Cavs fall to Celtics

CLEVELAND (AP) — Payton Pritchard scored a season-high 42 points, Jaylen Brown got his fourth career triple-double and the Boston Celtics barely held on to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 117-115 on Sunday night after giving up most of their big lead.

The Celtics led by 21 points in the third quarter and were still up by 11 with less than two minutes left before Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell made consecutive 3-pointers to pull the Cavs within 114–112 with 20.5 seconds left.

Pritchard, who made several big buckets down the stretch, then made two free throws to put Boston ahead 116-112 with 5.9 seconds remaining.

Cavs guard Darius Garland buried a 3-pointer with 1.2 seconds to go, and Cleveland fouled Brown on the ensuing inbounds pass following a timeout. Boston’s All-Star guard could only split a pair of free throws, giving the Cavs a final chance.

But Evan Mobley’s jumper was short at the final horn, allowing the Celtics to escape.

Brown finished with 19 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists for his first triple-double since Jan. 21, 2024, at Houston. He scored 41 in a loss at Minnesota on Saturday.

Mobley led the Cavs with 27 points and 14 rebounds and Garland scored 21. Mitchell was quiet until the final minutes and finished with 18 — 12 below his average.

Boston’s Jordan Walsh had career-highs with 14 points and 11 rebounds.

Both teams were short-handed due to injuries.

The Celtics, who had been without star Jayson Tatum all season, rested starters Derrick White (calf bruise) and Neemias Queta (ankle sprain), who was coming off a 19-point, 18-rebound performance.

The Cavs have been dealing with their own lengthy list of medical issues. They were without starting center Jarrett Allen (finger sprain), forward Larry Nance Jr. (hand sprain) and guards Lonzo Ball (knee rest) and Sam Merrill (hand sprain).

Sparty gets Fitzgerald

Michigan State plans to hire former Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald to lead its football program, according to a person familiar with the situation.

The person, who spoke to The Associated Press on Sunday on condition of anonymity because the expected hiring had not been made public, said an announcement would come this week.

The anticipated arrival of Fitzgerald comes after Michigan State fired Jonathan Smith on Sunday, two years after he was hired.

“The 2025 football season has not lived up to our shared standards for Michigan State Football,” athletic director J Batt said in a statement. “While that does not fall solely on Jonathan Smith, it’s become necessary to make a coaching change in order to chart a new direction for the program.”

The 50-year-old Fitzgerald reached a settlement with Northwestern in August, two years after he sued the university amid a team hazing scandal that led to his firing following an investigation. Details of the settlement were not made public.

Former Northwestern football players started filing lawsuits in 2023, alleging sexual abuse and racial discrimination on the team. Similar allegations then spread across several sports.

Fitzgerald denied wrongdoing and sued for $130 million. He alleged the school illegally terminated his employment and damaged his reputation, among other things. His case was set to go to trial this month.

Fitzgerald was an All-America linebacker for the Wildcats and starred on the 1995 team that won the Big Ten and played in the Rose Bowl.

He was 110-101 in 17 seasons as Northwestern’s head coach. He led the Wildcats to Big Ten West championships in 2018 and 2020 and to five bowl victories. Over his final two seasons, though, Northwestern was 4-20.

Michigan State lost eight of its last nine games to finish 4-8 this season. Smith’s overall record at MSU was 9-15 and just 4-14 in the Big Ten. Smith is due more than $30 million, according to terms of his seven-year contract.

Smith was 34-35 over six seasons at Oregon State, winning at least eight games in consecutive seasons for the first time in more than a decade at his alma mater. He went 5-7 overall and 3-6 in the Big Ten during his debut season last year. His seat got warm when athletic director Alan Haller, who hired him, left the school last May.

Expectations were low for this season and the results were worse.

The Spartans followed up wins against Western Michigan, Boston College and Youngstown State with an 0-8 start in Big Ten play. They lost to USC, Nebraska, UCLA, Indiana and Michigan by double digits before blowing a late lead and losing at Minnesota by three points in overtime. The only league win came Saturday against Maryland.

Smith benched quarterback Aidan Chiles, who followed him from Oregon State, against the Golden Gophers and gave redshirt freshman Alessio Milivojevic a shot to start perhaps with an eye toward the future the coach no longer has at Michigan State.

The program has struggled since the school’s winningest coach, Mark Dantonio, retired and ended a record-breaking, 13-year run with consecutive 7-6 seasons and a .500 Big Ten record over two years.

Kiffin leaves Ole Miss for LSU

Lane Kiffin left his one-loss Ole Miss team to become the coach at LSU on Sunday, taking over a program that has won national titles under three of its previous four coaches while saying he would have stayed to coach the Rebels in the postseason had he been allowed to.

