By STEVE WILSTEIN / AP Sports Columnist Two small Jesuit schools on opposite sides of the country are winning votes and hearts. No. 1 Saint Joseph’s has the flashy backcourt, No. 3 Gonzaga the NBA-sized front line. It’s one of the more incredible stories in college basketball history, these two little schools from Philadelphia and…

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (AP) — Brian Hamilton scored 17 points as Louisiana-Lafayette defeated Middle Tennessee 70-66 Monday night in the semifinals of the Sun Belt Conference tournament. Louisiana-Lafayette (19-8) will play New Orleans, an 80-65 winner over Arkansas-Little Rock in Monday’s other semifinal, for the championship Tuesday night. Hamilton was 8-of-9 from the floor. Brad…

NASHVILLE (AP) — A tour bus carrying country singer Randy Travis ran into a ditch Sunday afternoon in eastern Pennsylvania. No one was hurt. The 45-foot, customized bus careened into a driveway and then went into the ditch on state Road 590 near Lakeville, Pa., said Elizabeth Travis, the singer’s wife. The Travises and driver…

MEMPHIS (AP) — Researchers at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital want to know whether adding therapies like massage, humor and relaxation training to the standard drug regimen does more than provide short-lived relief for young cancer patients. They also are asking whether such complementary approaches also ease pain, nausea and other treatment side effects as…

CLEVELAND (AP) — A study commissioned by a Cleveland attorney shows at least five Tennessee courthouses still do not provide proper access to the disabled despite federal and state laws requiring it. William Brown has sued 25 counties and the state of Tennessee for violating the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. State lawyers admitted renovations…

By AMBER McDOWELL / Associated Press Writer NASHVILLE (AP) — For Secretary of State Riley Darnell, one experience with the corruption, scandal and death that came with Tennessee’s last foray into state-regulated bingos and raffles is enough. It was the late 1980s, and Darnell — then a state senator — watched as a fellow legislator…

Sidelines @ MTSU A recent Sidelines editorial prompted a call from the university president to the Rutherford County Sheriff, who then threatened legal action against the newspaper and ordered criminalbackground checks performed on its staffers, according to the sheriff’s lawyer.

Sidelines @ MTSU Support has grown over the weekend for a no confidence vote by the Faculty Senate on the leadership of President Sidney McPhee at today’s meeting.

MURFREESBORO (AP) — After years of rapid growth, Middle Tennessee State University is raising its admission standards and making other changes to slow enrollment. MTSU’s enrollment has increased every fall since 1994, growing from 17,120 students that year to 21,744 in 2003 — a 27 percent jump. The past three years have been especially intense;…

By BILL POOVEY / Associated Press Writer Floyd Bouldin, the principal owner of the WastAway company, shows off a pile of “fluff,” a product made from unsorted household garbage, in the company’s plant in McMinnville on Feb. 18, 2004. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey) McMINNVILLE (AP) — Trucks dump tons of unsorted household garbage inside a cavernous…