Sports briefs

Olympics

TORCH GOES NORTH: The torch for the Athens Games passed through the host city of the 1976 Summer Olympics on Sunday amid flag-waving crowds and ceremonies honoring the ancient Greeks.

Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay was among those to set the flame in motion outside Olympic Stadium.

"This is a symbolic place," Tremblay said. "The Olympic flame has come back to Montreal."

College basketball

COACH DENIES WRONGDOING: Wright State basketball coach Paul Biancardi strongly denied Sunday allegations that when he was an Ohio State assistant he arranged for payments to players, provided a woman with season tickets and asked her to introduce players to agents. Kathleen Salyers sued two Ohio State boosters last year, claiming that she never received the $1,000 per month plus expenses she had been promised for housing Boban Savovic, a player on the Buckeyes' Final Four team in 1998-99.

Biancardi is mentioned in the lawsuit, which led to the firing of coach Jim O'Brien earlier this month, as knowing about the assistance Salyers was giving to Savovic.