AC Milan coach Sergio Conceição described the pressure of fan protests as unprecedented in his career after Sunday's 2-1 Serie A home defeat to Lazio.

The hosts, who suffered a third consecutive defeat in Serie A, endured a hostile atmosphere from their own fans, who protested against the club's owners, with the Curva Sud stand empty for the first 15 minutes.

"We discussed the atmosphere and this is the first time I've experienced this in my career. Mistakes weigh heavier under such conditions," Conceição told DAZN.

"I was a player, I know when it's like that, your boots feel like they're burning. When a dribble or a pass doesn't work or you're behind, it burns even more," he added.

Matters worsened when Mattia Zaccagni put Lazio ahead in the first half, and despite Samuel Chukwueze's late equaliser after a Strahinja Pavlovic red card, Pedro netted a penalty for the visitors in the 98th minute after Mike Maignan's foul on Gustav Isaksen.

"It is not an easy moment. The players feel the tension around the club. The only way forward is to work hard, take pride in our colours, and strive to change the situation," the manager added.

Milan are ninth in the standings on 41 points, having been overtaken by AS Roma who beat Como 2-1 earlier on Sunday, while Lazio moved into fourth place on 50 points, one ahead of Juventus who host Hellas Verona on Monday.

Inter Miami CF head coach Javier Mascherano lashed out at referee Joe Dickerson's decision to show Ian Fray a red card after the final whistle was blown in his team's 4-1 win over Houston Dynamo FC on Sunday, labeling the action as worrying.

Following the end of the game at Shell Energy Stadium, Dynamo player Ethan Andrew Bartlow continuously tugged at Fray's jersey from behind before the Miami defender reacted by pushing the opponent. The referee, who was standing right next to Fray and Bartlow, immediately signaled the red card against the Miami defender.

"I saw the video. Ian did nothing," Mascherano said after the match. "He did absolutely nothing. He wants to go to the dressing room and the rival holds him by the shirt and tries to get it out once, twice, three times, and the referee is next to him, he's watching him. That's what worries me. That's what worries me, because he didn't do anything.

"When my players do nothing, I kill for them. Even if it costs whatever it costs. Today again, we were winning 4-1, the game was over, two or three fouls that were not yellow and filled us with yellows, I'm not going to shut up anymore. There are things that I'm not going to shut up about. And in this case, he didn't do anything. Absolutely nothing.

"Because in the end there is something that cannot be changed, which is reality, what you see with your eyes. And what we all see, that must be considered, that is not subjective. So I would like the journalists who are the ones who see it, also give their opinion on this. When something is wrong, it's wrong and it's over. This is how it is for me. As if we were wrong, we will also say it, but honestly, not this one, not the one with Ian."

Inter Miami trounced Houston without star Lionel Messi. Mascherano admitted he chose to rest the star forward following a conversation about the player's physical state after playing three games in the span of 10 days.

In Messi's absence, Luis Suárez stepped up to lead the offense by providing three assists and one goal to inspire the triumph.

"Everything he has done in football, he's one of the best five forward centers in the world in the last 10 years. He's played in great teams, he's had a very big influence on everyone. Not only in Barcelona, but also in Liverpool, Atlético Madrid. Obviously, for me it's a privilege as a coach to train this type of player," said Mascherano of Suárez.

"We know that Luis is in a stage of his career where we have to try to go and do everything we can because he's a player who has always helped a lot in the defensive aspect. I said it the other day, he's not only doing everything in the offensive phase, but also everything he gives us in that first pressure, how he organizes his teammates. He's a very intelligent guy, he understands the game in a very special way, and that's very difficult to find in football."

Goals from new signings Tadeo Allende and Telasco Segovia also helped the Herons to secure the three points.

Inter Miami will now shift focus to the Concacaf Champions Cup round of 16 first-leg match against Jamaican side Cavalier FC at Chase Stadium on Thursday, March 6.

WACO, Texas -- Those "Underfrogs" from TCU, a team that won only one conference game two seasons ago and last season needed open tryouts to fill roster spots after a series of injuries, are now outright women's Big 12 champions.

