohio.

Demontrae Jefferson, a 5-foot-7 guard, scored 25 points and grabbed eight rebounds to lift No. 16 seed Texas Southern (16-19), which became the first team with a losing record to win a tournament game. The Tigers face No. 1 seed Xavier on Friday.

N.C. Central (19-16) was led by Raasean Davis with 19 points.

 

SKIING

WORLD CUP: Sofia Goggia and Lindsey Vonn each had something to celebrate when their season-long rivalry in downhill concluded.

Goggia followed up her Olympic downhill gold by claiming the season-long World Cup title in the discipline, while Vonn narrowly beat Goggia to win the race at the finals in Are, Sweden, and record career victory No. 82.

Goggia ended up three points ahead of Vonn in the standings.

In a shortened race that was more like a sprint, Vonn clocked 55.65 seconds to finish 0.06 ahead of Goggia.

Vonn is within four wins of Ingemar Stenmark’s World Cup record of 86.

• On the men’s side, Beat Feuz finished ahead of Olympic champion Aksel Lund Svindal to take his first career discipline title.

Austrian teammates Vincent Kriechmayr and Matthias Mayer tied for the win, finishing 0.04 seconds ahead of Feuz and 0.12 ahead of Svindal.

GOLF

U.S. OPEN: Ernie Els and Jim Furyk received special exemptions to play in this year’s tournament at Shinnecock Hills on Long Island, New York.

Els is a two-time U.S. Open champion who would have faced qualifying because his five-year exemption from winning the 2012 British Open ran out last year.

Furyk won the 2003 U.S. Open at Olympia Fields.

TENNIS

BNP PARIBAS OPEN: Roger Federer defeated Jeremy Chardy of France 7-5, 6-4 in the fourth round at Indian Wells, California, and at 15-0 the world’s top-ranked men’s player is off to his best start since 2006.

• On the women’s side, top-ranked Simona Halep outlasted Petra Martic of Croatia 6-4, 6-7 (7), 6-3 and improved to 18-1 in matches this year.

Late Tuesday night, Venus Williams defeated Anastasija Sevastova of Latvia 7-6 (8), 6-4 to reach a Thursday quarterfinal against 27th-seeded Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain.

AUTO RACING

NASCAR: Lowe announced it will end its sponsorship of seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson at the end of the season and leave the series.

Johnson made his Cup debut in 2001 with Lowe’s and he’s never had any other company as his primary sponsor.