Basketball Page 944 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Don’t label Princeton an underdog — it’s PRINCETON!
The days between games during the NCAA Tournament can feel like months. Practices are held. Flights are booked. Press conferences are completed. Stories are written. Narratives are created. And while most love an underdog, there’s one that’s received the label without filling the criteria. Because d...
NCAA Tournament Sweet 16's most vulnerable teams
By the time this week is over, the NCAA Tournament field will again shrink by at least 400 percent. One-fourth of the teams to win a pair of March Madness games last week will do so again. Half of them won’t win one more game. And after riding high over the last week and adding important wins to a p...
New Balance wants us to believe Jack Harlow can ball with Kawhi Leonard
Amid all the talk about load management and the L.A. Clippers’ legit chances of bringing home their first NBA title, we’ve totally neglected one blemish on the résumé of Kawhi Leonard. The fact that New Balance tries to sell the world that rapper Jack Harlow is a formidable opponent to “The Claw” on...
Fred VanVleet has shown Chris Paul the way to an NBA Championship
A precedent has been set. It is time for Chris Paul to take action. The Phoenix Suns are gearing up for a playoff run in the most wide-open Western Conference since Dennis Rodman and David Robinson were sharing the screen in stuffed-crust pizza commercials. With Kevin Durant likely to be available f...
The Kawhi Leonard-Paul George Clippers are proving load management doesn’t work
Very few games offer as clear a view of colliding worlds as the Los Angeles Clippers and Oklahoma City Thunder did at the Crypto.com Arena on Tuesday night. Unfortunately, Paul George’s hyperextended knee put a damper on the evening. Midway through the third quarter, we witnessed the brilliance of G...
The Golden State Warriors core is discovering its first gray hairs
The Golden State Warriors have been hovering at or around .500 all season long. In 2020 and 2021 you could chalk it up to injuries and the reloading process. That championship hill their overwhelming talent allowed them to ascend is starting to appear too steep for their core to climb on its own. A ...
Four-letter words flying during NCAA Tourney — and we love it
One of the beauties of college sports is that viewers get to see young people act like young people. Sure the professionals play the game better, but sometimes youthful exuberance makes up for the many more fundamental mistakes. While we get to view their excitement, the coaches and sports informati...
Leave it to an influencer to talk mess with only 9 points to her name
Something happened at the end of Miami’s 70-68 upset of No. 1 seed Indiana in the second round of the women’s tourney Monday night that got a lot of run — not because it was a great play but rather because of the internet. With 12 seconds left on the clock and the Hurricanes up 1, Haley Cavinder sun...
Dillon Brooks’ admiration for Kyrie Irving can’t be just about basketball
The recent rise in profile for Dillon Brooks is a credit to him. In the current landscape of the NBA, new stars are rising with LeBron James and Kevin Durant getting older. Luka Dončić, Nikola Jokić, and Giannis Antetokounmpo are firmly among the best needle-movers in The Association. Brooks isn’t c...
Rick Pitino's introductory press conference harkens back to glory days of St. John's basketball
In front of 98-year-old Lou Carnesecca, and seated next to St. John’s University President, Reverend Brian J. Shanley, Rick Pitino was introduced as the new St. John’s University coach at Madison Square Garden at noon on Tuesday....
The WNBA head coaching situation, in Black and white
When the WNBA tips off the 2023 season on May 19, it will be with two Black women head coaches on the sidelines of courts on which 79 percent* of the league’s players are Black women and other women of color. (This figure is accurate as of March 2023, when six of the WNBA’s 12 teams had more than 12...
The men's NCAA Sweet 16 storylines to watch
The Sweet 16 is when the NCAA Tournament starts to feel less like an ear-splitting house party and more like an interpersonal kickback in the penthouse suite. The setting is more personal, the opponents are scouted more thoroughly and the quality of basketball gets upgraded significantly. The CBS an...
St. John’s makes it clear: Winning is more important than ethical standards with Rick Pitino hire
The last three decades have turned the St. John’s men’s basketball program from one of the most sacred brands in collegiate sports to an indifferent sigh. The Red Storm try to label themselves as New York’s college basketball team — the only non-low-major program inside America’s most populous urban...
Do people actually work less during March Madness? If not, they should start
A handful of weekdays on the sports calendar truly command Americans’ attention from coast to coast. Of course, one is Super Bowl Sunday, which results in National Hangover Day at work on Monday. Then there are the first two days of the Men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament. Games start at noon EST and e...
Sean Miller, Xavier headed to Sweet 16 — former assistant Book Richardson went to prison
Sunday was a big day for Sean Miller. In his first season, during his second stint at the school, Xavier men’s head basketball coach guided the program to its first Sweet 16 since 2017. And to get there, Miller had to beat a school that’s near and dear to his heart, the University of Pittsburgh — hi...
The best NBA games on this week’s schedule
This is the time of year in which sports fans should be primarily focused on the Men’s and Women’s college basketball postseason tournaments. The “amateurs” have put on quite a show that deserves attention this week....
The craziest storylines of the NBA season (so far)
The NBA is never drama-free, and there’s a reason the NBA playoffs are one of the few reasons to remain on the toxic hell site that is Twitter these days. But even for the NBA, this season has been a spectacle worth of Vanderpump Rules. As we inch ever closer to the post-season, here’s a look back a...
No upsets in Women’s College Basketball, huh?
For those still clinging by their fingertips to the argument that their lack of interest in Women’s College Basketball is due to a lack of competitive balance, just let go and fall into the sea of bad takes. You folks can join the crowds who believe that men’s college basketball is more fundamental...
Joel Embiid has overtaken Nikola Jokić for MVP
Don’t count MVPs before they hatch. Nikola Jokić’s third consecutive MVP has seemed like an inevitability during the first three-quarters of the season. Jokić’s triple-double averages, improved offensive efficiency, advanced statistics, and Denver’s No. 1 seed in the Western Conference all appeared ...
The Timberwolves’ awful season just got a level worse than awful
The Minnesota Timberwolves’ season from hell continued Friday night as they lost to the Chicago Bulls in double overtime and may have lost Anthony Edwards for the remainder of the regular season to an ankle injury. There hasn’t been an official update from the team. Edwards returned to the bench in ...