STORRS, Conn. (AP) — UConn forward Alex Karaban announced Thursday that he has declared for the NBA draft while retaining his college eligibility.
Karaban made the announcement on social media, saying his experience at UConn “has exceeded my expectations.”
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STORRS, Conn. (AP) — UConn forward Alex Karaban announced Thursday that he has declared for the NBA draft while retaining his college eligibility.
UConn head coach Dan Hurley celebrates with forward Alex Karaban (11) after their win against Purdue in the NCAA college Final Four championship basketball game, Monday, April 8, 2024, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
UConn forward Alex Karaban declares for NBA draft while retaining college eligibility
UConn forward Alex Karaban declares for NBA draft while retaining college eligibility
UConn head coach Dan Hurley celebrates with forward Alex Karaban (11) after their win against Purdue in the NCAA college Final Four championship basketball game, Monday, April 8, 2024, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
The 6-foot-8 sophomore averaged 13.3 points and 5.1 rebounds this season, helping UConn to its second straight NCAA title.
He joins 7-2 center Donovan Clingan in declaring for the draft.
Karaban has been projected as a possible late first-round or second-round pick.
Clingan and freshman guard Stephon Castle are projected as NBA lottery picks. Castle has yet to announce his future plans.
The Huskies' two other starters this season, guards Cam Spencer and Tristen Newton, also could be drafted. Neither has any college eligibility remaining.
AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball
UConn's Alex Karaban, left, and Jayden Ross, right, smile as they board a bus for a parade to celebrate the team's NCAA college basketball championship, Saturday, April 13, 2024, in Hartford, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
UConn head coach Dan Hurley celebrates with forward Alex Karaban (11) after their win against Purdue in the NCAA college Final Four championship basketball game, Monday, April 8, 2024, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
UConn forward Alex Karaban declares for NBA draft while retaining college eligibility
UConn forward Alex Karaban declares for NBA draft while retaining college eligibility
UConn head coach Dan Hurley celebrates with forward Alex Karaban (11) after their win against Purdue in the NCAA college Final Four championship basketball game, Monday, April 8, 2024, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Volunteer searchers said they have found a clandestine crematorium on the edge of Mexico City, though it was unclear if evidence found at the scene would back up that claim.
It's the first time in recent memory that anyone claimed to have found such a body disposal site in the capital. In northern Mexico, drug cartels often use drums filled with diesel or caustic substances to burn or dissolve bodies, but up to now there has been little evidence of that in Mexico City.
Ceci Flores, a leader of one of the groups of so-called “searching mothers” from northern Mexico, announced on social media late Tuesday her team had found bones around a charred pit on the outskirts of the city.
Flores said the team had found bones, clandestine burial pits and ID cards at the site in a rural area of the city’s south side.
Ulises Lara, Mexico City's chief prosecutor, later said police went to the addresses listed on the cards and “found that both of the people to whom those cards belonged are alive and in good health.”
Lara said one of them, a woman, said her card and cell phone and had been stolen about a year ago, when thieves snatched her phone and ID card from her hands while she was stuck in traffic.
While that ruled out the possibility the woman's body could had been dumped there, it did suggest that criminals had used the site to dispose of evidence.
Lara said experts were investigating to determine the nature of the remains found, and whether they were human. The prosecutors office said it was also reviewing security camera footage and looking for possible witnesses.
The discovery, if confirmed, would be a political embarrassment for the ruling party, which has long governed Mexico City and claims the capital has been spared much of the drug cartel violence that afflicts other parts of the country.
That is largely due to the city's dense population, notoriously snarled traffic, extensive security camera network and large police force, which presumably make it hard for criminals to act in the same way they do in provincial areas.
But while the city is home to 9 million residents and the greater metropolitan area holds around 20 million, large parts of the south side are still a mix of farms, woods and mountains. In those areas, it is not unheard of for criminals to dump the bodies of kidnapping victim, but they seldom burn or bury them.
Volunteer searchers like Flores often conduct their own investigations, sometimes relying on tips from former criminals, because the government has been unable to help. The searchers have been angered by a government campaign to “find” missing people by checking their last known address, to see if they have returned home without advising authorities.
Activists claim that is just an attempt to reduce the politically embarrassing figures on the missing.
The searchers, mostly the mothers of the disappeared, usually aren’t trying to convict anyone for their relatives’ abductions. They say they just want to find their remains.
The Mexican government has spent little on looking for the missing. Volunteers must stand in for nonexistent official search teams in the hunt for clandestine graves where cartels hide their victims. The government hasn’t adequately funded or implemented a genetic database to help identify the remains found.
Victims’ relatives rely on anonymous tips, sometimes from former cartel gunmen, to find suspected body-dumping sites. They plunge long steel rods into the earth to detect the scent of death.
If they find something, the most authorities will do is send a police and forensics team to retrieve the remains, which in most cases are never identified. But such systematic searches have been rare in Mexico City.
