ANNAPOLIS , Md. — Kaylene Smikle scored 16 points and made a couple key baskets down the stretch to help No. 10 Maryland hold off George Mason 66-56 in a matchup of unbeatens Saturday at the Navy Classic. The Terrapins (7-0) led by just two when Smikle stole the ball and made a layup while being fouled. The free throw pushed the lead to 58-53. Then a putback by Smikle put Maryland up by seven. The Terps won despite shooting 13 of 26 on free throws. George Mason (6-1) trailed by 10 at halftime before outscoring Maryland 18-7 in the third quarter. The Patriots' final lead was 49-48 in the fourth after a jumper by Kennedy Harris. Harris led George Mason with 26 points. Maryland is off to its best start since winning its first 12 games in 2018-19. George Mason: The Patriots have lost all nine meetings with Maryland, but it's been more competitive of late. The Terps won 86-77 last year, and this game was more competitive than the final score suggested. Maryland: After a down season by their standards, the Terps are off to a nice start, but the free-throw problems in this game nearly cost them. With the score 55-53, George Mason had a chance to tie, but the Patriots never really recovered after Smikle swiped the ball from Harris and went the other way for a three-point play with 3:08 remaining. Although Maryland was awful at the line, at least the Terps got there. George Mason was only 3 of 8 from the stripe, and the Terps held the Patriots to 32% shooting from the field. George Mason faces Navy in this event Sunday. Maryland takes on Toledo. Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here. AP women’s college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball
The cryptocurrency XRP Token XRP/USD from Ripple is soaring in price over the last week with a new filing for an XRP exchange-traded fund adding to optimism for the crypto. What Happened: Asset manager WisdomTree filed to establish a trust entity as part of a step towards launching a potential XRP ETF. The move follows other companies like Bitwise that have filed to launch cryptocurrency ETFs. With Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs already approved, cryptocurrency experts see ETFs based on other top 10 cryptos by market capitalization like Solana, Dogecoin and XRP as the next to be approved. Ripple Labs, the issuer of XRP , has been involved in several regulatory issues with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) previously, which could impact the approval of the ETFs and has also impacted the price of XRP in the past. With SEC Chairman Gary Gensler set to resign in January and a new pro-crypto White House administration potentially taking shape, some see past cases against cryptocurrency companies quietly going away. In July 2023, Ripple received a favorable ruling in a case dating to 2020. U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres determined the sale of the XRP token by Ripple is not an offer of "investment contracts." The ruling came after Ripple spent a significant amount of money fighting claims that XRP was a security. Torres said that some assets can serve as an investment contract, including digital tokens. In the case of the XRP token, it is not a security, according to the ruling. Alongside the ruling, the judge found Ripple's sales of XRP to institutions to be in violation of the Securities Act. This ruling could become a key item to watch for the cryptocurrency sector moving forward. The case between the SEC and Ripple remains active, with the SEC appealing and having until January to submit additional filings. Here's a look back at an investment in the XRP token when the lawsuit by the SEC was announced. Read Also: If You Invested $100 In Dogecoin When The Meme Coin Launched, Here’s How Much You’d Have Today If You Invested $1,000 in XRP: The XRP token hit a low of $0.41055 on Dec. 22, 2020, the day the charges were announced. XRP would fall to a low of $0.1748 on Dec. 29, 2020, hitting new lows for the year. On that day, an investor could have purchased 5,720.82 XRP with $1,000. The $1,000 investment would be worth $8,409.61 today, representing a gain of 741%. The return of the hypothetical investment in XRP has outperformed the broader stock market. The same $1,000 invested in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF, which tracks the S&P 500 Index, would be worth $1,594.15 today, representing a gain of 59.4%. XRP has traded between $0.3911 to $1.62 over the last year, with the yearly high hit in the last week. The 36% weekly gain for XRP is the second largest among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, trailing only Cardano (+39%). While XRP has seen a sharp rise in the last week, the cryptocurrency remains well off of its all-time high of $3.84, which was set in January 2018. Read Next: If You Invested $1,000 In Solana When Sam Bankman-Fried Was Arrested, Here’s How Much You’d Have Today This article was previously published by Benzinga and has been updated. © 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
A role reversal doomed the No. 22 Xavier Musketeers in their only loss of the season, against Michigan at the Fort Myers Tip-Off on Wednesday. Normally a team that avoids committing turnovers and pressures its opponent into making them, Xavier (6-1) will try to recapture its early-season winning form when it hosts South Carolina State on Sunday in Cincinnati. Through their six wins, the Musketeers had just 58 turnovers while forcing 82 by their opponents. But against the Wolverines, they lost the turnover battle 19-10 and the game 78-53. The Musketeers committed 14 turnovers in the first half and fell behind 41-30. Xavier head coach Sean Miller credited his team for typically playing an up-tempo style while avoiding mistakes, while also acknowledging that the turnover bug really bit them against the Wolverines. "We lost to a really good team; no shame in that," Miller said. "We, on top of