John Calipari won the Naismith Award as the national coach of the year, the Atlanta Tipoff Club announced yesterday.

Calipari led Memphis to the NCAA title game, where the Wildcats lost to Kansas, 75-68, in overtime.

Calipari also won the award in 1996 after leading Massachusetts to the Final Four.

Television ratings for the women's NCAA championship game and the entire tournament were up from last year. Tennessee's 64-48 victory over Stanford on Tuesday night, shown on ESPN, had a 3.0 rating, up 30 percent from the 2.3 for last season's Tennessee-Rutgers game.

UCLA coach Ben Howland disputed a report that all-American Kevin Love and teammate Darren Collison would leave for the NBA, saying neither had made a decision.

Elsewhere: Villanova's associate head basketball coach, Brett Gunning, said he had taken his name out of consideration for the head coaching position at Marist. . . . Oklahoma forward Blake Griffin said he would return for his sophomore season instead of declaring for the NBA draft. . . . Southern Cal guard O.J. Mayo, West Virginia forward Joe Alexander, Texas A&M center DeAndre Jordan, and Syracuse guard Donte Greene declared for the draft.

Pro basketball

The WNBA's New York Liberty will host the first regular-season outdoor game in professional basketball history.

The Liberty Outdoor Classic will be held July 19 at Arthur Ashe Stadium in the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, N.Y. The Liberty will play the Indiana Fever at the home of the U.S. Open.

Tennis

Venus Williams will miss another tournament next week as she undergoes tests for a medical issue that her agent said was not serious.

Elsewhere: Lindsay Davenport defeated Jill Craybas, 6-1, 6-4, to reach the third round of the Bausch & Lomb Championships in Amelia Island, Fla. . . . Australian Open finalist Jo-Wilfried Tsonga will not play for France in this weekend's Davis Cup match against the United States because of a right-knee injury.

Soccer

The U.S. women qualified for the Beijing Olympics by beating Costa Rica, 3-0, in the CONCACAF qualifying tournament semifinals in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

D.C. United was eliminated from the CONCACAF Champions Cup despite a 2-1 win over Pachuca in Washington. The Mexican club won the series on aggregate, 3-2.

Elsewhere: Former MLS player of the year Amado Guevara returned to the league, signing with Toronto FC. . . . Sainey Nyassi and Kenny Mansally scored in the first half to lead the New England Revolution to a 3-1 victory over Kansas City in the MLS.

Noteworthy

Pyro, coming off a win in the Louisiana Derby, is the early even-money favorite in Saturday's Blue Grass Stakes in Keeneland, Ky. Pyro will start from the seventh position in a crowded 12-horse field, the largest for the Kentucky Derby prep race since 1982.

Sarah Vaillancourt scored two goals in a 37-second span of the second period, and Canada beat Finland, 4-2, to advance to the title game of the women's world hockey championships in Harbin, China.

The nine-time champion Canadians will face the United States today in the final.

The U.S. team of Ryan Lochte, Bryan Lundquist, Nathan Adrian and Doug Van Wie broke the world record in the men's 400 freestyle relay at the world swimming championships in Manchester, England. The time of 3 minutes, 8.44 seconds topped Sweden's mark of 3:09.57 in 2000.