div Page 7 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Emoni Bates is fighting his way back from the abyss
It’s hard to believe that it’s been six years since Emoni Bates was the nation’s No. 1 middle schooler in the country. Three years ago, Bates was imagined as the type of ethereal prospect who would have viewed the summer league as a formality. By the time he arrived in Memphis during the fall of 202...
Long live student journalism
I spent two college summers delivering Edy’s Ice Cream to Jewels, Moo & Oinks, and 7 Eleven’s throughout the Chicagoland area. The summer after my junior year I interned for NBA.com and thought I was hot stuff with a feature I wrote on Josh Smith’s basketball camp. Nicole Markus, Alyce Brown, Cole R...
Will the NBA’s new flopping rule really change anything?
The NBA is testing a new rule to dissuade players from flopping every time down the court. Flopping has become so common over the past 20 years that it’s part of the association’s culture. However, the league has finally decided to make an attempt to cut down on guys flopping all over the court....
Qatari ownership has come to sports on this continent, and is it just the beginning?
We’d wondered when Middle Eastern regimes would come for U.S. sports. They’ve got their mitts all over soccer now, warping how that sport works in Europe. They’ve completely altered golf. Boxing too. And yet it seemed that North America was the last frontier. ...
Texas Rangers don’t need Jacob deGrom to be one of MLB's best teams
The weirdest part of the news of Jacob deGrom’s impending season-ending Tommy John surgery, which in all likelihood could keep him out of the Texas Rangers’ rotation until the beginning of the 2025 season, is that the first-place team in the American League West doesn’t need him. Is deGrom a massive...
The Sooners survived Stanford again and appear destined for another WCWS title
It’s over. Maybe it was over before the festivities began in Oklahoma City? That’s why you play the game right? This year’s Women’s College World Series had eight national seeds survive regionals and super regionals to become the elite group in college softball. Seven teams hoping to knock the crown...
The Columbus Blue Jackets hate their players
In the discussion of most irrelevant franchises in North American sports, the Columbus Blue Jackets would be high on the list, if not on top of it, if anyone could remember them enough to add them. You’d think they’d take some inspiration from one of their former fellow whos-its, the Denver Nuggets,...
What are the Florida Panthers, really?
The NHL will be more than happy to hook their star to an NBA narrative, so while all the fans north of the border bitch about a Stanley Cup Final between the Florida Panthers and Vegas Golden Knights, the offices probably aren’t upset about getting linked through dual South Florida 8-seeds playing f...
Anthony Bennett and the NBA Lottery's biggest draft busts of the last decade
Every day, fans of Aleksej “Poku” Pokusevski, Josh Green, or James Wiseman swear next year is the year their favorite players are not the bums the rest of the NBA thinks they are. I went through the last decade, from 2013-2023, and highlighted the 10 players who are on track to be the biggest busts ...
MLB scheduling change making it easier for American League East to assert its dominance
Six months or so after the NFC East was the best division in football, the American League East has overtaken MLB. No team is below .500 as of Friday morning/early afternoon, and the fives clubs are a combined 105-56 against opponents outside the division. The Tampa Bay Rays (37-15) and Baltimore Or...
The Florida Panthers changing their narrative is the story of the NHL playoffs
The Florida Panthers were written off. Down three games to a lowly one to the Boston Bruins, the most dominant regular-season team of all time, needing two wins in their barn to even get out of the first round. Since that 6-2 loss at home to the B’s, the Panthers are 11-1. Three straight over the Br...
Where are the Arizona Coyotes going?
The only thing more exciting to hockey fans than a player in free agency is an entire franchise going into free agency, which it now feels like the Arizona Coyotes have just done. And they certainly don’t mind treading all over the feelings of whatever Coyotes fans are left. It’s a cruel world, but ...
Tempe voters put an end to the Arizona/Glendale/Phoenix Coyotes sideshow
It was a bad idea from the start. When Gary Bettman enacted his Great Southern Strategy for the NHL, the original Winnipeg Jets, and the Phoenix area never quite fit into it. Phoenix wasn’t a captive market like Tampa or Nashville were, with the hockey teams being the only games in town during the w...
Tennessee Titans' draft pick Tyjae Spears is missing an ACL: Report
A running back missing an ACL, that is how a Division I football player can average 7.3 yards per touch, score 21 touchdowns as a senior, and fall to the third round. AAC 2023 Player of the Year Tyjae Spears wasn’t even the first player selected out of his conference. Rashee Rice was drafted with th...
Jayson Tatum, Boston Celtics avoided the longest summer possible just in time
No one eats their young quite like Boston. Only Tom Brady and David Ortiz seemed to have gotten out of there alive. No matter what you do, if The Hub feels like you didn’t deliver when it counts they’ll not only send you out of town but they’ll make sure the road is paved with manure as well. Ask an...
The Toronto Maple Leafs disappoint their fans by winning
No one does a post-mortem like the Toronto Maple Leafs. For the past six years, it’s been an April tradition. The Leafs spit up all over themselves in the playoffs, and then the next week the rest of the playoffs are drowned out by the wailing from southern Ontario about who needs to be traded, who ...
Gabriel ThreeYaksAndADog will miss all of next season, and the Colorado Avalanche era may already be over
In the salary-capped NHL, you get one, or two shots with one roster, and then you basically have to reshuffle everything around your core stars, and hope that new hand still produces a flush. It’s a constant game of draw poker. ...
The Chicago Blackhawks, the worst team you know, got all the luck
Tanking isn’t a plan, at least in leagues with a lottery. It’s a wager. A GM or front office or owner isn’t putting up money, other than the lack of tickets and merch they’ll sell while their team is shit. They’re putting up a season or many of complete haplessness with rosters devoid of useful play...
Jeff Halpern needs to be the Washington Capitals' next head coach
Five years since the Washington Capitals’ Stanley Cup victory. Zero playoff series won since. Two head coaches, one internal promotion, and an experienced outsider since becoming champions didn’t pan out. And with one of the oldest cores in the NHL, combined with the rest of the league outpacing the...