The NCAA has launched an investigation into the Arizona men's basketball program, a university spokesman confirmed to the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson on Friday night.

In response to an open records request, Arizona officials would not release the school's communication with the NCAA to the newspaper because "investigations into the University of Arizona men's basketball program are ongoing at this time."

A spokesman later acknowledged to the Daily Star that "an NCAA investigation is underway."

Former Arizona assistant Emanuel "Book" Richardson pleaded guilty in January to accepting $20,000 in bribes to steer Arizona players to aspiring sports manager Christian Dawkins and certain financial advisers once they turned pro.

During a federal criminal trial in New York this week, Dawkins testified that he had a "pretty good" relationship with Arizona coach Sean Miller and didn't need to bribe Richardson to get Wildcats players as clients.

Miller has adamantly denied paying players to attend Arizona.

In response to a public records request ESPN submitted Feb. 6, asking for certain correspondence with the NCAA regarding the men's basketball program, Arizona responded on March 28, stating "investigations into the UA men's basketball program are ongoing at this time," and, as a result, the university could not release any potentially responsive records.

Mark Moore, an attorney for co-defendant Merl Code, a former Adidas consultant, asked Dawkins if Miller "knew what was going on" in regards to alleged payments to Arizona players. A federal prosecutor objected before Dawkins answered.

Dawkins also testified during the trial that he refused to cooperate with federal prosecutors and refused to testify against former NBA agent Andy Miller and college basketball head coaches.

"Isn't it true the government wanted you to testify against your bosses at ASM and you wouldn't?" defense attorney Steven Haney asked Dawkins.

"Yes," Dawkins said.

"Isn't it true the government wanted you to testify against a bunch of head basketball coaches in this country and you wouldn't do it?" Haney continued.

"No, I wouldn't," Dawkins answered.

There are myriad issues and alleged violations for NCAA investigators to examine at Arizona, including:

* Federal prosecutors on Wednesday played a recording of a phone call in which Richardson told Dawkins that Sean Miller was paying star center Deandre Ayton $10,000 per month while he was enrolled at the school.

Last week, federal prosecutors played a surveillance recording of a meeting on June 6, 2017, in which Dawkins talks about Ayton and says Miller told him, "I'm taking care of everything myself. I wanna bring you in. I'll turn everything over to you." Former financial adviser Marty Blazer, a cooperating witness for the government, was present at the June 2017 meeting and testified last week that the reference was about Miller "taking care" of payments for Ayton. During a telephone call, which FBI wiretaps intercepted on June 2, 2017, Dawkins told his business partner Munish Sood that Miller "fronted" the deal for Ayton to sign with Arizona. "[Richardson] already made it clear you're gonna get, or we're gonna get, the No. 1 pick next year, assuming he's No. 1," Sood said during the call. "It's going to be more money than what they, what Book, said. I mean, because I talked to Sean," Dawkins told Sood. "Sean's the one that fronted that deal. So it's going to be some money, but, I mean, we'll figure that out."

* Richardson also said during a surveillance recording that he was making $2,000 monthly payments to Rodney Labossiere, former Arizona guard Rawle Alkins' cousin, who was living in Tucson. "His cousin moved to Tucson, which I'm highly against," Richardson said. "I never want the parents or anyone to move there. I'll give you two grand a month to make sure it works. But he brought him, his wife and his child. Wrong move." The payments to Labossiere were allegedly made while Alkins was still playing for the Wildcats.

* In July 2017, Richardson asked for an additional $15,000 from Dawkins and Sood to give to the mother of 2018 recruit Jahvon Quinerly of Hackensack, New Jersey. Richardson said he planned to make three payments of $5,000 each and would also pay her $10,000 of his own money.

"The purpose of that payment was simple," assistant U.S. attorney Noah Solowiejczyk told the jury in closing arguments on Friday. "Dawkins wanted to get the money to Richardson so Richardson could get the recruit for Arizona, and then Richardson could steer that player back to him when he turned pro."

