Sports briefs 6/6/06

Colleges

• The Big 12 is keeping its promise to bring the men's and women's basketball tournaments back to Kansas City after a new state-of-the-art arena opens.

The 2008 men's tournament will be played in the Sprint Center, the conference announced Monday. The Sprint Center will seat 18,500 for basketball and is scheduled to be completed by fall 2007.

The Big 12 said the women's tournament will be held in Kansas City's venerable Municipal Auditorium in 2008.

At the same time, the Big 12 said it had awarded its 2007 football championship to San Antonio. It will be the third time the football title game will be played in San Antonio's 65,000-seat Alamodome and the first since 1999.

* The Big Ten men's basketball tournament will be in Indianapolis for five years starting in 2008, ending a yearly rotation with Chicago.

The women's tournament, which has been played in Indianapolis all but once since it began in 1995, also will be at Conseco Fieldhouse through 2012.

Both Indianapolis and Chicago submitted bids to become the long-term host for the two tournaments. The men's tournament was played in Chicago from 1998 to 2001 and rotated between Indianapolis and Chicago from 2002 to 2006.

As part of the winning bid, Indianapolis agreed to pay the Big Ten $400,000 each year to make up for a possible loss in ticket sales -- Conseco Fieldhouse has about 5,000 fewer available seats than Chicago's United Center.

* Former Kennett head basketball coach and Southeast Missouri State assistant Sam Weaver accepted the head coaching job at NCAA Division II Henderson State on Monday. Weaver, a Henderson State graduate, began his coaching career at Southeast with a five-year stint as an assistant from 1982-1987. Weaver spent the last two years as basketball coach and athletic director at Kennett.

-- From staff, wire reports