GREEN MAG

Emanuel Sharp scored 23 points and the No. 3 Houston's defense did the rest to help the host Cougars produce a 78-64 win over reeling Kansas State on Saturday afternoon in a Big 12 Conference clash.

The Cougars (23-2, 11-1 Big 12) relied on their defense to limit Kansas State to just five field goals in the first half and scored the final 13 points on the way to a 33-19 lead at halftime. Houston was up by 14 points despite missing 23 of their 33 shots over the first 20 minutes.

Houston increased the margin to 24 in the second half when Chris Cenac Jr. hit a 3-pointer with 16:41 to play. But the Wildcats refused to go away, pulling to within 59-49 on Nate Johnson's basket from beyond the arc with 7:06 left.

That's as close as Kansas State would get as the Cougars extended their overall winning streak to six games and have captured 18 straight and 51 of their last 52 contests at home.

Milos Uzan and Kingston Flemings added 12 points each for Houston, whose next three games are against teams ranked in the top 10 beginning with No. 5 Iowa State on the road on Monday. The Cougars shot 53.8% in the second half.

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P.J. Haggerty led the Wildcats with 23 points while Johnson had 12 and Taj Manning scored 10. Kansas State (10-15, 1-11 Big 12) dropped its sixth game in a row.

The Cougars survived a ragged offensive beginning, missing 11 straight shots from the floor after scoring the game's opening basket and falling behind 9-3. Houston snapped that swoon when Sharp canned a 3-pointer with 12:47 left but still trailed 15-6 after Haggerty poured in a 3-pointer with 11:35 to play in the half.

Houston finally found its collective stride, running off 13 of the ensuing 14 points to take the lead at 19-16 on Kalifa Sakho's dunk with 6:48 left until halftime. Uzan's third-chance 3-pointer 4:06 before halftime stoked the Cougars' lead to six points, and Houston extended its run through the rest of the half, getting two free throws by Flemings with 5.1 seconds left to carry a 33-19 lead to the break.

Sharp led all scorers with 14 points before halftime while Houston shot just 30.3% from the floor for the half. Haggerty's eight points paced the Wildcats, who made only 20.8 percent of their field goals -- missing their final 10 shots of the half -- and going scoreless over the final 5:24 before the break.

--Field Level Media

Cameron Boozer produced a game-high 18 points and eight rebounds to lead No. 4 Duke to a 67-54 victory against No. 20 Clemson in a key Atlantic Coast Conference matchup Saturday afternoon in Durham, N.C.

Isaiah Evans scored 17 points and Cayden Boozer added 12 for the Blue Devils (23-2, 12-1 ACC), who pulled away early in the second half courtesy of a strong defensive performance. Duke has won back-to-back games since last weekend's last-second loss at North Carolina.

Carter Welling (12 points) and RJ Godfrey (10 points) paced Clemson (20-6, 10-3), which began the week with a chance to move atop the ACC standings. Instead, the Tigers suffered an upset loss to Virginia Tech on Wednesday at home before losing on Duke's home floor for the 22nd time in a row dating back to 1996.

Clemson finished at 35.1% from the field, including 6-for-24 on 3-point attempts.

Cooper Flagg, the National Player of the Year as a Duke freshman last season, was among those in attendance at Cameron Indoor Stadium. He saw the Blue Devils made 10 3-pointers for their first double-figure total since Jan. 10 vs. SMU.

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Duke scored the first eight points of the second half -- five from Evans -- for a 38-26 lead. The margin grew to 52-31 as Clemson missed its first six shots of the second half and went just 2-for-15 in the first eight-plus minutes of the second half.

Duke made five 3-point shots in the game's first 13 minutes while Clemson was 0-for-4 at that juncture. But the Blue Devils were aiming for perimeter production, taking 17 of their first 23 shots from beyond the arc.

Duke stretched its lead to 28-20 on Evans' 3-pointer with 3:58 left in the half, which forced Clemson to call timeout. The Tigers pulled within 31-26 by halftime despite 1-for-9 shooting on 3-point tries.

Duke center Patrick Ngongba II, whose status had been in doubt because of a wrist injury, started but played only four first-half minutes after picking up two fouls. He finished with six points and six rebounds in 19 minutes.

--Field Level Media

Jarin Stevenson and Seth Trimble scored 19 points apiece on Saturday to help short-handed No. 11 North Carolina post a 79-65 victory over visiting Pittsburgh in Atlantic Coast Conference play in Chapel Hill, N.C.

Zayden High had 15 points and seven rebounds for North Carolina (20-5, 8-4 ACC), which played without its two leading scorers in Caleb Wilson (19.8 points per game) and Henri Veesaar (16.4 ppg), who both missed the game with injuries. Luka Bogavac added 15 points for the Tar Heels, who won their sixth game in seven tries.

Cameron Corhen led Pittsburgh (9-17, 2-11) with 23 points, six rebounds, and six assists. Roman Siulepa scored 14 points and Barry Dunning Jr. contributed 10 in the Panthers' fifth straight loss.