that, didn't play well." "And that (avoiding turnovers) is something you (usually) do well? That's going to be hard to overcome against a quality team like Michigan." Leading scorer Ryan Conwell (17.6 points per game) gave the Musketeers a boost with 19 points. Zach Freemantle, second on the team at 15.4 ppg, added 14 points and 10 rebounds. Problematically, however, they also contributed to the turnover problem with three apiece. "We didn't play well enough to win the game," Miller said. "The game got out of hand. It's not like our guys quit. Their depth just continued to wear on us." The Musketeers also get 11 points and a team-high 4.4 assists per game from Dayvion McKnight. The guard had just one turnover against Michigan, but he also made just one of his eight shot attempts. Xavier may have an opportunity get right in the turnover area against the Bulldogs (4-4), who are No. 207 in the NCAA in assist-to-turnover ratio at 1.11. South Carolina State is fresh off an 82-53 road loss to Marshall on Wednesday, in a game in which turnovers weren't a huge problem. But assists and made shots were hard to come by for the Bulldogs. Leading scorer Drayton Jones (12.0 ppg) again paced his team in points with 10 vs. Marshall, but the Bulldogs as a team managed just six assists and shot terribly at the 3-point (18.8 percent) and the free-throw (47.1 percent) lines. Jones is also the team's leading rebounder with 5.1 a game, but no Bulldogs player is averaging more than two assists. It's all part of the learning process for coach Erik Martin, whose first team went 5-26 in 2022-23. The Bulldogs improved to 14-18 last season, including 9-5 in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. "The only way you can grow sometimes is by failure or by struggling," Martin said this offseason. "You have to fail in order to learn how to deal with failure and move on and become the person you're supposed to be." --Field Level Media
CONWAY, S.C. (AP) — Kobe Knox's 13 points helped South Florida defeat Portland 74-68 on Thursday. Knox also had six rebounds for the Bulls (3-2). Brandon Stroud added 11 points while shooting 4 for 12 (1 for 3 from 3-point range) and 2 of 4 from the free-throw line while he also had six rebounds. Jamille Reynolds shot 3 of 6 from the field and 4 of 5 from the free-throw line to finish with 10 points. The Pilots (2-3) were led in scoring by Max Mackinnon, who finished with 17 points, eight rebounds and five assists. Vincent Delano added 14 points for Portland. A.Rapp also had 11 points and eight rebounds. South Florida went into the half ahead of Portland 38-33. Knox scored eight second-half points. The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar .Gus Malzahn is leaving his post as UCF's head coach to reunite with Florida State coach Mike Norvell as the Seminoles' offensive coordinator, ESPN reported on Saturday. Norvell, who served as a graduate assistant under Malzahn at Tulsa in 2007-08, relinquished his role as FSU's primary playcaller amid a staff shakeup this season. Florida State, 1-7 in the Athletic Coast Conference this season, entered Saturday's season finale against Florida at 2-9 and ranked No. 131 in the nation in total offense. UCF also endured a tough 2024 season, going 4-8 after losing eight of its last nine games. During Malzahn's four-year tenure, the Knights went 28-24, including 5-13 in the Big 12 Conference the last two seasons. Malzahn, 59, is 105-62 in 13 seasons as a college head coach, highlighted by a 68-35 mark in eight seasons at Auburn -- which included a BCS title game appearance in 2013. He served as offensive coordinator and playcaller when the Tigers won the national title in 2010. Malzahn will be tasked with revitalizing a Florida State offense that helped produce a 13-1 campaign in 2023, when the Seminoles were denied a spot in the College Football Playoff. Over the last three seasons at UCF, his rushing attack has been in the Top 10 in the nation. In his 19 seasons as a college head coach or offensive coordinator, Malzahn's teams have averaged 447.7 yards per game, and three of his teams eclipsed 7,000 yards in a season. --Field Level MediaSam Prendergast and Jodie Barrett at Leinster - there is magic in the air following opening Champions Cup win
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Utah Hockey Club walks to arena after bus gets stuck in Toronto trafficWEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday threatened 100% tariffs against a bloc of nine nations if they act to undermine the U.S. dollar. His threat was directed at countries in the so-called BRIC alliance, which consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Turkey, Azerbaijan and Malaysia have applied to become members and several other countries have expressed interest in joining. While the U.S. dollar is by far the most-used currency in global business and has survived past challenges to its preeminence, members of the alliance and other developing nations say they are fed up with America’s . Trump, in a Truth Social post, said: “We require a commitment from these Countries that they will neither create a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty U.S. Dollar or, they will face 100% Tariffs, and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful U.S. Economy.” At a summit of BRIC nations in October, and described it as a “big mistake.” “It’s not us who refuse to use the dollar,” Putin said at the time. “But if they don’t let us work, what can we do? We are forced to search for alternatives.” Russia has specifically pushed for the creation of a new payment system that would offer an alternative to the global bank messaging network, SWIFT, and allow Moscow to dodge Western sanctions and trade with partners. Trump said there is “no chance” BRIC will replace the U.S. dollar in global trade and any country that tries to make that happen “should wave goodbye to America.” Fatima Hussein, The Associated Press