* Other allegations of rules violations surfaced during an October federal criminal trial, in which a jury convicted Code and Dawkins of bribery charges in a pay-for-play scheme to steer recruits to Adidas-sponsored schools. Brian Bowen Sr., the father of five-star recruit Brian Bowen Jr., testified that Dawkins told him that then-Arizona associate head coach assistant Joe Pasternack offered $50,000 for his son to sign with the Wildcats in the spring of 2017. Pasternack is now the head coach at UC Santa Barbara.

* Also in the October trial, jurors heard wiretapped recordings in which Code and former Adidas executive James Gatto discussed Arizona's alleged offer of $150,000 to sign then-rising senior Nassir Little and whether the shoe company would match the sum to send the five-star recruit to the University of Miami, which is sponsored by Adidas. "The problem is, Arizona's offered the kid 150, and we're trying to keep him from going to one of their schools," Code told Gatto on one call. "So, it was brought to me through [Little's grassroots coach] Brad [Augustine] and Christian, who said, 'Hey, do you think Jim would be able to keep him at Miami, because they really want the kid.'"

* In February, Arizona officials suspended assistant coach Mark Phelps and initiated the process to terminate his contract. University of Arizona president Robert C. Robbins told the Daily Star that it was his understanding that the school was letting Phelps' contract expire on June 30.

Sources told ESPN that Phelps is accused of a violation regarding former Arizona recruit Shareef O'Neal's academic transcripts. O'Neal, the son of former NBA star Shaquille O'Neal, was committed to the Wildcats in 2017 before signing with UCLA.

The Houston Rockets deserve a massive amount of credit for uncovering and implementing the most analytically correct strategies in professional basketball. Whether it's their shot selection or offensive design, the team has aligned its on-court behaviors with the game's most efficient actions. However, as Houston continues to chase the efficiency dragon farther down the trail, it's worth asking: Is this endless quest for efficiency good for basketball?

From an analytical perspective, the trio of GM Daryl Morey, head coach Mike D'Antoni and superstar James Harden have coalesced to form the shrewdest offense in the NBA. Their strategies reformed conventional wisdom and revealed important truths about offensive efficiency -- most famously that the pathway to optimizing effective field percentage is marked by a few simple ideas: midrange shots are dumb, and layups, dunks and free throws are brilliant.

This trio also knows something else: The most efficient scoring play in basketball isn't the corner 3 or even the slam dunk. It's drawing a 3-point shooting foul. And it's that knowledge that lies at the heart of the embarrassing "landing area" debacle that hijacked NBA discourse earlier this week.

Consider this: A wide-open Stephen Curry 3-point shot is worth 1.6 points on average, per Second Spectrum tracking. An uncontested Giannis Antetokounmpo slam dunk is worth nearly 2.0 points. An average Harden 3-point shooting foul yields more than 2.6 points. The 3-point shooting foul isn't just Harden's most valuable play. In the aggregate, it's the most efficient scoring play in the contemporary NBA by a considerable degree.

Even as Curry (332 wide-open 3s over the past three seasons) and Giannis (281 uncontested dunks) pursue these signature plays, they won't be able to catch Harden's margins. At age 29, Harden is already the all-time leader in 3-point shooting fouls drawn. Of all the strange places he has landed this week, the top of this leaderboard shouldn't be surprising:

To put that into further context: Over the past three seasons, the Charlotte Hornets rank second in the NBA with 185 3-point shooting fouls drawn. Harden has drawn 288 by himself.

Now, you might say that since the dude shoots so many 3s, it's only natural to see him atop the fouls leaderboard. Fair point. But overall, NBA shooters get fouled on 1.66 percent of their 3-point tries. For Harden that number is 11.5 percent. That gap can't be explained solely through Harden's unprecedented prowess on unassisted 3s and how much it frightens defenders. It's about antics, man.