The move comes two days after No. 6 Mississippi’s victory over Mississippi State in the annual Egg Bowl rivalry game that all but guaranteed the Rebels a playoff berth when the bracket is announced Dec. 7.

“I was hoping to complete a historic six season run with this year’s team by leading Ole Miss through the playoffs, capitalizing on the team’s incredible success and their commitment to finish strong,” Kiffin wrote in a social media post. He said Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter denied his request “despite the team also asking him to allow me to keep coaching them so they could better maintain their high level of performance.”

“Unfortunately, that means Friday’s Egg Bowl was my last game coaching the Rebels,” he added.

Mississippi promoted defensive coordinator Pete Golding to succeed Kiffin. A former college player at Delta State in Mississippi, Golding is in his third season on the Rebels’ staff after serving five years as a top defensive assistant at Alabama.

“Coach Kiffin and I met yesterday, and he informed us that he is accepting the head coaching position at another school,” Carter said. “For our program to begin preparing for its future – both the short and long term, he will be stepping away from the team immediately.”

LSU trumpeted its new hire, with athletic director Verge Ausberry calling Kiffin the best coach in the country.

“Lane is a proven winner who has thrived in an era of college athletics that requires coaches to adapt and innovate,” he said. “His passion, creativity and authenticity make him the ideal leader to guide LSU into the future and consistently position us among the sport’s elite.”

Kiffin’s decision played out for days, contributing to an already-busy hiring cycle that saw several moves earlier Sunday, including three in the SEC alone. While players have transferred away from playoff-bound teams, a coach leaving a team that is 11-1 and all but certain to make the playoff is something new.

Kiffin and Carter had agreed last week that a decision had to be made this weekend as negotiations dragged on. Carter could not afford to wait until after critical recruiting periods in December and transfer periods in January had passed before starting his coaching search. The CFP begins on Dec. 19, the semifinals don’t occur until Jan. 8-9 and the final is Jan. 19.

Kiffin is considered one of the top offensive coaches in college football. He went 55-19 in six seasons at Ole Miss, success that made him a target of several major programs seeking new coaches. Kiffin also was pursued by Florida, which fired coach Billy Napier a week before LSU cut ties with Brian Kelly.

The lure of LSU

While LSU offered Kiffin a raise over his current $9 million annual salary, the decision presumably was about more than money.

LSU has a championship brand in multiple sports; state-of-the-art facilities; a rabid, regional fan following; and a legendary, historic home football venue in Tiger Stadium (nicknamed Death Valley), which towers over the banks of the Mississippi River and holds 102,000 spectators — 38,000 more than Mississippi’s Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.

The lone football coach of LSU’s past four who did not win a national championship was Kelly. He was fired in late October during his fourth season, a seismic development that also led then-athletic director Scott Woodward to resign under pressure from Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry.

Ausberry — a Louisiana native, former Tigers football player and long-time LSU administrator — led a search for a new coach that focused primarily on Kiffin. LSU offered Kiffin a seven-year contract with an average annual salary of around $13 million and pledged to ensure the football program has ample financial backing to pay players.

Kiffin has overseen one of the most successful stints in Ole Miss history, arguably exceeded by only Johnny Vaught, whose 25 seasons at Ole Miss included a six-year period from 1957 through 1962 during which his teams went a combined 57-6.

LSU is 247-84 with three national championships since the 2000 season, which was Nick Saban’s first with the Tigers. Saban won his national title at LSU in the 2003 season and went 48-16 in five years before leaving to coach in the NFL with the Miami Dolphins. Les Miles, hired in 2005, went 114-34 with a national title in 2007. Ed Orgeron, who succeeded Miles during the 2016 season, went 51-20, highlighted by his 15-0, national-title winning campaign in 2019. Kelly, who was in the midst of a 10-year contract worth about $100 million at LSU, went 34-14 with the Tigers.

Kiffin’s rise

Kiffin, son of the late NFL and college defensive coach Monte Kiffin, played quarterback in college at Fresno State. He got his first head-coaching job at any level in the NFL with the Oakland Raiders in 2007, but was fired just four games into his second season.

His took first college head-coaching job at Tennessee in 2009 and left after one season to take over at Southern California, where he was fired five games into his fourth season. He returned to coaching in 2017 with Florida Atlantic, spending three seasons there before Ole Miss lured him to Oxford in 2020.

Kiffin has said he adopted the mantra of striving to “do things better than they’ve ever been done before,” from one of his mentors, Pete Carroll, under whom Kiffin served as an assistant at USC from 2001 to 2006.

“I am incredibly honored to have the opportunity to lead the storied LSU football program,” Kiffin said. “From national championships to iconic players, LSU is synonymous with excellence and is among the most powerful brands in all of sports.”

No coach has ever won multiple national championships at LSU. Kiffin will be the next to try.

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This story has been updated to correct the school Golding attended to Delta State.

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