He is Alex The Great — again.

Washington Capitals star forward Alex Ovechkin pulled off the kind of repeat the Detroit Red Wings dreamed about by snagging the Hart Trophy as NHL MVP for the second straight year last night.

Ovechkin also walked off with the NHL Players' Association's Lester B. Pearson Award, given to the most outstanding player in voting by fellow players.

"What a life," Ovechkin said after winning the Pearson in an awards ceremony at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas.

It made no difference that the awards ceremony was moved to Las Vegas from Toronto to make it a more glitzy spectacle. Ovechkin, the leading goal scorer each of the past two seasons, stood out above the rest.

Pavel Datsyuk couldn't pull top Ovechkin for the Hart or Pearson awards, but he did pull off a double play for the second consecutive season. Datsyuk, the Red Wings' outstanding two-way center, claimed the Selke Trophy as the league's top defensive forward and the Lady Byng for gentlemanly play and skill.

BASKETBALL

U.S. WANTS COACH K

Mike Krzyzewski still hasn't decided if he will return as U.S. basketball coach. He'll need to make up his mind soon.

Krzyzewski led the Americans to the gold medal in the 2008 Olympics, and said yesterday the coaching job has been offered to him again. However, he said he didn't want to make any decisions until after the NBA season ended, so he could talk to some players and assistants.

Krzyzewski and USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo plan to announce the coaching decision before the Americans begin a minicamp for young players July 22-25 in Las Vegas. The camp is being used to identify prospects for available spots on the 2010 world championship and 2012 Olympic teams.

COLLEGE

FSU TO LOSE VICTORIES

The NCAA infractions committee intends to uphold sanctions against Florida State that would take away wins in 10 sports, including as many as 14 by football coach Bobby Bowden.

After a public records lawsuit and intervention by Florida's attorney general, the NCAA allowed Florida State to release the committee's June 2 response to FSU's appeal of the NCAA punishment that would strip the school of the victories.

Though university officials had said earlier yesterday that there would be no comment from Florida State, president T.K. Wetherell denounced the NCAA's response.

"This committee is just wrong," Wetherell said. "The rationale for doing that isn't accurate."

Wetherell, a former Seminole football player, said the school would exhaust all appeal opportunities with the NCAA "before going anywhere else."

If the penalty sticks, Bowden would have little chance to stay abreast of Penn State's Joe Paterno in their competition to finish as major college football's winningest coach. Paterno begins the 2009 season with 383 wins, right now that is one more than Bowden has entering his 34th season at Florida State.

"There was no coach involved in this," Wetherell said. "The one group of people that were not involved in this thing were the coaches. They're the one group that's being penalized."

NCAA

CHANGE IN SAND VB

The NCAA's Legislative Council will consider overturning approved changes for baseball and sand volleyball next month.

The scheduling change in baseball would allow teams to spread 56 games over 14 weeks instead of 13, and the season would start a week earlier. Opponents say the legislation could create competitive inequities between schools in cold-weather regions and those in warm-weather areas.

Sand volleyball was added to a list of emerging women's sports earlier this year, but opponents contend schools with larger budgets would gain an advantage.

The NCAA received at least 100 override requests on both changes.

The council can reverse the decisions or send the legislation back to the board of directors for another review in August.

TENNIS

FERRER FALLS IN ORDINA

Ivan Navarro upset defending champion David Ferrer, 6-4, 6-2, yesterday in a match between Spaniards to reach the Ordina Open semifinals in Den Bosch, Netherlands.

Raemon Sluiter of the Netherlands and Germans Benjamin Becker and Rainer Schuettler also won quarterfinals.

Advancing to the women's semifinals were top-seeded Dinara Safina, Yanina Wickmayer, Francesca Schiavone and Tamarine Tanasugarn.