Raven Johnson's college career will end where it started, with a national title on the line

PHOENIX (AP) — Raven Johnson was a bright-eyed freshman when South Carolina won the national championship in 2022. While veterans Aliyah Boston and Zia Cooke had competed on the big stage, Johnson had no grasp of the magnitude of the moment.

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"I was looking at it as a trip, a little vacation trip," Johnson said Saturday. "I'd seen the first gift like, 'This is what we get in a Final Four? I need to start coming back here more.' I wasn't thinking about basketball. I was thinking about vacation."

Johnson's perspective has changed in the past four years, now that she's the veteran on a Gamecocks team going for its third national title in five seasons.South Carolina will face UCLAon Sunday for the championship.

"Now I think of it as a business trip," Johnson said. "I'm used to being here. You've got to lock in. You've got to buy into the process. And I'm trying to instill that to the younger girls who are here: Enjoy the moment while you're here, because moments like this don't happen forever."

It seems like they do for Johnson.

She's never missed aFinal Fourin her five-year career, though she was sidelined most of 2022 after tearing her ACL two games into the season. She was a key part of South Carolina's undefeated title run in 2024, when the Gamecockstopped Caitlin Clark and Iowain the championship game.

Known for her stifling defense, Johnson has become more of a two-way player. She averaged 10 points per game, her first time as a double-digit scorer, and was named the Southeastern Conference defensive player of the year before leading the Gamecocks to their sixth straight national semifinal.

She's grown accustomed to guarding the opponent's best player, like when she was asked to match up withAP Player of the YearSarah Strong on Friday. The 5-foot-8 Johnson didn't concede many shots against Strong, who's 6-2.

"She's a really good player," Johnson said of the UConn star, who shot just 4 of 16 on Friday. "I was just trying to fight aggression with aggression. If she pushed me, I was going to push back. I wasn't going to back down. I'm not scared of nobody."

South Carolina coach Dawn Staley has always praised Johnson's ability to thrive with any defensive matchup, but what stands out to her about the veteran has been her leadership arc.

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The night before the national semifinal against UConn, Staley wanted to know if the team needed one last video session to prepare. She let Johnson decide, and the senior concluded that more study time was necessary.

It evidently paid off, as the Gamecocks smothered UConn in a physical matchup, holding the Huskies to their worst shooting performance of the season — 19 for 61 from the field.

"Her leadership has grown from doing it by example to now verbalizing and still doing it by example," Staley said. "That's winning behavior. Raven during this time only wants to hear and see things that are only going to help us. If she hears something or sees something that doesn't fit that, she addresses it."

Johnson has embraced that role, though sometimes she's still shocked at how impactful her words can be.

"I didn't even think they were going to listen to me," she said. "I'm a jokey person. When I'm not on the court, I'm always joking. But they do listen to me even when I'm joking. They watch my every move also, even on the court. It doesn't matter, they just watch me. I think I'm trying to instill pro habits into them, like Aliyah Boston instilled pro habits into me."

Her personality was on display on Friday, whenStaley and Geno Auriemmagot into a heated exchange in the closing seconds over apregame handshake.

Johnson said she noticed her coach was upset and wanted to make sure she was OK. In the middle of the melee, Johnson reached out to Staley for a high-five.

"It's just so classic Raven, really classic Raven," Staley said. "I mean, she makes me laugh even in the most difficult situations because she's so innocent. Like she really is a really kind-hearted young lady. Sometimes you need people around you to put things in perspective.

"It truly was a calming for her to do that. Just to break the ice of what was happening in real time."

AP March Madness bracket:https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracketand coverage:https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

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Raven Johnson's college career will end where it started, with a national title on the line

PHOENIX (AP) — Raven Johnson was a bright-eyed freshman when South Carolina won the national championship in 2022. While ...

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MRI reveals a right calf strain for Mets right fielder Juan Soto

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — New York Mets right fielder Juan Soto has been diagnosed witha right calf strainafter undergoing an MRI on Saturday.

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Soto was injured Friday night trying to run from first to third duringthe Mets' 10-3 winover the San Francisco Giants.

Both Soto and manager Carlos Mendoza were surprised that the MRI didn't show more damage than it did.

