9 Page 83 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
A Pair Of Megan Rapinoe Penalties Sent A Shaky USWNT To The Quarterfinals
It wasn’t the type of breezy victory that defined the USWNT’s run through the group stage, but in their first knockout game of the 2019 World Cup, the U.S. gutted out a tough, unpretty 2-1 victory against Spain in which two Megan Rapinoe penalties outweighed one disastrous defensive mistake....
Brazil's Golden Generation Won Nothing But Changed Everything
Heading into this tournament, one of the few things that felt certain was that this was to be the last hurrah at a World Cup for Brazil’s feared foursome of Marta, the G.O.A.T. of women’s soccer; Cristiane, her long-serving battering ram of a strike partner; Formiga, the 41-year-old marvel in midfie...
VAR Has One Job, And It's Failing Miserably At It
The most common complaint against VAR—or any form of video review in sports—in one of aesthetics. If referees insist on stopping the game for several minutes to double check every key play, the thinking goes, all the drama and intensity and emotion of the biggest moments will be lost, and the celebr...
France Outlasts Brazil's Tired Old Legs To Advance To The Quarterfinals With A 2-1 Victory
France are moving on to the quarterfinals of the Women’s World Cup after defeating Brazil, 2-1, in extra time. Despite scoring a surprise goal against the run of play late in regulation, Brazil’s tired legs eventually caught up to them and it became only a matter of time before France would strike f...
England Crawl Out Of Dumpster Fire Relatively Unscathed With 3-0 Win Over Cameroon
England lived up to their FIFA ranking as the third-best women’s team in the world for maybe 30 minutes in their match against Cameroon on Sunday. Had it not been for Cameroonian players allowing the poor implementation of VAR that has become a staple of this tournament to get to them, Cameroon woul...
Hell Yeah, England Scored From An Indirect Free Kick
One of the most infrequently-experienced joys in soccer is the short burst of chaos that comes from an indirect free kick, where a team’s free kick opportunity is placed inside their opponent’s penalty box. Thanks to the knockout stage of the Women’s World Cup, we can now reset the “days without” co...
Norway's Perfect Penalty Shootout Deflated Australia Into Submission
A horrendous miss from Australia’s Sam Kerr set the tone for the Matildas’ penalty shootout against Norway, sending the Scandinavian nation into the quarterfinals of the Women’s World Cup with a 4-1 win on penalties....
Lisa Byington And Cat Whitehill Bust Out Lazy Tropes About African Teams For Their Germany-Nigeria Commentary
Commentating on live sports for a national television audience can be a herculean task, but it’s a lot easier if you decide to rely on tired racial stereotypes to fill the dead air—as Fox’s Lisa Byington and Cat Whitehill discovered on Saturday....
The Suns Were Up To Some Suns-Type Foolishness On Draft Night
With the caveat that no one knows anything about how this will turn out in the long term, it’s fair to say that the Phoenix Suns had a strange 2019 NBA Draft. They dropped in the rejiggered draft lottery to land with the sixth pick, then dropped another five spots Thursday night via a genuinely head...
A Hectic Round Of 16 Will Separate The Women's World Cup Contenders From The Pretenders
After 36 group stage matches, and seemingly triple that number of VAR headaches, the Women’s World Cup is getting into the good shit. Gone are the eight teams unworthy of continuing on, while the 16 best remaining sides prepare for a four-round elimination chaos pit. The survivor of that churn will ...
The USWNT Got Sweet Revenge, But Now The Real Work Starts
One could mount an argument that the United States’ long-term interests at this here World Cup would have been better served had they thrown their group-stage finale against Sweden yesterday and given themselves an easier path to the final. Let your opponents win Group F and let them deal with the F...
All NBA Draft Grades Are Useless. Here Are My NBA Draft Grades
Now that the mock drafts are dead, the fashion show is done, all the crying parents have come and gone and Woj and Shams are back in the holster for a few hours, let us see what Postseason Advent has wrought:...
Jordan Bone's Draft Party Went From Tragic To Joyful In A Flash
As this video of undrafted Fred VanVleet that made the rounds last night showed, there are at least some NBA draft parties that fizzle out before anyone can enjoy the ecstatic release they all came for, and it looked like Tennessee standout Jordan Bone’s party was headed that way as the draft wound ...
Bol Bol Heads To Denver Nuggets After Agonizing Draft Night Slide
Extremely fun one-and-done Oregon prospect Bol Bol showed up to Thursday night’s NBA draft decked out in a black suit featuring a garish sequined spider web on the left shoulder, smiling and optimistic and looking forward to being drafted somewhere in the lottery. His night ended with him gloomily t...
Celtics Draft Outspoken Round-Earther, Move One Step Closer To Post-Kyrie Irving Future
The Boston Celtics used the 22nd pick in the first round of Thursday night’s NBA draft to select first-team All-American Grant Williams from Tennessee. Williams is a skilled, undersized forward and the son of a NASA safety engineer. I mention his parentage because being privy to mom’s insider knowle...
The Wizards, Still Operating Without A GM, Drafted A Guy They'd Neither Met Nor Spoken To
The Washington Wizards selected Gonzaga big man Rui Hachimura with the No. 9 pick in NBA Draft. The pick was a bit of a surprise given that there hadn’t been any reports of any connections between that franchise and their eventual draftee. As it turns out, that surprise extended all the way to the p...
Here Are The Lottery Picks Of The 2019 NBA Draft
The saddest teams in the NBA have gone ahead and taken prospects they hope can lead their franchise into next year’s tank when they race for whoever 2020's best college player will be. Here are the lottery picks of 2019....
Chauncey Billups Drags Out Tired Trope, Says Zion Williamson Was "Raised Right" Because He Had "Two Parents In His Home"
With the first pick in the NBA Draft, ESPN draft analyst Chauncey Billups selected one of the worst possible approaches to complimenting a player’s character, after Zion Williamson had finished taking his ceremonial photo with commissioner Adam Silver and was making his way over to ESPN’s Maria Tayl...
Darren Rovell Overdoes It On Attempt At Human Emotion With A Pennywise-Ass Giggle
The 2019 NBA Draft is almost underway and, in a surprise to absolutely no one, Darren Rovell is in attendance talking about the only thing that matters to him: the brands. With this access, he approached the guaranteed first-overall pick of the draft in Zion Williamson and asked him when the shoe de...
All Your Assets Are Belong To The Pelicans
The trade that sent Anthony Davis from the New Orleans Pelicans to the Los Angeles Lakers was a good one. The Lakers got a superstar to pair with LeBron James, and the Pelicans got a hefty package of young players and draft picks to put toward rebuilding their roster. One of the top assets to change...