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Marquette senior Luke Fischer is back on the basketball court and fully able to prepare for next season.

The 6-foot-11 center suffered a left elbow injury during an open gym on April 22 and sat out for just over two months before being medically cleared for activity earlier this week.

Howard shining for Team USA: The U.S. U17 team is dominating the competition thus far at the world championships in Zaragoza, Spain, winning its four games by an average of 48 points. Incoming Marquette freshman Markus Howard, the team's captain in each contest, has played a significant role in that success.

Howard is averaging 12.8 points, 2.5 rebounds and a team-high 3.8 assists in 21.1 minutes per game. His shooting his been steady and efficient — 52.8% overall (19 for 36) and 55.0% from three-point range (11 for 20). Even with a five-turnover game against Argentina during a 109-56 win in the Round of 16, the 5-foot-11 point guard is only turning the ball over at a rate of two per game.

Howard and his teammates will be back in action at 2 p.m. Thursday when they take on the Republic of Korea in the quarterfinals. All games in the tournament can be watched live on YouTube.

TBT additions: The Golden Eagles Alumni team for The Basketball Tournament has been on campus over the past couple days preparing for the TBT's Midwest regional in Chicago on July 16-17. The team doesn't know who its opponent will be in the opening round since matchups won't be announced until Friday.

The team has recently added two players and brought on another Wednesday night to finalize its roster. Guard Derrick Wilson, who played four seasons and graduated in 2015 and 6-foot-9 forward Marcus Jackson, who played at Marquette from 2003-'05, both joined the official roster this week.

Wilson took the year off and will play in Italy next season. Jackson played in six countries over seven seasons from 2005-'12.

Dwight Buycks, who spent two seasons at Marquette from 2009-'11, played with the Golden Eagles Alumni team at the Al McGuire Center on Wednesday and joined the final roster later in the day. The 6-foot-3 guard from Milwaukee will be the most experienced NBA player on the squad — other than coaches Wesley Matthews and Travis Diener.

Buycks appeared in 14 games for the Toronto Raptors in 2013-'14 and six games for the Los Angeles Lakers in 2014-'15. He's also played professionally in four countries as well as the NBA Development League.

New alliance: On Tuesday, the Big East and Atlantic Coast Conference announced the creation of an officiating alliance, which will also include the Atlantic 10 and Colonial Athletic Association, which have collaborated with the ACC in the past.

The alliance will allow the conferences to work together on all officiating matters and is an attempt to improve officiating across the board. It allows for more logical scheduling for referees as well as a better evaluation process since referees will be assessed by all four conferences.

"The Big East has historically operated independently in officiating matters, and we now look forward to joining forces with the ACC, A10 and CAA to build on our existing program and to contribute to the long-term development of officiating across the NCAA," Big East commissioner Val Ackerman said in a statement.

The collaborative effort by the Big East, ACC, A10 and CAA is not unique. The Pac-12, Mountain West, West Coast Conference and Western Athletic Conference used a similar alliance last season.