Sports Briefs: Wake Forest men set to play ranked soccer teams from Big Ten

The third-ranked Wake Forest men's soccer team is scheduled to play two ranked opponents this weekend, taking on No. 12 Notre Dame and No. 7 Indiana at the adidas/IU Credit Union Classic in Bloomington, Ind.

The Deacons and Fighting Irish are set for 5 p.m. today, and the Wake Forest-Indiana match is scheduled for 2 p.m. on Sunday.

Notre Dame opened its season with a 5-0 victory over Michigan on Tuesday night with Bright Dike, a Hermann Trophy candidate, scoring three goals.

Andrew Quinn returns in goal for Notre Dame. Quinn went 10-4-2 in 2008 with six shutouts and added the shutout of Michigan on Tuesday.

Indiana will be playing its season opener against St. John's today before taking on Wake Forest on Sunday.

Wake Forest is putting a 42-game unbeaten streak against non-conference opponents on the line this weekend. Wake Forest last lost to a non-ACC foe on Nov. 26, 2005, falling 3-2 to California in the third round of the NCAA Tournament.

More soccer

■ FIFA has banned Chelsea of the English Premier League from signing any new players for a year because it encouraged Gael Kakuta, an 18-year-old striker, to break his contract with the French team Lens and sign with Chelsea. FIFA ordered Kakuta and Chelsea to pay Lens the equivalent of $1.12 million and banned Kakuta from all games for four months.

■ Pablo Mastroeni of the Colorado Rapids has been suspended for two games and fined $1,250 by Major League Soccer for endangering an opponent's safety.

The endangerment occurred in the 63rd minute of a match against the Houston Dynamo on Aug. 30. Dynamo defender Andrew Hainault was injured on the play, Mastroeni was yellow-carded, and the MLS disciplinary committee determined that Mastroeni's actions were reckless and egregious.

Basketball

■ Malik Cooke, a former starter at Nevada, has joined the men's basketball team at South Carolina as a walk-on transfer. Cooke, a 6-5 forward from Charlotte who played at Christ School near Asheville, will sit out the 2009-10 season under NCAA transfer rules and will have two seasons of eligibility left. He will pay his own tuition this school year and be able to practice with the team

Cooke, who averaged 9.6 points and 6.2 rebounds in 34 games last season, said he transferred to get closer to home. He said that South Carolina was the best place for him to grow as a player.

■ Bill Laimbeer, a former Detroit Pistons "Bad Boy," and Reggie Theus, a former NBA head coach with Sacramento, are among the assistants who will work under Kurt Rambis with the Minnesota Timberwolves.

The team announced the additions yesterday. Rambis' staff also includes Dave Wohl, who most recently worked in the Boston Celtics organization. J.B. Bickerstaff is being retained from Kevin McHale's staff.

Laimbeer resigned as coach of the WNBA's Detroit Shock earlier this summer. Theus was fired by the Kings in December after 106 games as coach.

■ Wake Forest has hired Mike Lepore as its assistant coordinator of operations in men's basketball. His duties include assisting with travel and logisitics and day-to-day management of recruiting databases. Lepore was a walk-on guard for the Deacons for four seasons (2005-2009) and played in 19 games.

■ Bruce Bowen, a former forward for the San Antonio Spurs, retired yesterday after 12 NBA seasons.

Bowen, 38, built a reputation as one of the league's top defenders, hounding opponents with a tenacity that some players groused was more dirty than dogged. He started on three Spurs championship teams and was named to the NBA's all-defensive team eight times.

He was traded to Milwaukee this summer for swingman Richard Jefferson, then cut shortly afterward.

Miscellaneous

■ Alberto Contador, a two-time winner of the Tour de France, has pulled out of this month's world cycling championships in Switzerland, saying through a spokesman that he is not in top shape and doesn't want to prevent another rider with better chances of winning from competing.

■ Sprinter Sheri-Ann Brooks has been cleared of doping by a Jamaican appeals tribunal that agreed with a disciplinary panel's decision to clear Brooks because her backup sample was tested without her knowledge. Jamaica's Anti-Doping Commission asked the tribunal to review her case and cases of four others accused of using a banned substance at their national championships in June.

■ Zola Budd Pieterse, a former world champion and record holder at 5,000 meters, will run today in the Gamecock Invitational cross-country meet with runners from various S.C. schools. Budd, a 43-year-old South African, now lives in Myrtle Beach and is an assistant track and cross-country coach at Coastal Carolina. Her time will not count.