Sports briefs 4/3/04

College

St. Joseph's swept The Associated Press men's college basketball awards Friday, with senior guard Jameer Nelson a runaway winner as player of the year and Phil Martelli selected as coach of the year. The two led the tiny school from Philadelphia to an almost-perfect regular season, a No. 1 ranking and a deep run in the NCAA tournament that ended one game shy of the Final Four. The 5-foot-11 Nelson averaged 20.6 points, 4.7 rebounds, 5.3 assists and 2.9 steals this season, leading the Hawks to a 30-2 record.

Iowa's football program has been cleared of any wrongdoing in a football prospect's sexual liaison during a visit to campus, according to a report issued Friday. Iowa Deputy Attorney General Douglas Marek said an investigation found no merit in an allegation made last month by high school quarterback Nick Patton. Patton, who committed to Kansas State, told reporters from The Manhattan (Kan.) Mercury that he had consensual sex with a college student during his two-day official recruiting visit last fall, and that the encounter appeared to have been arranged either by players or football staff.

Motorsports

Bobby Labonte is back on the front row at Texas Motor Speedway. Now he'd like to win at the track in his home state. Labonte earned his second straight Samsung/RadioShack 500 pole, becoming the first multiple pole winner in Texas. With his qualifying lap of 193.903 mph, Labonte just beat Texas pole speed record holder Bill Elliott, the semiretired driver who will start second in just his second race of the season after going 193.729 mph. Rookie Kasey Kahne qualified third at 193.673 mph.

Tennis

Andy Roddick advanced to the final of the Nasdaq-100 Open for the first time, playing nearly flawless tennis to beat Vince Spadea 6-1, 6-3. Roddick took the first set in just 21 minutes and won seven consecutive games against Spadea, whose normally steady game unraveled in his first Key Biscayne semifinal. Roddick's opponent Sunday will be third-seeded Guillermo Coria, who overcame four match points to beat Fernando Gonzalez in an all-South American semifinal, 4-6, 7-6 (6), 6-1. Serena Williams will play Elena Dementieva for the women's championship today.

Martina Navratilova will play singles at age 47 in two tournaments this month, her first tournament-sponsored singles matches in the United States since 1994. Navratilova plans to play singles at the Bausch & Lomb championship next week and the following week at the Family Circle Cup in Charleston, S.C.

-- From wire reports