In college basketball, the scene of an African-American coach cutting down nets to celebrate a national title is nothing new.

New Georgetown men's basketball coach Ed Cooley is planning to balance embracing the legacy of John Thompson Jr. while making changes with his new team.

Jared Butler scored 17 points to lead five Baylor players in double figures, and the Bears roared to a 78-59 victory over Houston in the Final Four.

Georgetown is the Big East champion again, with the greatest Hoya of them all leading the way. Now he is the first person in Big East history to be the most outstanding player on a Big East Tournament champion and coach a team to a Big East Tournament title. 8 seed to win the Big East Tournament and the lowest seed since Connecticut did it as a No. That seems unlikely for these Hoyas, who entered the Big East Tournament with a losing record. UP NEXTThe Hoyas likely give the Big East four teams in the NCAA Tournament along with Creighton, Villanova and UConn.

Not long after came a seismic jolt, the helicopter crash of Kobe Bryant in the fog-shrouded California hills that reverberated across sports and across continents. Deep into the year, a bookend to Bryant, Diego Maradona died from a heart attack in Argentina weeks after brain surgery, the waves of grief rippling across soccer. The losses, of course, came against a backdrop of a pandemic, its number of fatalities rolled out daily on TV screens. Niekro won 318 games and pitched until he was 48, his knuckleball dancing and mystifying batters across the decades. Kurt Thomas in 1978 became the first U.S. male gymnast to win a world title but lost an Olympic shot in 1980 because of the boycott.

The world also said goodbye to U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a lion of the civil rights movement who died in July. Other former political figures who died this year include Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, New York Mayor David Dinkins, Arizona Gov. Here is a roll call of some influential figures who died in 2020 (cause of death cited for younger people, if available):___JANUARY___David Stern, 77. The guitarist who supplied the scratching, seething sound that fueled the highly influential British punk band Gang of Four. He fused African rhythms with funk to become one of the most influential musicians in world dance music.

After the Supreme Court's decision, the Census Bureau said field operations would end on Thursday. At issue was a request by the Trump administration that the Supreme Court suspend a lower court's order extending the 2020 census through the end of October following delays caused by the pandemic. “A census count delayed is justice denied," Liccardo said. The Census Bureau says it has counted 99.9% of households nationwide, though some regions of the country such as parts of Mississippi and hurricane-battered Louisiana fall well below that. “That said, the Supreme Court’s order will result in irreversible damage to the 2020 Census," Clarke said.

But while the world is sad over Thompson’s passing, he at least had 19 more years of living after nearly dying during the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. But Rome’s producer, Danny Schwartz, asked that he fly out a day later to accommodate the show’s schedule. Thompson told Schwartz that wouldn’t work and he was unhappy at the suggestion, but after Schwartz insisted, Thompson changed his flight. Ten years after that day, Thompson went on Rome’s radio show to reminisce, starting with a message Thompson’s assistant relayed to him. “Let me tell you something, if you’re ever in Washington, D.C., you look me up,” Thompson told Schwartz.

FILE - In this April 2, 1984, file photo, Georgetown head coach John Thompson, left, gives a happy pat to the most valuable player Patrick Ewing, after Georgetown defeated Houston 84-75 in Seattle. He was a great coach but an even better person and his legacy is everlasting. Patrick Ewing, former Georgetown star and current coach. Coach Thompson, saved my life ... continuously motivating and molding me into the man that I am today. former Georgetown star Alonzo Mourning. He was a great coach, but he was also a role model for a lot of coaches white coaches and Black coaches. ___Last night, we lost a towering figure in coach John Thompson, whose shoulders many of us stand on.

Concerns about the virus's spread caused the Census Bureau to suspend field operations in March and April and push back deadlines, including for wrapping up the head count from the end of July to the end of October. Before Dillingham's testimony, four former Census Bureau directors who had served under Democratic and Republican presidents testified, as did a law professor. All the former Census Bureau directors said yes, and Eastman said no. Gomez said Trump's order last week showed what the administration's true purpose was in trying to obtain citizenship information. Thompson, who served as a director of the Census Bureau in the Obama administration, said he worried the president's order would reduce participation in the census by people in hard-to-count communities, including noncitizens and immigrants.

In response, many Texas universities are becoming test-optional through 2021, waiving the traditional requirement for test scores to gain admission. Baylor University, Texas Tech University, Texas Christian University, Southern Methodist University and St. Edward's University have all temporarily scrapped their testing requirements through 2021. And some universities that were doubting the value of test scores even before the pandemic see an opportunity to change the admissions process altogether. In the absence of scores, school performance will disproportionately count towards an application, he said. My goal is to get him to college, however that happens.Disclosure: Baylor University, Texas Tech University, Texas Christian University, Southern Methodist University, the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors.