Top ten sports: Former Saints player Will Smith shot dead in New Orleans (Watch On-line )

Former NFL athlete Will Smith was killed and his wife injured by a gunman who shot the retired football player several times after ramming into his car in New Orleans, police and a local media report said on Sunday.

Suspected shooter Cardell Hayes, 30, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder, the New Orleans Police Department said in a Tweet.

Smith, 34, a retired defensive end with the National Football League's New Orleans Saints, was traveling in a Mercedes in the city's Lower Garden District shortly before 11:30 p.m. on Saturday when his car was rear-ended by a Hummer.

Smith exchanged words with the driver of the Hummer, who took out a handgun and shot him several times, New Orleans Police Department spokesman Juan Barnes said in a statement.

Smith played American football for the Saints for a decade, including in the team that won the Super Bowl in February 2010. His professional football career ended in 2014.

During the Saturday night incident, a 33-year-old woman who was with Smith was shot in the legs and taken to the hospital, the statement said. The Times-Picayune newspaper identified the woman as Smith's wife, but did not name her.

Police said the shooter stayed on the scene after the incident and that they recovered the weapon used.

Smith's family posted a brief statement on his Facebook page expressing thanks for the outpouring of support and asking for respect for their privacy.

Smith had three children and was married to Racquel Smith, according to the ex-player's official website.

Today:World T20 final: Joe Root the hero as England take three quick wickets against West Indies.

 
Listen to England v West Indies on talkSPORT 2 from 1pm on Sunday afternoon

England assistant coach Paul Farbrace has urged his players to be aggressive in the World Twenty20 final against the West Indies.
Stokes v Samuels round two. Once again the England man begins with a long-hop dirtier than a Louis CK joke, only this time Samuels misses out with the cut. And if that ball was Louis CK then the wide that follows is positively GG Allin. Stokes goes short, Bravo top-edges a big hook and Sam Billings, the 12th man running round from square-leg, misjudges the flight completely and drops it! Equally crucially, the ball skips away for four. Stokes looks to be badly dripping with sweat out there. Ah then another missed chance off the last ball! Bravo slaps to Root at mid-on, his throw is good but Stokes fails to complete the run-out with the batsman short! For good measure, Bravo bundles straight into Stokes when he does make his ground.
England lost their opening clash in the Super 10s to their opponents in Sunday's final, but their form has improved greatly since - aside from the wobble against Afghanistan.

And with it all to play for at Eden Gardens in Kolkata, Farbrace - who led Sri Lanka to the short form, title in 2012 - wants his players to come flying out of the traps.

He told the ECB's website: "They've coped with that pressure, they've coped with people writing them off, saying they lack experience and lack knowledge of India.

"They just keep getting better and better and the one thing we've talked about a lot is not only being a team that's learning and developing but being a team that's winning because international sport is about winning.

"To keep not only learning but understanding the conditions, understanding the way cricket is played in this part of the world and how you have to think on your think but to win against proper opposition is fantastic.

"Our job between now and Sunday is just to keep the lads calm and talk to them about the fact it's a fantastic opportunity.

"Our focus will be all on us, it will be talking about reminding the players what they do well, reminding them how they practice and why they practice in the way they have and so that when they come to the game situation that will be as instinctive as possible and go and play your way – that's all we've ever said.

"Let's make sure we're aggressive with our intent and take the game to the opposition. Play the way you've played for your county and enjoy playing like that."


Read more at http://talksport.com/cricket/england-world-t20-news-paul-farbrace-urges-player-be-aggressive-160401190432#Bp1wWLsYWeeUVjU4.99

OVER 13: WI 76/3 (Samuels 48* Bravo 17*)
Oooh, big moment. Sam Billings, who is on as a sub fielder for Hales (?), has dropped one down at deep backward square. Stokes digs in a slower ball bouncer. Billings runs round to get it  and over-runs, his foot slips a bit, he has shelled it. Oh that could be a massive drop. Barvo reprieved. And a four to boot.
Excellent over from Rashid. Very full, and that big ripping leg-break in the previous over is playing on the mind of Samuels I think... He's not confident enough to play a big shot. And he's got his hands full with the googly in this over, that turns back into him a touch. Keeps it out. This is fine stuff from Adil, keeps them to singles, four off the over and England have their noses in front at the 3/4 point of the match.

Top Sports:Left for dead, Big East still alive and thriving thanks to Villanova's surprising run

HOUSTON – Over the last decade or so, the football-driven machinations of conference

realignment attempted to make impossible the following bit of reality: Villanova, of the Big East, is playing for the national title on Monday.

