Anne M. Peterson

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Paul Millsap had 31 points, including a go-ahead dunk with 1:11 left, and pulled down 11 rebounds to help the Utah Jazz snap a three-game losing streak with a 102-97 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers on Monday night.

While Friday's Pac-12 championship game is one of the outgrowths of league expansion, the conference's dramatic makeover will really take shape next season.

That's when the Pac-12's $3 billion television deal takes off. Because of equal revenue sharing, each of the league's schools will eventually reap more than $20 million apiece annually from the 12-year contract with Fox and ESPN.

The influx means that the conference's athletic departments that depend on financial help from their universities should someday soon be able to pay their own bills.

But for programs with smaller budgets, like Oregon State, Washington State and Utah, it also means a more level playing field with schools like Oregon, which has a generous booster in Nike co-founder Phil Knight, and USC, which has a self-sufficient athletic department and lots of national TV exposure.

Stacy Sykora doesn't remember the rainy April evening when the bus carrying her Volei Futuro volleyball team overturned just yards from the gym where the women were to play.

Brazilian news reports from the accident scene just outside Sao Paulo said the three-time U.S. Olympian did not appear seriously injured. Though the tall Texan briefly passed out, she had only a small cut on her face and it looked as if she was being taken to the hospital merely as a precaution.

EUGENE, Ore. -- Decathlete Trey Hardee describes the state of his sport in the United States as "a tsunami of talent."

Hardee, along with veteran Bryan Clay and newcomer Ashton Eaton, are the decathlon's current stars. They've fueled whispers that, if everything goes right, the Olympics in London next summer could see a rare U.S. sweep.

Clay and Eaton will compete at this week's national championships at Hayward Field in Eugene. The top finishers in the event will determine the U.S. team at the world championships in Daegu, South Korea, this August.

PORTLAND, Ore. -- During Scott Lynn's biweekly chemotherapy treatments, he would unfold his laptop and furiously type away -- determined to bring closure to a nearly lifelong obsession before cancer got the best of him.