"Right now it's a minor strain," Soto said at Oracle Park on Saturday. "We're going to be going day-by-day, see how it feels. No decisions have been made yet. We're going to see how I wake up the next couple of days and go from there.

"It's impressive what we saw on the imaging because I feel way better than yesterday. I definitely feel really good, and to see what came out on the MRI, it was surprising for me."

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Mendoza saw Soto walking through the Mets clubhouse prior to Saturday's game against the Giants and appearing to be doing well. The team has not ruled out placing Soto on the injured list but is hoping to avoid that.

"He's got that mild strain but surprisingly when I saw him earlier, the way he's walking around, just the attitude itself, he seems to be in a really good place," Mendoza said. "That's a tricky area. We're going to have to be really, really careful with him. The good news is how he's feeling and the feedback we're getting from him."

In eight games this season, Soto is batting .355 with one home run and five RBIs. The veteran slugger is in the second season of a $765 million, 15-year deal.

AP MLB:https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

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MRI reveals a right calf strain for Mets right fielder Juan Soto

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — New York Mets right fielder Juan Soto has been diagnosed witha right calf strainafter undergoing an ...

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Virginia fires women's basketball coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton after making 1st Sweet 16 since 2000

Virginia fired Amaka Agugua-Hamilton as head coach of the women's basketball program on Saturday.

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Agugua-Hamilton led the Cavaliers to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2000. She went 70-58, including a 29-42 mark in ACC play.

Virginia became the first double-digit seed to reach the regional semifinals since 2022 and pulled off the upset of the tournament,knocking off No. 2 seed Iowaon the road in double overtime in the second round.

They became the first First Four team to advance this farbefore falling to TCU.

"I thought we had some really good moments in that game," Agugua-Hamilton said after that loss. "But the third quarter got away from us. ... We came up short, but that doesn't take away from our season or the growth we've had with our program."

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South Carolina coach Dawn Staley, who starred at Virginia as a player, said she had just heard about the coaching change.

"I did reach out to our athletic director at Virginia and she just told me they did part ways. I don't know why. We'll talk," Staley said. "I did reach out to coach Mox to check on her. I didn't have time to have a conversation with her. I don't know what went wrong. She had them on the right track."

Staley said she hopes Virginia gets it together.

"We got a deeply rich tradition at UVA on this stage and we hope to get our team back there one day sooner than later," Staley said of her alma mater.

AP March Madness bracket:https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracketand coverage:https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

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Virginia fires women's basketball coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton after making 1st Sweet 16 since 2000

Virginia fired Amaka Agugua-Hamilton as head coach of the women's basketball program on Saturday. NCAA Vir...

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Several people injured after car crashes into La. parade, driver in custody: Sheriff

Several people were hurt, including some seriously, after a car crashed into a Lao New Year parade in Broussard, Louisiana, Saturday afternoon, authorities said.

The unidentified driver of the vehicle was in custody, however, investigators said as of now it does not appear that the crash was intentional, according to the Iberia Parish Sheriff's Office.

A local ambulance company company Acadian Ambulance said initially at least 13 were taken to the hospital after incident, including two who were airlifted.

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The incident occurred at the corner of Savannakhet Street and Melancon Road.

Organizers of the Louisiana Lao New Year Festival said in a statement that they were cancelling the rest of the events scheduled for the day.

"All security resources have been redirected to the scene, and we currently do not have security personnel available due to the circumstances," they said in a statement.

"We are praying for the victims and for their families during this difficult time," the organizers added.

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Several people injured after car crashes into La. parade, driver in custody: Sheriff

Several people were hurt, including some seriously, after a car crashed into a Lao New Year parade in Broussard, Louis...

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'Not the moon that I'm used to seeing': Artemis II astronauts describe seeing the far side

HOUSTON — The Artemis II astronauts are now more than halfwayto the moonand have caught their first glimpses of the lunar far side.

In an interview with NBC News from space, NASA astronaut Christina Koch described seeing the moon out the window of the Orion capsule and realizing that it looked different from what she was accustomed to on Earth.

"The darker parts just aren't quite in the right place," she said. "And something about you senses that is not the moon that I'm used to seeing."

Koch said thatshe and her crewmates, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, compared their views to their study materials to understand what they were seeing.

"That is the dark side. That is something we have never seen before," Koch said.