When we look at the league's most voluminous 3-point shooters over the past three seasons, we see Harden's foul rate is more than twice as high as any of the league's other top marksmen.

The Rockets are the most innovative group in the league, but as their playbook continues to try and hack offensive efficiency in new ways, it's also demonstrating that efficiency and beauty aren't always harmonious. In many cases, they're in wild disagreement.

And that disharmony isn't all on Houston. Harden's antics are a check engine light on the dashboard of the league office. He is merely exploiting the market inefficiencies hidden in plain sight, and doing so better than any player in the world. Isn't that the wisdom of Moneyball?

Harden drew a league-leading 120 3-point shooting fouls in 2016-17, then that number dipped to 69 in 2017-18 after the league honed in on his continuation techniques as a point of its officiating emphasis. Harden adjusted by mastering the step-back 3 this season, drawing 93 3-point fouls in the process.

More than any other player in the league, Harden operates like the refs are marks. And the rulebase -- particularly the wildly punitive 3-point shooting foul -- is inspiring Harden to chase these calls because the plays are considered so valuable. If you don't think the result is fun, then your beef is with the underlying legislation that created these cartoonish efficiency margins in the first place.

The NBA is a business. It's also a regulatory agency. The bottom line is paramount, but the product is what drives the business in the first place. As we watched Game 1 of this highly anticipated series between the Rockets and Golden State Warriors, we saw an NBA dream come true: a court filled with prime superstars on great teams. The stage was perfectly set. But we also saw three people with gray shirts and black trousers suddenly become the stars of the show.

As the greatest (and most efficient) teams in the league continue to race to find the smartest pathways to score, the officials will increasingly be stratagems. Unless the league proactively addresses its rules and these whistle-chasing tactics, free throws stand to become the next version of corner 3s, with the league's smartest teams and players racing to find new ways to get them.

Harden is just the first one to fully realize that the sour science of flopping and chasing whistles is highly effective. He's the only MVP this century to have more made career free throws than made field goals at the time of his award. To date, he has made 5,604 regular season free throws vs. 5,499 field goals. In the playoffs, he has posted 761 free throws vs. 745 field goals.

In theory, if a ref does a perfect job, nobody notices he or she was even there. They're neutral by design. They're bystanders. Nobody goes to the arena to see the officials, but if Game 1 of this series was any indication, the refs and their powerful whistles are being pushed to the front lines.

The onus falls on the league office, which has an opportunity to update its rulebook and tweak its incentives to inspire the sport it wants to see. And Harden? He'll land on his feet.

ALTAMAHAW, N.C. – Josh Berry overcame an early spin to win Friday’s CARS Late Model Stock Tour 125-lap feature at Ace Speedway.

After starting eighth, Berry spun on the third circuit in an incident that also involved Taylor Gray and Tommy Lemons Jr. Berry sustained little damage in the incident, but he was forced to restart from the tail of the field.

Berry slowly worked his way back to the front and narrowly avoided disaster when Leland Honeyman grazed his right-rear tire before making contact with Bradon Pierce to bring out another caution on the 30th circuit.

Eventually Berry moved his way up to second before a caution for a spin by Mini Tyrrell on lap 89 allowed him to close the gap on race leader Bobby McCarty. McCarty held the lead on the restart, but Berry used his bumper in the fourth corner on the same lap to move McCarty out of the way to take the lead.

Once out front Berry pulled away, easily earning his first CARS Late Model Stock Tour triumph of the season for JR Motorsports.

Ryan Millington, who started from the pole, finished second. Deac McCaskill, McCarty and Adam Lemke completed the top-five.

The finish:

Josh Berry, Ryan Millington, Deac McCaskill, Bobby McCarty, Adam Lemke, Zack St. Onge, Bradley McCaskill, Mini Tyrrell, Sammy Smith, Stacy Puryear, Craig Moore, Jonathan Findley, Camden Gullie, Tyler Matthews, Ronald Hill, Brandon Pierce, Jessica Cann, Trevor Ward, Taylor Gray, Layne Riggs, Cameron Bowen, Tommy Lemons Jr., Justin Carroll, Leland Honeyman, Jason York.

