Mike Krzyzewski could have left international basketball on top, having returned the United States to its longtime position as the world's best.

That's not what coaches like Krzyzewski do.

"It was very easy to walk away, but I just don't think people who are accustomed to competing or high achievers walk away," USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo said. "You just keep competing."

So that's what Krzyzewski plans, right on through the 2012 Olympics.

USA Basketball announced yesterday that Krzyzewski will return to lead the United States in next summer's world championships and when it defends its gold medal in London.

The Americans won the championship last year in Beijing. Krzyzewski's entire staff of assistants also will return — New York's Mike D'Antoni, Portland's Nate McMillan and Jim Boeheim of Syracuse.

"We all felt as a staff the work wasn't over," Krzyzewski said. "Our goal this time is to make it even better."

EX-UCLA PLAYER SUES OVER IMAGES

A former UCLA basketball player is suing the NCAA over its use of former student athletes' images in DVDs, video games, photographs, apparel and other material.

In a federal lawsuit filed yesterday in San Francisco, Ed O'Bannon says the NCAA illegally has athletes sign away their rights to the commercial use of their images and does not share any of the proceeds from their use with former athletes.

It also seeks an injunction on behalf of current student athletes barring the NCAA from licensing the rights to their images.

AND WHAT'S MORE . . .

A mixed martial arts fighter who some media outlets reported had died overnight has come forward to prove that he's alive. Kimo Leopoldo, a 41-year-old former Hawai'i resident who once fought in the UFC, said at a news conference yesterday in Orange County, Calif., that he didn't know where the rumor of his death started. ... Former Buffalo Bills quarterback J.P. Losman signed yesterday with the Las Vegas franchise in the United Football League, which kicks off its first season in October. Losman, a first-round draft pick in 2004 out of Tulane, is the most notable player to sign with the fledgling UFL so far.