The title-clinching game couldn't have been more fitting for the 10th-ranked Horned Frogs, a 51-48 win Sunday night at 13-time champion and No. 17 Baylor.

"Baylor's been the powerhouse, the juggernaut in our league for a long time," second-year TCU coach Mark Campbell said. "So to beat them in this environment for this kind of game, it just shows you that our program's arrived at the highest level in college basketball. ... This win carries a lot of significance for many reasons."

TCU (28-3, 16-2 Big 12), which is in its 13th Big 12 season, won a regular-season title for the first time since being in the Mountain West in 2010.

Sedona Prince had 16 points and 19 rebounds for her 13th double-double this season and Hailey Van Lith scored 14 points as the Frogs beat Baylor (25-6, 15-3) again, five weeks after an 80-75 win at home that was their first win over their instate rival in 35 years.

TCU was off to a 14-0 start in Campbell's debut last season when Prince broke her finger in the opening seconds of a 71-50 loss in the team's last game at Baylor.

A couple of weeks after that, with top shooter Madison Conner also hurt, the Frogs were down to six scholarship players and forfeited two games the week they were having tryouts on campus.

"That was kind of the start of really the downfall of our season last year. And it was so heartbreaking, and it started here. You know, that bus ride from Waco back to Fort Worth was really, really rough," said Prince, this time wearing a Big 12 championship T-shirt.

"Coming in here, we've worked, built our team back up, recovered and got some new amazing pieces in," she said. "It's really, really cool that, you know, it happened to be here, last conference game of the season. Yeah, it's just very, very special."

This 90-mile trip home this time was much more enjoyable, with something to celebrate before opening Big 12 tournament play in the quarterfinal round in Kansas City on Friday. After that, the Frogs will open the women's NCAA tournament on their home floor, where they are 19-0 this season.

The regular-season finale, not only for the two teams but the Big 12 overall, was the first winner-take-all game in the league's 29 seasons.

"There have been so many times postgame when I get to come in here and, oh, it's the first time we've done this and it's the first time we've done that," Campbell said. "Well, this tops all of them. To win a league title for TCU and to bring that trophy home, it's a little surreal."

The Frogs will make their 10th NCAA tournament appearance, the first since their last conference title 15 years ago. They have never gotten past the second round.

TCU takes a seven-game winning streak into the postseason, and already has the most wins in school history. Along with two wins over Baylor, the Frogs this season beat Atlantic Coast Conference co-champions No. 3 Notre Dame and No. 9 NC State.

"Obviously, we worked so hard this whole season for this moment," Conner said. "Not only for this moment, for March and this year, so this is just a start. But yeah, we definitely celebrate a little bit."

New Jersey Devils star center Jack Hughes exited his team's 2-0 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday night, after a collision in the third period.

With his team trailing 2-0, Hughes and his brother, New Jersey defenseman Luke Hughes, entered the Vegas zone on a 2-on-1. As Jack Hughes neared the Golden Knights goal, his feet appeared to get tangled with Vegas forward Jack Eichel, eventually tumbling to the ice and into the boards behind the net with 1:48 left in the game.

"Real hard to see him go down. There's no update," New Jersey coach Sheldon Keefe said. "He's going to have to be evaluated. Obviously, it didn't look good. We're going to have to take our time to know the full extent of it."

Keefe, arguing that the collision with Eichel could have been called for a tripping minor, was given a game misconduct, as the Devils fell to 2-2 on a five-game trip that concludes Tuesday against the Dallas Stars.

"It was a similar play that [Hughes] got called on earlier in the period. Not only is he injured on the play, but there's no call," he said. "I get kicked off the bench for telling the referee I felt it was 10 times worse than the one previously called on Jack."

Hughes, 23, is a former No. 1 pick who leads the Devils in goals (27) and points (70) this season. New Jersey has struggled offensively in the new calendar year, and any absence from the team's best overall player might alter its plans headed into Friday's trade deadline.

