Basketball Page 990 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Alyssa Thomas Couldn't Lift Her Arms Above Her Head, But She Carried A Team To Victory
The Connecticut Sun left the first game of their best-of-five semifinals series against the Los Angeles Sparks Tuesday night not only with a 84-75 win, but also with a narratively sweet one. For a season, the No. 2 Sun have felt like the WNBA’s most underrated team, beloved by their women’s basketba...

Abysmal New York Basketball Team Wins Draft Lottery
Here’s something to make a Knicks fan weep: In January, the New York Liberty threw off the yoke of James Dolan. Tuesday evening, for the first time in franchise history, they secured the first pick in the 2020 WNBA draft....

Dearica Hamby Wins Playoff Game With Absurd Steal-And-Heave
The Las Vegas Aces and Chicago Sky went back and forth throughout today’s highly entertaining single-elimination playoff game, and as the final seconds were ticking away, it looked like the Sky were on their way to escaping with a 92-90 win. That is not what happened....

The Story Behind The Biggest Brawl In WNBA History
Last month, Brittney Griner of the Phoenix Mercury and Kristine Anigwe of the Dallas Wings got into a fight, which resulted in six ejections and five suspensions. It was the largest WNBA fight since 2008, when the Detroit Shock (now the Dallas Wings) and the Los Angeles Sparks were part of brawl tha...

Jordin Canada Might Just Be The Heir To Sue Bird's Throne
The defending champion Seattle Storm took the expected fall that came with a pair of devastating preseason injuries, going a mere 18-16 in 2019 after dominating the league with a 26-8 record last year. But even without reigning MVP Breanna Stewart or living legend Sue Bird, the Storm managed to snea...

WNBA Referee Walks Into Astou Ndour’s Hand, Delivers Emphatic Ejection
You can’t touch a referee. That’s the rule in basketball and basically every sport. So, the ejection of the Chicago Sky’s Astou Ndour from today’s game against the Washington Mystics was understandable. But the reaction of WNBA ref Kevin Fahey was a bit over the top....

College Basketball Player Says Coach Kicked Him Off Team Because Of His Dreadlocks
Tyler Williams was a guard on the D-II University of Arkansas-Fort Smith Lions men’s basketball team as recently as last month, and he was set to come back for his senior season as the program’s leading returning scorer until he was abruptly dismissed from the team by new head coach Jim Boone on Aug...

No Matter How Good You Are, The Washington Mystics Will Be Better
The Los Angeles Sparks, to be sure, are no scrubs. They’re sitting near the top of the WNBA standings, with a future Hall of Famer in Candace Parker, All-Star forwards in the Ogwumike sisters, and one of the league’s greatest perimeter threats in Chelsea Gray. Alas, none of it was enough to prevent ...

Video Shows Mateen Cleaves's Accuser Struggling To Flee His Motel Room
Former Michigan State men’s basketball player Mateen Cleaves was acquitted on Tuesday of four sexual assault charges stemming from an incident with a 24-year-old woman in September of 2015. Video of the incident that was shown in the courtroom has since been released because of a public records requ...

That Is Not Markelle Fultz Or His Mom
During the third quarter of Sunday’s Indiana Fever-Washington Mystics game, the broadcast thought it had spotted a celebrity in the front row: Orlando Magic guard Markelle Fultz, who was identified alongside his mom. Great! Only it wasn’t Markelle Fultz....

Brittney Griner Ejected After Chasing Wings' Kristine Anigwe Down The Court
Phoenix Mercury center Brittney Griner was one of six players ejected from her team’s game against the Dallas Wings on Saturday. The ejections occurred when after Griner took exception to getting punched in the head while going for a rebound and began to chase Dallas’ Kristine Anigwe—the puncher in ...

NCAA Suspends BYU Forward Nine Games Next Season For Not Filing Proper Paperwork
BYU star forward Yoeli Childs has been suspended nine games for this upcoming season because the NCAA determined that the player had hired an agent before filing the proper paperwork with the association. The announcement came on Friday and Childs addressed a group of local media members in Provo, U...

The WNBA All-Star Game Will Include One Really Dumb Rule Change
This is apparently the summer of zany, experimental All-Star games. The WNBA will use its showcase Saturday afternoon to experiment with a couple rule tweaks, one of which is straight out of left field—or, well, straight out of hockey, the most dreaded sport of all....

The WNBA Players Association Is Contesting Riquna Williams's Domestic-Violence Suspension
On Tuesday, the WNBA issued a statement announcing that Los Angeles Sparks guard Riquna Williams would be suspended for 10 games as a result of an incident of suspected domestic violence in December, which led to Williams’s arrest on April 29 of this year. Williams allegedly broke into a home in Pal...

Murray State Only Discovered Ja Morant Because A Coach On A Recruiting Trip Decided To Go For A Snack
By now you’re probably aware that Ja Morant, one of the top players heading into this year’s NBA Draft, was not the most heralded prospect coming out of high school. Though he averaged 27 points, eight rebounds and eight assists through his junior and senior years, he wasn’t ranked on any recruiting...

They Want Her To Be The Next Yao Ming, But What Does She Want?
Han Xu, the tallest player in the WNBA, hunched over the menu at a trendy Brooklyn pizza spot, trying to figure out what to order in a place that lists “bèchamel” as an ingredient. This would possibly be difficult even if she could read English, but the Chinese center does not. Decked head to toe in...

Brittney Sykes Gave A 9-Year-Old Fan Her Shoes And The Girl Could Not Physically Handle Being So Happy
Atlanta Dream guard Brittney Sykes led her team with 15 points in a home loss to the Las Vegas Aces on Thursday night. Afterward, Sykes presented her autographed, game-used sneakers to a certain superfan....

The NCAA Graciously Allows Kansas' Silvio De Sousa To Return For Another Unpaid Season Of Basketball
Kansas forward Silvio De Sousa will not have to sit out for a second consecutive season as the NCAA announced Friday that his appeal against the association was approved. The decision came just hours after the Jayhawks officially appealed the NCAA’s two-season suspension on Friday, almost as if the ...

A Good And Smart Preview Of A Wide-Open 2019 WNBA Season
Hockey is almost over, and the NBA is basically done, so now all we have to look forward to over these impending hot summer months is a World Cup, the ability to blast Bad Girls out of our apartment windows, and some goddamn WNBA basketball. That last thing starts tonight, folks! Let’s get to the pr...

Sue Bird Has A Knee Injury And The Storm Look Totally Screwed
The defending champion Seattle Storm are going to have an awful hard time repeating in 2019. Not only is reigning MVP Breanna Stewart going to miss this year after tearing her Achilles, but now, veteran leader Sue Bird will be out for most, if not all, of this upcoming season, as the team announced ...