If College Sports Inc. couldn’t rewrite the rules of basketball so you received a couple extra baskets if you had an 80,000-seat stadium on campus, it could try to squeeze everyone out with money and TV contracts and bloated conference memberships. It could try to leave the Big East, where basketball matters most, as some relic of the past, a quaint but ultimately quiet old place.

Villanova 95, Oklahoma 51 – and, yes, you could hear that Big East roar here.

Try as it might, football couldn’t kill the basketball star.

View gallery
.Josh Hart scored 23 points on 10-of-12 shooting to lead Villanova over Oklahoma. (Getty)
Josh Hart scored 23 points on 10-of-12 shooting to lead Villanova over Oklahoma. (Getty)
“Well, the game was played in a football stadium,” John Paquette, the Big East's longtime associate commissioner, said with a smile in reference to the NFL’s cavernous NRG Stadium. You can’t fault the conference for enjoying every moment of this.

It was rocked by realignment that saw even bedrock programs leave for football reasons – even as most found more money but less actual competitive success. So in 2013, the Big East reinvented itself.

An awkward marriage with football was out. Back in was something akin to its roots, 10 teams, all private schools, mostly Catholic and big-city-based. Mostly it was filled with schools that unapologetically embraced hoops as their preferred sport.

You wouldn’t think loving basketball could possibly be seen as a negative in the sport of basketball, but college athletics employs plenty of inexplicable conventional wisdoms. This one said that private schools, especially without football money flooding in, were going to struggle.

The Big East has been a dominant conference in this sport since its inception in 1979 – league teams captured seven national titles. With Syracuse and Connecticut and Louisville and others gone though, it needed to reprove that this could still happen.

“A lot of pride,” Jay Wright, who has coached Villanova since 2001, said of reaching the title game. “We reinvented ourselves. That's what we did in a time when college athletics is really being run by football."

“I'm a huge college football fan,” Wright continued. “I love it. But there are a lot of great basketball schools. We all got together. That's just what we are. We're basketball schools. We make all our decisions athletically about basketball. That's our lead sport. We just wanted to get together and see where we fit in this world of football."


View gallery
.Villanova head coach Jay Wright reacts to a call during his team's blowout win over Oklahoma. (AP)
Villanova head coach Jay Wright reacts to a call during his team's blowout win over Oklahoma. (AP)
“We don't have a goal to be the greatest league in the world," Wright said. "We're authentic. We're all basketball schools. We're in metropolitan areas. It's the biggest sport.”
What Villanova showed Saturday in trouncing Oklahoma is what league schools have been showing all season. Whether it's tradition, or the fact hoops matters most, or facilities, or coaching, or proximity to talent, or major markets, or the league tournament still being played in Madison Square Garden, great players still want to play here.

Butler, Providence, Seton Hall and Xavier also made the tournament. The league feels like it has regained its footing and is on the upswing.

 “It's sort of a dream come true because when we went down this path a couple years ago, this was the ultimate goal,” commissioner Val Ackerman said. “Not just to compete for a national championship but to win one with this group of schools. It was to prove that the Big East could be good with this group of schools ... it’s surreal in many ways.”

It’s surreal because of how this is being done, via blunt force. Nova is deep and dominating and dangerous. Offensively, the Wildcats shot 71.4 percent on Saturday and had seven players reach double figures, unheard of numbers in college hoops. Defensively, they shut down Sooner star Buddy Hield, holding him to just nine points. About midway through the second half, if not earlier, a thoroughly humiliated OU effectively quit on the game.

The 44-point margin of victory was the biggest in Final Four history, yet sort of par for the tournament for the Wildcats. There was a thrilling five-point victory over the tournament's top seed, Kansas, in the Elite Eight. The other four victories thus far, however, are by an average of 29 points a game.

This is no underdog. This is one of those old Big East bullies, coming into Monday night brimming with well-earned confidence.

View gallery
.The Wildcats' bench reacts to a shot in the second half of their rout of Oklahoma. (AP)
The Wildcats' bench reacts to a shot in the second half of their rout of Oklahoma. (AP)
That the old days are still here again is not taken lightly. Everyone at a basketball school across the country knows how precarious things felt back in the churn of realignment, how schools were jumping for life rafts believing football is all that mattered.

It turns out the Titanic is still cruising along rather well.

“This event is bigger than the four-team football championship to our schools,” Wright said. “You can see by our fans out there. It's just what we are. We're just trying to be the best we can be.

“We know we have to prove ourselves because we're new. Not because we're not good, because we're reinvented. I'm really happy for our league, happy that our league is in the finals, as happy as I am for Villanova.”

Left if not for dead, but for mid-major mediocrity, the Big East is alive and fine and proudly playing on Monday ... in a football stadium in Texas. Kickoff is 9:19 p.m. ET.