ball Page 81 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

USMNT gets to tussle with some real teams…kinda
Ah, the fresh hell of yet another international break. Club seasons are put on pause for a raft of qualifiers, be they Euro, or World Cup, that are pretty much foregone conclusions robbed of any real urgency, especially thanks to the expanded field for 2026. If not those, we get a helping of interna...

Emphasis on 82-game schedule won’t solve NBA’s biggest problem
In case the NBA has not made itself clear over the last few months, the league office is fed up with load management. There are 82 games on the schedule, and players are expected to play in every single game unless they are actually injured. The NBA is going so far now as to claim it has data that t...

What’s to be done with these Los Angeles Dodgers?
You kind of knew it was over for the Dodgers the minute they acquired Lance Lynn. Lance Lynn? This is the Dodgers, for Christ’s sake! When they need help in the rotation, they go get Zack Greinke, or Yu Darvish, or Max Scherzer. They shop at the supermarket that plebs like you and I aren’t even allo...

The NBA is right about load management for the wrong reasons
OK, it’s time for Devil’s Advocate corner: The NBA’s stance on load management is a good thing, but not for the dumbass reasons Joe Dumars presented Wednesday. If you missed it, the executive vice president of basketball operations said there’s no proof that load management prevents injuries. Maybe,...

In a move that shocks no one, Kansas barely gets a slap on the wrist from the NCAA
Did anyone expect a different result? ...

Jared Goff is playing like the best quarterback in the NFL
Jared Goff’s time with the Detroit Lions began the same way that it ended with the Los Angeles Rams, disappointing. By Week 7 of his first season with the Lions, Dan Campbell looked at the media, took a deep breath, and criticized Goff during a postgame press conference. At that point in the season,...

Luka Dončić let the NBA down this week
The first-ever international exhibition on Sept. 8, 1978, is immortalized for the defending NBA champion Washington Bullets’ loss to Maccabi Tel Aviv by the score of 97-98. Since 2000, when the EuroLeague was founded, NBA teams are 75-17 against Europe’s top teams in exhibitions. Or 17-75 if you wan...

Give Georgia its due respect, and you might (think you) have a chance
Following a couple of games in which the Georgia Bulldogs looked semi-vulnerable, Kirby Smart’s team put it on now No. 24 Kentucky to the tune of 51-13. It was such a lopsided victory that it left UK coach Mark Stoops with an aftertaste no amount of Listerine will wash out. While I understand his fr...

Tuesday night should’ve been only celebratory for this Texas Rangers fan. It wasn’t
Last night should’ve been pure, unadulterated joy. I haven’t been shy when it comes to the Texas Rangers and writing about my favorite baseball team. It swept the 101-win Orioles and advanced to the American League Championship Series for the first time in a dozen years. I was a sophomore in college...

Michigan TV network fires sports director for Mel Tucker ‘analysis’ that read more like PR work
Last Thursday, sports reporter Audrey Dahlgren had a very bad day, by journalistic standards. After attorneys for Mel Tucker, the recently fired head football coach at Michigan State, released 98 pages worth of text messages sent by Brenda Tracy — an anti-rape advocate who filed a Title IX complaint...

It took Dillon Brooks 5 minutes and a nut-punch to show the Rockets he's still Dillon Brooks
The brand is strong with Dillon Brooks. He helped turn the Memphis Grizzlies into a contender, and for his services, he got thrown out of a window like Axel Foley. ...

Now comes the tricky part for the Orioles
It’s awfully easy, and too easy, to point at an up-and-coming team like the Rangers that spent a lot of money to augment the players they developed from within and say that’s the reason they clobbered an up-and-coming team like the Orioles that did the exact opposite, basically only adding the decre...

How Joe Burrow got his groove back
When the Seattle Seahawks defensive coaches go over the game tape of Cincinnati Bengals vs. Arizona Cardinals with players, the first play that they should show is Joe Burrow’s 10-yard scramble at the end of the third quarter. The second should be Burrow running in a literal circle to evade a rusher...

A lot of NFL teams tanking for Caleb Williams already have a QB
If you’ve found yourself noticing more bad football than usual in the NFL, you’re not wrong. After five weeks, there are seven teams with one win or fewer, and none of them are the New York Jets, Houston Texans, or Washington Commanders. The New York Giants, Minnesota Vikings, New England Patriots, ...

Here’s why Cristiano Ronaldo is back in court over 2009 sexual assault claim
The next time someone tells you that sexual assault allegations “ruin a man’s career,” you only have to point to Cristiano Ronaldo. It’s been nearly five years since the German outlet Der Spiegel published what it purported were leaked documents between Ronaldo’s attorneys regarding an alleged sexua...

Chet Holmgren and Victor Wembanyama are finishing what Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic started
If there’s anything the most recent NBA champions taught us, it’s that the center can still be the focal point of an offense. Sixty-six-million years ago, Michael Jordan’s arrival was a terraforming meteor that ended the age of the pivots and began the reign of guards. Prior to His Airness, NBA cham...

Mario Cristobal is why players should take advantage of the transfer portal
Last week, the NCAA approved changes to the transfer portal. Three days later, Miami head football Mario Cristobal showed why the portal is so important — so that players can get away from coaches like him....

Attention Amazon shoppers: It’s Coach Prime Day!
Welcome to Coach Prime Day (patent pending) where everything is for sale. Tablets, air fryers, backpacks, integrity, you name it, Coach Prime will endorse it. (No idea if Deion Sanders signed off to endorse this advertorial, but we should probably run it by legal before we get a cease, and desist fr...

The San Francisco 49ers sure look like the next Super Bowl champs
I was tempted to turn the Sunday Night Football game off when Cris Collinsworth said that the San Francisco 49ers “throw slants to the fullback,” after Kyle Juszczyk caught a seven-yard pass off of a slant route. Collinsworth, forcing me to listen to what I just saw, snapped me out of my trance. I t...

Week 5 NFL Takeaways: The AFC South is entertaining TV
Even though the highly anticipated Sunday Night Football showdown revealed that Jerry Jones’ Dallas Cowboys were no competition for the San Francisco 49ers, the rest of the NFL Week 5 slate was largely entertaining. ...