Tickets for the John Wooden Classic will...

Tickets for the John Wooden Classic will go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday at The Pond of Anaheim box office and national Ticketmaster locations.

Big Ten champion Purdue will meet Big East tournament champion Villanova in the first game, and defending national champion UCLA will face Maryland in the second game of the basketball doubleheader Dec. 9.

A sellout crowd of 18,307 attended the first Wooden Classic last December. UCLA defeated Kentucky and Kansas defeated Massachusetts.

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Pole vaulter Jenni Candipan, a recent graduate of Marina, will attend USC, according to her father, Ron.

Candipan, the Southern Section’s first Division I girls’ pole vault champion, plans to walk on for the track team to compete in her specialty. Candipan’s best vault was a county-record 10 feet 2 inches.

She was a member of The Times’ all-county first team.

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Several county teams will take part in the Villa Park High Fourth of July basketball tournament. The tournament field includes Mater Dei, Santa Ana Valley, Saddleback and Rancho Alamitos as well as host Villa Park.

Games will be played July 1-3 at Orange and Villa Park highs. Semifinals will be July 3 at Cal State Fullerton, with the championship game at 6 p.m. at Fullerton.

First-round pairings at Villa Park: Mater Dei vs. Pioneer, 8:15 a.m.; Santa Ana Valley #1 vs. Lynwood, 9:45; Villa Park vs. Rancho Alamitos, 11:30; Saddleback vs. Team Avia.

First-round pairings at Orange: Belmont Shores vs. Indio, 11:45; Santa Ana Valley #2 vs. Branchwest, 1 p.m. For information, call (714) 998-1353.

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Long Beach State has hired Bob Clark and Tricia Cullop to assist women’s basketball Coach Dallas Boychuk, the school announced in a news release.

Clark, 38, and Cullop, 24, were formerly assistants at Radford (Va.) University. Cullop played at Purdue when Boychuk was an assistant there.