At least seven of the activists searching for some of Mexico’s more than 100,000 missing people have been killed since 2021.
A member of the Mexico City Search Commission digs in an area where search volunteers said they found a clandestine crematorium in Tlahuac, on the edge of Mexico City, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. Ceci Flores, a leader of one of the groups of so-called "searching mothers" from northern Mexico, announced late Tuesday that her team had found bones around clandestine burial pits and ID cards, and prosecutors said they were investigating to determine the nature of the remains. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)
Mexico City interim Prosecutor Ulises Lara speaks with the mothers of missing children at the site where volunteer searchers said they found a clandestine crematorium in Tlahuac, on the edge of Mexico City, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. Ceci Flores, a leader of one of the groups of so-called "searching mothers" from northern Mexico, announced late Tuesday that her team had found bones around clandestine burial pits and ID cards, and prosecutors said they were investigating to determine the nature of the remains found. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)
A police officer escorts women carrying digging tools at the site where a clandestine crematorium was found in Tlahuac, on the edge of Mexico City, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. Third from right is Jacqueline Palmeros who has been searching for her disappeared daughter since 2020 in Mexico City, and second from right is María de Jesús Soria whose daughter disappeared in Veracruz in 2016, and whose remains were turned over to her in 2022. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)
National Guards stand at the site where volunteer searchers said they found a clandestine crematorium in Tlahuac, on the edge of Mexico City, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. Ceci Flores, a leader of one of the groups of so-called "searching mothers" from northern Mexico, announced late Tuesday that her team had found bones around clandestine burial pits and ID cards, and prosecutors said they were investigating to determine the nature of the remains found. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)
A search dog from the Mexico City Search Commission named Argos searches in an area where search volunteers said they found a clandestine crematorium in Tlahuac, on the edge of Mexico City, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. Ceci Flores, a leader of one of the groups of so-called "searching mothers" from northern Mexico, announced late Tuesday that her team had found bones around clandestine burial pits and ID cards, and prosecutors said they were investigating to determine the nature of the remains. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)
Women holding digging tools stand at the site where a clandestine crematorium was found, as the press and police stand by in Tlahuac, on the edge of Mexico City, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. A leader of one of the groups of so-called "searching mothers" from northern Mexico, announced late Tuesday that her team had found bones around clandestine burial pits and ID cards, and prosecutors said they were investigating to determine the nature of the remains. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)
A member of the Mexico City Search Commission uses a ground-penetrating radar in an area where volunteers said they have found a clandestine crematorium in Tlahuac, on the edge of Mexico City, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. Ceci Flores, a leader of one of the groups of so-called "searching mothers" from northern Mexico, announced late Tuesday that her team had found bones around clandestine burial pits and ID cards, and prosecutors said they were investigating to determine the nature of the remains. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)
Ceci Flores, leader of a "searching mothers" group from northern Mexico, arrives with a shovel at the site where she said her team found a clandestine crematorium in Tlahuac, on the edge of Mexico City, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. Flores announced late Tuesday that her team had found bones around clandestine burial pits and ID cards, and prosecutors said they were investigating to determine the nature of the remains. At left is activist Bryan Lebaron. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)
Police stand by as members of the National Search Commission use rakes to search an area where volunteers said they found a clandestine crematorium in Tlahuac, on the edge of Mexico City, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. Ceci Flores, a leader of one of the groups of so-called "searching mothers" from northern Mexico, announced late Tuesday that her team had found bones around clandestine burial pits and ID cards, and prosecutors said they were investigating to determine the nature of the remains found. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)
Police stand guard in an area where volunteers said they found a clandestine crematorium in Tlahuac, on the edge of Mexico City, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. Ceci Flores, a leader of one of the groups of so-called "searching mothers" from northern Mexico, announced late Tuesday that her team had found bones around clandestine burial pits and ID cards, and prosecutors said they were investigating to determine the nature of the remains found. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)
Police tape off the area where volunteers said they have found a clandestine crematorium in Tlahuac, on the edge of Mexico City, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. Ceci Flores, a leader of one of the groups of so-called "searching mothers" from northern Mexico, announced late Tuesday that her team had found bones around clandestine burial pits and ID cards, and prosecutors said they were investigating to determine the nature of the remains found. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)
Women carry digging tools where they found a clandestine crematorium in Tlahuac, on the edge of Mexico City, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. Ceci Flores, a leader of one of the groups of so-called "searching mothers" from northern Mexico, announced late Tuesday that her team had found bones around clandestine burial pits and ID cards, and prosecutors said they were investigating to determine the nature of the remains found. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)
A member of the National Search Commission uses a ground-penetrating radar in an area where volunteers said they have found a clandestine crematorium in Tlahuac, on the edge of Mexico City, Wednesday, May 1, 2024. Ceci Flores, a leader of one of the groups of so-called "searching mothers" from northern Mexico, announced late Tuesday that her team had found bones around clandestine burial pits and ID cards, and prosecutors said they were investigating to determine the nature of the remains found. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)