After building a 14-point halftime lead, North Carolina extended the margin to 19 on Bogavac's mid-range jumper and High's dunk with 15:26 left. The Tar Heels took their first 20-point lead on Trimble's layup at the 13:41 mark.

Trailing 62-41, Pittsburgh pulled within 14 as Nojus Indrusaitis's layup began a 7-0 spurt. From there, North Carolina opened the lead back up as Bogavac's 3-pointer put the Tar Heels ahead by 22 at the 7:57 mark.

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Corhen's dunk with 4:55 remaining pulled the visitors within 16, before the Panthers cut the deficit to 76-62 on Dunning's 3-pointer. Trimble then made three free throws to ice North Carolina's comfortable victory.

After Siulepa's layup trimmed Pittsburgh's early deficit to 8-5, Trimble's 3-pointer stamped an 8-0 spurt to push the Tar Heels' edge to 11 with 15:04 remaining in the first half.

Siulepa's floater later sliced North Carolina's lead to 20-15, before Trimble and Jonathan Powell's back-to-back layups gave the Tar Heels a 30-19 edge. Jaydon Young hit a triple to extend the lead to 36-23 with 6:10 left in the opening half.

Stevenson scored the Tar Heels' final four points of the first half, giving North Carolina a 46-32 lead at the break. Stevenson's 14 first-half points paced the Tar Heels, while Corhen's 17 led all scorers before halftime.

--Field Level Media

Thousands of fishermen descended Saturday on the milky waters of the Matan Fadan river, a UNESCO heritage site that snakes through lush vegetation at the town of Argungu in Nigeria's northwest.

Several thousand onlookers, including President Bola Tinubu, cheered them on as they competed to hook the biggest fish, even as security issues kept some people away. Competitors used only traditional angling techniques, such as hand-woven nets and large calabash gourds. Some used their bare hands to demonstrate their skills.

The waterway in Kebbi state was filled with woven nets and canoes as the fishermen forded the river. This year's winner caught a croaker fish weighing 59 kilograms (130 pounds). The winner is paid a cash prize, and the other participants get to sell their catch, boosting the local economy.

The small river is closed for the rest of the year and maintained by a titled chief called Sarkin Ruwa, the chief of the water.

The fishing competition was the culmination of the annual international fishing festival that featured cultural events, including traditional wrestling and music.

"I thank God that I got something to take home to my family to eat. I am very happy that I came," Aliyu Muhammadu, a 63-year-old fisherman who participated in the competition, told The Associated Press.

The festival dates back to 1934, when nearly 100 years of hostility between the ancient Sokoto Caliphate — a sprawling 19th-century Islamic empire reaching from Nigeria to parts of modern-day Burkina Faso — and a holdout Argungu emirate ended.

The fishing festival is regarded as a symbol of unity, and it has run for decades until it was paused in 2010 following infrastructural problems and because of festering insecurity in Nigeria's northern region. The festival returned in 2020 but was paused again until this year.

Nigeria is facinga complex security crisis, especially in the north, which for years has witnessed attacks that have left several thousand people dead. The attacks have been blamed on fighters with Islamist insurgent groups and criminal armed groups. The attacks arenow spreading to the southern region.

Tinubu said the festival is a return to stability but for many the festival's return restores a sense of communal pride.

"Our challenge now is that people are scared of coming. A lot of people don't attend the event like before because of insecurity," Hussein Mukwashe, the Sarkin Ruwa of Argungu, told The Associated Press.

PARATY, Brazil (AP) — Revelers heading to Carnival parties inBraziltypically don colorful, skimpy outfits and splatter glitter everywhere, but near an old colonial town in the south of the country people cover themselves in something very different – mud.

Partakers in this unusualCarnival partyin Paraty drape gray sludge on themselves and roll around in the silty shallows of a beach, forming a unified mass.

"Everyone is kind of the same (…), those who have money and those who don't: everyone comes here to jump into the mud," said Charles Garcia Pessoa, a 37-year-old entrepreneur.

Under a blazing sun, the mud-covered partygoers danced and grunted cavemen chants — "Uga! Uga!" — while marching along the sand, accompanied by musicians.

The tradition started in 1986, according to Paraty's tourism site. Friends were playing in the mangroves at Jabaquara Beach, and realized they weren't recognizable. They went strolling into the city's historic center and caused a stir.

The next year, a group lathered themselves up with mud to present themselves as a prehistoric tribe for Carnival. They carried skulls, vines and bones as they uttered their chants, the site said.

And so the mud party was born. And in the years since, it has become a beloved tradition.

Matt Bloomfield, a New Zealander who runs a film festival, decided to come to Paraty for the mud party after seeingcoverageof last year's event.

"Everyone's being so creative, you see people around decorating themselves with leaves," he said. "It's a great alternate version of Carnival."