Sports briefs 5/5/06

Colleges

• Detroit Pistons assistant coach Sidney Lowe will return to North Carolina State to coach the school he led to a national championship under Jim Valvano.

N.C. State, which has searched for a successor to Herb Sendek for the past month, will introduce Lowe as its new coach over the weekend, a person within the Pistons organization told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Lowe, 46, was the point guard on the Wolfpack's 1983 national championship team under Valvano and ranks second among the school's all-time assist leaders and third in steals.

* As expected, Illinois' mascot cost the school a chance to extend its seven-year streak of hosting NCAA men's tennis tournaments.

The Fighting Illini will play Western Illinois, the Mid-Continent Conference's automatic bid, on May 12 in the Louisville Regional, the NCAA announced Wednesday.

Illinois, 22-6, ended the season ranked No. 8 and is the tournament's seventh seed. It is the Illini's 11th straight NCAA tournament appearance.

The NCAA's executive committee declined Friday to remove Chief Illiniwek from the association's list of "hostile and abusive" mascots, making Illinois ineligible to host postseason athletic tournaments.

Football

• New Kansas City Chiefs coach Herman Edwards is counting Priest Holmes in for next season, despite counting him out for minicamp.

Edwards told The Kansas City Star on Wednesday that the Chiefs' three-time Pro Bowl running back will not be with the team when it begins offseason practices in two weeks because he has not been medically cleared.

Holmes, 32, has been recovering from a helmet-to-helmet collision with the Chargers' Shawne Merriman during a midseason game in San Diego. He has been seeing a spinal specialist and has been working out at his home in San Antonio during the offseason.

Holmes has remained mum about his chances to return next season. He was put on injured reserve in November and has been undergoing a battery of neurological tests and evaluations since.

Horse racing

• Lawyer Ron, the 4-1 second favorite in the Kentucky Derby, was sold by the estate of Jim Hines Jr., a businessman who died in February.

Bert Welker, general manager at Stonewall Stallions, confirmed Thursday a majority interest in Lawyer Ron was purchased by Audrey Haisfield, co-owner of Stonewall in Versailles.

Hines was found dead at his home in Owensboro on Feb. 21.

Tennis

• Venus Williams overcame leg cramps and an inconsistent serve to beat Martina Hingis 4-6, 7-5, 6-4 Thursday in the second round of the J&S Cup.

It was the first meeting between the former top-ranked players since 2002 in Hamburg, Germany.

The 13th-ranked Williams received medical treatment for leg cramps at 1-1 in the third set.

Williams played only her third match of the year, having been sidelined since the Australian Open with a strained right elbow.

-- From wire reports