Wiseman, Koch, Glover and Hansen launched Wednesday on a 10-day trip around the moon, becomingthe first people to embark on a lunar mission in more than 50 years. The astronauts were also the first humans to lift off aboard NASA's Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule. They have been officially moon-bound since Thursday evening, when the spacecraft conducted a key engine burn that boosted the capsule out of Earth's orbit.

Wiseman called the flight a "magnificent accomplishment" and said the astronauts' ability to gaze at both Earth and the moon from their spacecraft has been "truly awe-inspiring."

"The Earth is almost in full eclipse. The moon is almost in full daylight, and the only way you could get that view is to be halfway between the two entities," he said.

Koch added that while the astronauts are excited, they have been able to rest and sleep comfortably in their16.5-foot-wide Orion capsule, which has a habitable volume roughly equivalent to a camper van.

Sleep is one of various human concerns that inherently occupy their days while journeying through the cosmos.

"Being human up here is one of the coolest things about this mission," Koch said. "We are just people trying to get by. For example, we might go look at the far side of the moon and take in its awesomeness, and then go, 'Hm, maybe I should change my socks,' and try to dig around for a pair of socks. So this is the dichotomy of human spaceflight."

The four astronauts had time Friday and Saturday to talk to their family members, which Wiseman said was a major highlight.

"It was surreal," he said. "For a moment, I was reunited with my little family. It was just the greatest moment of my entire life."

Since reaching space, the Artemis II crew has been busy. In the first hours after they lifted off, they began to test the various life-support systems aboard the Orion capsule. The astronauts had to troubleshoot several issues, including email glitches andproblems with their onboard space toilet, but have said the flight has been smooth overall.

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At 12:41 a.m. ET Monday, the astronauts are expected to enter the lunar sphere of influence, meaning the pull of the moon's gravity will become stronger than Earth's.

The mission's long-awaited lunar flyby will occur later that day, during which the Artemis II astronauts will viewnever-before-seen parts of the moon's surface. These areas on the far side are not visible from Earth because that part of the moon always faces away from our planet. Even the Apollo astronauts couldn't view much of the moon's far side due to the paths and timing of their flights.

The official lunar flyby period for Artemis II lasts six hours and begins at 2:45 p.m. ET.

As the Orion capsule swings around the moon, Wiseman, Koch, Glover and Hansen are set to travel farther from Earth than any humans have before. They're expected to reach their maximum distance from Earth — 252,757 miles — at 7:05 p.m. ET. That will break the Apollo 13 distance record by around 4,100 miles.

They should surpass the Apollo 13 distance of 248,655 miles at 1:56 p.m. ET.

Over the course of the day, the astronauts should come as close as 4,600 miles to the lunar surface. From their vantage point, the moon will look about the size of a basketball held at arms' length. The crew is tasked with making close observations of its features and taking photographs. Their images of craters, ridges and ancient lava flows on the lunar surface could help scientists better understand how the moon — and the solar system — formed.

Toward the end of the lunar observation period, the crew will have the opportunity to experience a solar eclipse from space. The sun will move behind the moon at 8:35 p.m. ET, blocking its light from the perspective of the Orion capsule. The eclipse will last almost an hour.

During that time, the moon will appear mostly dark, which will give the astronauts a chance to observe the sun's corona and look for flashes of light from rocky objects smacking into the moon.

After their flyby, the astronauts will spend the next three days journeying home. They are expected to return to Earth on Friday, with the mission culminating in a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of San Diego, just after 8 p.m. ET.

Hansen said the flight so far has been emotional, full of joy, happiness and disbelief.

"Right away, you are humbled," he said. "The fact that four of us get to be out here just brings you to your knees."

And while theearly photos of Earthand the moon that Hansen and his colleagues have beamed back have been spectacular, the Canadian astronaut said they pale in comparison to the real deal outside their capsule's windows.

"I know those photos are amazing," he said, "but let me assure you, it is another level of amazing up here."

Tom Costello spoke to the Artemis II crew from Houston. Denise Chow reported from New York City.

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'Not the moon that I'm used to seeing': Artemis II astronauts describe seeing the far side

HOUSTON — The Artemis II astronauts are now more than halfwayto the moonand have caught their first glimpses of the lunar...

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