Hughes sat out 20 games last season because of injury, and finished with 74 points as the Devils failed to qualify for the postseason. The season before, he played in 78 and posted a career-high 99 points as New Jersey took the No. 2 seed in the Metropolitan Division and advanced to the second round.

Incidentally, Eichel and Hughes were teammates last month, skating for the United States in the 4 Nations Face-Off.

NEW YORK -- Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant was fined $25,000 on Sunday for throwing the game ball into the stands at the end of the third quarter of Friday night's home loss to the New York Knicks.

Morant angrily flung the ball across the court and into the seats with the Grizzlies leading 88-82 at the end of the period. He was assessed a technical foul.

New York rallied for a 114-113 victory.

Morant is averaging 20.9 points and 7.4 assists this season. Memphis entered Sunday in fourth place in the Western Conference.

SAN ANTONIO -- A testy third-quarter scuffle nearly erupted into a full-blown fight Sunday, resulting in three ejections, during the Oklahoma City Thunder's 146-132 win over the San Antonio Spurs.

"We had an altercation?" Oklahoma City's Jalen Williams asked jokingly during his postgame interview on the court with ESPN. "It made us refocus, figure out what's important."

Officials issued double technicals to Kenrich Williams and Julian Champagnie as well as Jeremy Sochan and Lu Dort after the incident. Williams, Champagnie and Dort were ejected.

With three minutes left in the third quarter, Williams was elbowed in the jaw while guarding Champagnie as he passed to Stephon Castle, who found Sochan cutting under the basket for a two-handed dunk. As that play unfolded, Williams and Champagnie stood near the scorer's table, shoving each other.

"When people are aggressive, there are a lot of coincidental elbows or contact," Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. "I don't really know who was at fault, to be honest. But it just looked like that was what initiated it. And then there was the response on both ends. [It] just looked like Kenrich Williams was being aggressive, and Julian was opening up. I don't know if that's an offensive foul now. I don't know where that line is of what space you're allowed."

Players, officials, security personnel and coaches from both teams rushed to break up the scuffle. But the situation escalated as Sochan and Dort grabbed each other in a scrum that involved more than 10 people, including Castle, De'Aaron Fox, Keldon Johnson, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Cason Wallace and Aaron Wiggins.

"I went for a dunk, and then all I see is just everyone going to one spot," Sochan said while smiling. "So, like I had to go to the same spot. It was a little scuffle. I think it was pretty playful. It wasn't anything too serious. Yeah, it kind of evolved. I had to react a little bit in the playful scuffle."

NBA official James Williams announced the play was "under review for an altercation that does not dissolve." After the review, Williams issued the double technicals and ejections. Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault said Dort was ejected for something he said during the scuffle. Dort's words were not directed at the officials, the coach added.

"We have not been a team that's retaliated very much," Daigneault said. "We retaliated tonight. We have the worst free throw differential in the NBA. So, more fouls are being called on us than are being called on our opponents. I think there's a cumulative frustration, and I think our guys finally got to a point where they had had enough. We have to have better poise. We don't want to lose rotation players in big games as a result of that. We've done a great job of that for a long period of time, and I just think the cumulative effect of the pummeling we take on some plays boiled over in that situation."

Kenrich Williams went scoreless in 10 minutes, while Dort contributed nine points, nine rebounds and a steal in helping Oklahoma City capture its third straight victory. Champagnie tallied eight points on 3-of-4 shooting.

On Jalen Williams' Instagram, he posted a picture of Dort in the locker room and jokingly referred to him as "1st team all crashout."

"I got the explanation from James Williams," Daigneault said. "If James Williams wants to eject him for that, I think it's justified. Again, the issue I have with that is I've heard with my own ears in the last two weeks other players say similar or worse things to officials with no response. The officials are saying we're calibrating to the emotion of the game. Great. If we're calibrating with one player, we should be calibrating with Lu Dort. If there's zero tolerance for Lu Dort, there should be zero tolerance to everybody. They've got to figure that out."