GAFFNEY, S.C. — Eleven races into the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series season and the series saw its first first-time winner Friday night at Cherokee Speedway. Ross Bailes claimed victory in front of his home state crowd.

Brandon Sheppard yet again scored another second-place finish, after starting fifth and chasing Bailes throughout the latter part of the race. Don O’Neal had a solid showing as well, coming from ninth and climbing to third after battling with Chris Madden and Brandon Overton.

It was almost a perfect night for the Clover, S.C.-native, as he picked up the PFC Brakes Fast Time Award, won his Drydene heat race, redrew the outside pole and led all 50 laps. But it certainly was no cakewalk, as Bailes had the Rocket1 Racing ride of Sheppard knocking on his door for over half of the race.

Sheppard started out steady, passing a car for position here and there before finally making the move around Madden for second on lap 17. It was at that moment Sheppard began to track down the Bailes Construction No. 87. Several restarts presented opportunities for Sheppard to make the move, but to no avail. Until the final 10 laps …

Bailes said he initially didn’t see the No. 1 of Sheppard stick his nose underneath. A late restart put Sheppard right on the Barry Wright house car’s rear bumper, and despite “The Rocket Shepp’s” best efforts, Bailes rode the high line and hold off Sheppard’s heavy pressure.

“I had a guy spotting for me and he’s the one who told me to move up top,” Bailes said. “I thought when he told me to move up, Sheppard was five or six car lengths back, but I guess he was underneath me. I didn’t know exactly where he was, but I knew he was closing in on me and I knew just had to hit my marks.”

Lapped traffic is usually always something the leaders run into over the course of 50 laps, and tonight was no exception. Early on in the longest wave of traffic the leaders faced, Bailes was moving through swiftly. Sheppard then began to close the gap rapidly, actually trimming Bailes’ lead to under one second before the caution came back out. But the real story behind his triumph may have been a collective decision made by the driver and crew before they even hit the race track.

“We went with a softer tire, I thought it was the right call, my team thought it was the right call,” Bailes said. “We got [the harder compound] ready but I never once thought I was going to need it. And I’m glad we did go with the softer tire because it allowed me to get that jump and get out front.”

Look back on the season, Bailes has had so far through the first three months of the racing season, and it’s not hard to see the giant wave of success Bailes is now riding. Since becoming the face of the Barry Wright Race Cars house ride over the winter, Bailes scored a big win at the 411 Motor Speedway in Seymour, Tenn., back in early April and picked up another win exactly one week ago at the Laurens County Speedway in South Carolina.

“This is the most confident and comfortable I’ve felt in a car this early in the year,” Bailes said. “We’ve won three races, but we started up front almost every single race, so I feel like I let a few go that we should have won. But we’ve just been fast all year.”

Saturday’s event at the Lavonia Speedway has been postponed to October 3, due to impending inclement weather.

The finish:

Morton Buildings Feature (50 Laps) – 1. 87-Ross Bailes [2][$10,000]; 2. 1-Brandon Sheppard [5][$5,000]; 3. 5-Don O’Neal [9][$3,000]; 4. 2-Brandon Overton [7][$2,500]; 5. 44-Chris Madden [1][$2,000]; 6. 28-Dennis Erb [13][$1,700]; 7. 22-Chris Ferguson [4][$1,400]; 8. 101-Casey Roberts [15][$1,300]; 9. 18-Chase Junghans [23][$1,200]; 10. 75-Donald Bradsher [17][$1,100]; 11. 25-Shane Clanton [18][$1,050]; 12. 7-Ricky Weiss [12][$1,000]; 13. 29-Darrell Lanigan [16][$950]; 14. D89-Dustin Mitchell [22][$900]; 15. 99B-Boom Briggs [27][$150]; 16. 2c-Joey Coulter [11][$800]; 17. 97-Cade Dillard [26][$110]; 18. B1-Brent Larson [25][$110]; 19. 1m-Devin Moran [14][$730]; 20. 8-Jacob Hawkins [8][$700]; 21. 9-Johnny Pursley [6][$700]; 22. 57-Adam Yarbrough [21][$700]; 23. 14-Josh Richards [3][$700]; 24. 88-Trent Ivey [10][$700]; 25. 79-Michael Brown [20][$700]; 26. 18h-Brett Hamm [19][$700]; 27. 36v-Kyle Hardy [24][$700]; Hard Charger: 18-Chase Junghans[+14]

