all Page 1687 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Your College Basketball Open Thread, Just In Time For Miami At Duke
It's March! College basketball really started mattering last weekend, during the bracket buster match-ups, but we weren't ready. Now we're ready. It's time to start getting to know these teams, so your March Madness picks can be ill-informed, instead of uninformed....

North Korea Invented Its Own, Totally Different Way Of Scoring Basketball Games
Dennis Rodman's bizarre visit to North Korea has led to many dissections of North Korea's strange relationship with basketball—or rather, the Kim family's strange relationship with basketball—and one happy consequence is the opportunity to remember that, despite the Kim family's love for the NBA, th...

Here's A Photo Of UCLA Head Coach Ben Howland, In A Tracksuit, Playing Beer Pong With Students Last Night
From the game day campout live-blog at the Daily Bruin (and via Twitter), here's a picture of notoriously sorta grumpy UCLA basketball coach Ben Howland, looking extremely relaxed last night in advance of today's game against #11 ranked Arizona at Pauley Pavilion (9 p.m. EST, ESPN)....

Alex Rodriguez Only Gave $5,090 Of The $403,862 He Raised For Charity To Charity
The Boston Globe dug through the world of shady athlete charities this week, and while many of their findings were disappointing (if not surprising), we'd be remiss if we didn't highlight one charge in particular. It's been a while since anyone thought Alex Rodriguez was a stand-up guy, but this see...

Twitter Loves The Orlando Magic, Has Never Heard Of The Arizona Cardinals
The Wall Street Journal has helpfully assembled the sort of slow-news-month story that lets you forget that none of the four major sports (five, if you include college football) is playing many meaningful games at the moment. In it, the incomparably named Stu Woo compiled the Twitter follower counts...

Four Things You Can Learn About The NBA By Skimming Sloan Sports Analytics Conference Research Papers
The Sloan Sports Analytics Conference is under way in Boston and, though we sent no intrepid reporters to Dorkapalooza this year, the conference happily made its research paper finalists publicly available on its website. Let's blearily page through and see if we can't learn a few things. (We're foc...

Steve Buckhantz Couldn't Tell Whether That Game-Ending Shot Went In Because The Owners Moved Him To The Cheap Seats
We all had a good laugh when Washington Wizards play-by-play man Steve Buckhantz dusted off his patented "dagger!" call despite Trevor Ariza's (very nice looking) airball to end the Wizards' game on Wednesday night. The misplaced enthusiasm was funny but, as we noted at the time, you couldn't really...

The U.S. State Department Actually Clarified That Dennis Rodman "Has Never Been A Player In Our Diplomacy"
In case you were wondering:...

Reports: Joe Flacco—That Joe Flacco—Will Soon Be The Highest Paid Player In NFL History
Yep, Joe Flacco. The big-armed oaf. The doofy bridegroom. The guy whose dad said he was "dull" four times in two sentences five days before the Super Bowl. That guy. No, not the plumber who stripped the washers off your sink and left his wrench on your kitchen table—I mean the guy who backed up Tyle...

Deadspin Up All Night: Focus
Thank you for your continued support of Deadspin. March is here. Here's a little clássico disco to help you ease into it....

Start Your Weekend With An Inspirational Quote From Bob Knight
Bob Knight has a new book out next week. It's called The Power of Negative Thinking: An Unconventional Approach to Achieving Positive Results, because Bob Knight is still playing his (lucrative) role as college basketball's senile great-uncle. He sat down with Andrew Goldman for the New York Times M...

17 Sports Moments That Will Restore Your Faith In Humanity
It's been a rough week in the sports world for those of us who put faith in our fellow man and woman. From NASCAR drivers' alleged bigotry, to NFL execs wanting to know if Manti Te'o is gay, to a youth hockey coach being sentenced for tripping a little kid, it's tough to look at the sports world ...

Actually, Duke Had No Problems Getting Off The Court In Virginia Last Night
Virginia fans stormed the court in Charlottesville last night, after the unranked Cavaliers defeated No. 3 Duke, 73-68, and Mike Krzyzewski was a bit rankled by the lack of protection for his team. He reportedly "hollered an F-bomb at a fan" and later suggested that he and his team hadn't been pro...

Zach Galifianakis Is Nikola Pekovic's Ventriloquist Dummy
If the two people in this photo weren't famous, it would be quite the optical illusion. Is the guy on the left some kind of bearded mini-person, or is the guy on the right a gigantic mutant? I can't tell!...

Coach K Hates Fun And Games
A wonderful thing happened in Charlottesville, Va., last night: the Virginia Cavaliers defeated No. 3 Duke, 73-68. Duke losses are always something we, united in our reasonable hatred of the Blue Devils, can collectively appreciate; that this one came against an unranked bubble team playing on it...

"Change This Face. Be Happy. Enjoy!" Says Ricky Rubio To A Bummed Out Alexey Shved
Man, why can't we live in a world where Ricky Rubio magically appears whenever we're having a bad day and tells us to turn our frowns upside down? Spilled coffee on your new shirt? Poof! There's Ricky reminding you that sea otters hold hands when they sleep next to each other so they don't float a...

The Big East Just Got Good Again
No, the sad-sack Big East didn't find a miraculous way to stop hemorrhaging schools, nor re-negotiate its TV deal with ESPN that will pay six times less than what it was offered just two years ago. The Big East, one of the most storied basketball conferences in the country, wasn't able to swing a la...

Deadspin Up All Night: This Isn't Our Song
Thank you for your continued support of Deadspin. We hope you had fun chatting with us today. We'll be back with more hot blogs tomorrow....

Klay Thompson's Parents Are Docking His Allowance For Getting Involved In The Warriors-Pacers Fight
Aside from David Lee and Roy Hibbert, a number of players had supporting roles in Monday night's Golden State-Indiana mini-brawl. One of them was Klay Thompson, who was fined $35,000 for escalating the fight. You can see him in the video, No. 11, holding the basketball. He charges Hibbert from behin...

D-Leaguer's Agent Really Wants You To Know His Client Dunked On Someone Tall
Chris Roberts is a 6-foot-4 guard who has bounced around the D-League for three years since going undrafted out of Bradley in 2010. Last night, Roberts dunked all over 7-5 Will Foster of the Sioux Falls Skyforce, and his agent was awfully proud of him for it. This was the email the agent sent us a...