Former Sacramento Kings star Mike Bibby will be hired as the basketball coach at Sacramento State, a person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press on Monday.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the move wasn't scheduled to be announced until Tuesday. ESPN first reported the decision.
Bibby won an NCAA title as a player at Arizona in 1997 and then starred in the NBA for 14 seasons, with his biggest success coming in seven seasons with the Kings. He helped Sacramento make it to Game 7 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals before losing to the Los Angeles Lakers.
Bibby retired in 2012 and has experience coaching in high school in Arizona but has not coached above that level.
Sacramento State has been looking to increase its profile in college athletics with hopes of being able to move from the FCS level of college football to the FBS level and a spot in a bigger conference like the Mountain West or even a newly formed Pac-12. The Hornets are currently a member of the Big Sky.
The move to hire Bibby is part of that effort as he will try to revive a struggling program.
The Hornets went 7-25 this season under interim coach Michael Czepil, who was promoted last spring after David Patrick left to take a job as associate head coach at LSU.
Sacramento State had gone 28-42 in two seasons under Patrick and the program has never made an NCAA Tournament since moving up to Division I in 1991-92. The Hornets have posted a winning record only twice since then, going 16-14 in 2019-20 and 21-12 in 2014-15.
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FILE - Sacramento Kings guard Mike Bibby stands on the court as time runs out during an NBA basketball game against the Denver Nuggets, on April 4, 2007, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A former Polish justice minister who faces prosecution in his homeland over alleged abuse of power said Monday that he has been granted asylum in Hungary.
Zbigniew Ziobro was a key figure in the government led by the nationalist conservative Law and Justice party that ran Poland between 2015 and 2023. That administration established political control over key judicial institutions by stacking higher courts with friendly judges and punishing its critics with disciplinary action or assignments to far-away locations.
Current Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government came to power more than two years ago with ambitions to roll back the changes, but efforts to undo them have been blocked by two successive presidents aligned with the national right.
In October, prosecutors requested the lifting of Ziobro's parliamentary immunity to press charges against him. They allege among other things that Ziobro misused a fund for victims of violence, including for the purchase of Israeli Pegasus surveillance software.
Tusk’s party says Law and Justice used Pegasus to spy illegally on political opponents while in power. Ziobro says he acted lawfully.
Hungary, led by nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has hosted several politicians close to Law and Justice while Polish authorities were seeking them.
In a lengthy post on X Monday, Ziobro wrote that he had “decided to accept the asylum granted to me by the government of Hungary due to the political persecution in Poland.”
“I have decided to remain abroad until genuine guarantees of the rule of law are restored in Poland,” he said. “I believe that instead of acquiescing to being silenced and subjected to a torrent of lies — which I would have no opportunity to refute — I can do more by fighting the mounting lawlessness in Poland.”
Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in Budapest on Monday that Hungarian authorities have granted asylum to “several” individuals who would face political persecution in Poland, according to his ministry. He declined to specify their names.
In an English-language post on X, Tusk wrote that “the former Minister of Justice(!), Mr. Ziobro, who was the mastermind of the political corruption system, has asked the government of Victor Orbán for political asylum.”
“A logical choice,” he added.
FILE - The leader of the Polish junior coalition partners Zbigniew Ziobro, speaks to reporters alongside in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2020. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, file)