CHICO, Calif. — Justin Sanders won the 30-lap Brownell Memorial at the Silver Dollar Speedway on Friday night.

The Aramos, Calif., driver led all 30 laps after starting on the pole in the North County Plastering/Andy’s Construction yellow No. 121. Sanders fended off several challenges from Shane Golobic who had to settle for the runner-up spot.

Tim Kaeding would charge from the eighth starting spot to finish third just ahead of Mitchell Faccinto. Bud Kaeding’s No. 0 finished fifth after starting deep in the field.

Dominic Scelzi spun in the fourth turn on the opening lap forcing a complete restart.  Sanders had passed polesitter Geoff Ensign but the start was negated. With Scelzi put to the rear of the field, Ensign got a poor restart and Sanders was able to take the lead.

His yellow No. 121 started lapping the back markers by lap five. The race was slowed however two laps later when Richard Brace Jr.’s engine let go in the fourth turn. He would be the first car out the race.

Golobic had moved his Matt Wood Racing No. 17w into the second spot but another spin by Scelzi would bring out the yellow flag again. The lap-seven slowdown allowed Ensign to pit and return for repairs but Sean Watts’ night was over. Sanders got a poor restart allowing Golobic to momentarily slip past him but Sanders regained the lead with a slide job in the third and fourth turns.

The track would go red for a flip by Jason Stalter who sailed off the third turn with a series of hard rolls. After the restart, the two Kaeding Brothers, Tim and Bud, put on a show as once again Sanders took advantage of a clear track for a few laps.

Golobic would make it a close race, but could only get to Sander’s rear bumper as the two crossed the finish line, nose to tail.

Thirty-two 410 sprint cars filled the pit area.

The finish:

Justin Sanders, Shane Golobic, Tim Kaeding, Mitchell Faccinto, Bud Kaeding, D.J. Netto, Sean Becker, Dominic Scelzi, Willie Croft, Cole Macedo, Ryan Bernal, Andy Forsberg, Geoff Ensign, Kyle Offill, Blake Carrick, Colby Copeland, Stephen Ingraham, Jason Statler, Sean Watts, Richard Brace Jr.

HAUBSTADT, Ind. – A morning rain shower and persistent precipitation throughout the week created saturated grounds at Tri-State Speedway, forcing World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series and track officials to postpone Saturday’s race until Sunday.

The event’s schedule is being moved up an hour. Qualifying for the $10,000-to-win event is now set to start at 5:30 p.m. and racing will start at 6:30 p.m.

FREMONT, Ohio – Despite a valiant effort by the track crew at Fremont Speedway, track officials have been forced to cancel the Open Wheel Shootout scheduled for Saturday because of rain.

“We worked throughout the afternoon and evening Friday and got right back at it early Saturday morning but a constant mist and steady drizzle prevented us from making any head-way. It’s a darn shame because I think we would have had a fantastic all sprint car show,” said Ryan Schiets, Chair of the Fremont Speedway promotions team.

Fremont Speedway will be back in action May 18 on Kistler Engines Night with the Fort Ball Pizza Palace 410 Sprints, Fremont Federal Credit Union 305 Sprints and Burmeister Trophy Dirt Trucks in Action.