port Page 366 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

NFL teams, don’t think too hard, if you need a QB, draft Malik Willis
Malik Willis played quarterback at Liberty University (yuck and yuck) for two years after transferring from Auburn. He measured in at the combine at 6½-feet tall, and in Liberty’s biggest game of the year, at Mississippi, he threw for less than 200 yards, three interceptions, and rushed for less tha...

Can anyone fill the void left by Serena Williams and now Ash Barty?
Ash Barty’s retirement from professional tennis was a blunt instrument between the eyes of the WTA community. Barty was coupled with Naomi Osaka as the future of women’s tennis. At 25, she was coming into her own after winning the Australian Open in January, Wimbledon in 2021 and the 2019 French Ope...

How Sweet it is
From 68 teams to the final 16. More than 50 teams with their eyes on a national championship are handing in jerseys instead of preparing for more games. The first six days of NCAA Tournament action left three double-digit seeds, including maybe the biggest Cinderella in Tournament history, which you...

LeBron is gunning for the scoring title because the Lakers are irrelevant
The Lakers are the hottest kind of garbage right now. The kind of refuse you smell on Bourbon Street the day after Mardi Gras. They’re 10 games below .500, sitting in ninth place, and fighting for a final chance to disappoint their home crowd in the first of possibly two play-in games. Russel Westbr...

Tyreek Hill to Miami: What to make of this blockbuster deal, and what it means for Tua
The Miami Dolphins added fuel to the already bright fire that is the 2022 NFL offseason by trading for two-time alleged domestic abuser, six-time Pro Bowler, and three-time All-Pro receiver Tyreek Hill. Immediately after finalizing the trade, which sent five draft picks to the Chiefs in exchange for...

The case for Tennessee
Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel says that spring practice looks “unrecognizable” from where the Vols were a year ago in Knoxville. Reeling from the termination of Jeremy Pruitt and a large chunk of the coaching staff after the NCAA found proof of recruiting violations at the university, Heupel was ...

Social athlete-fan interactions keep getting worse
Player fan relationships moved into an entirely new realm over a decade ago when social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter began to pop up. Not long after came Instagram and later TikTok. These platforms have become staples in our lives, not just in the United States but around the ...

Ratings prove that Duke is good for business and the NCAA Tournament
When it comes to March Madness, Duke is a necessary evil. No wonder they’re (Blue) Devils. ...

Jack Hughes is quietly having a historic season
The buzz over the 2019 draft seems quaint now. Or it did. Back then, especially because it involved the rivals Devils and Rangers trying to race to the bottom to get one of the top two picks, it picked up more buzz than hockey lotteries normally do. No, it wasn’t the McDavid-Eichel draft (and the Ei...

A tribute to the omnipresent NBA stars who never played a minute
Let’s pour one out for the lost souls of the 2021-22 NBA season. This season was a void on their resumes for a select few stars. An entire missed season can be an opportunity to step back, reevaluate and return for a bounce-back campaign. Or they can smack into the 2023 season like porcelain against...

This Kyrie situation is starting to feel like the Mayor of New York is trying to beat him in a game of one-on-one
I know this is March Madness and NFL Free Agency season, but the NBA Playoffs start in less than 30 days. That last, and most entertaining, mile of the NBA season, but maximum entertainment value is only achieved if all of the stars are playing. That appears to still be in jeopardy with Kyrie Irving...

The man, the myth, the… mustache?
Doug Edert has quickly risen to fame in the past week, going from the sixth man for a small Catholic school’s basketball team in Jersey City, playing in an arena the size of a suburban high school gym, to the face of the 2022 NCAA Championship....

West London is not going to welcome The Ricketts Family
It’s pretty clear that the Ricketts family, who own the Cubs, look upon Fenway Sports Group as something of an idol. They took their GM from Boston and made him the president of the Cubs. You know him as Theo Epstein. They have remade Wrigley Field and the neighborhood around it in the same fashion ...

Hornets sign Isaiah Thomas for the rest of the season
These last few years have been tough for Charlotte Hornets guard Isaiah Thomas. He’s been on nothing but 10-day contracts recently, and after consecutive 10-day deals in Charlotte, the Hornets have decided to keep Thomas on for the remainder of the year....

Record-breaking performances by women in March Madness
With the official March Madness sticker finally slapped onto the women’s NCAA basketball tourney, this year’s field has truly embraced the name of the game. As fiscal, concrete, and abstract changes have been implemented into the women’s tournament this year in an attempt to make it more equitable w...

College hockey is just as mad in March
You and I have probably been spending the last week the same way, staring at our monitors watching St. Peter’s destroy any chance we had at winning our office bracket challenge. We’ve been so enticed by the upsets, bracket busters, and magical run by Michigan (with Juwan Howard returning to the side...

Mavs again find themselves embroiled in sexual misconduct allegations
It would be nice if sports leagues were proactive on issues with workplace culture and harassment. Instead of waiting around for formal charges to be filed, public outrage to grow so loud that it can’t be ignored, or a Baxter Holmes bombshell, commissioners should follow up on every rumor of sexual ...

The Golden Knights are so desperate they tried to trade a player they couldn’t trade
It was only a few days ago we chronicled that increasingly desperate situation the Golden Knights find themselves in. They have nothing more than a crimp grip on the last wildcard spot in the Western Conference, with the Dallas Stars having four games in hand on them just a point behind. ...

Cris Collinsworth bids farewell to Al Michaels the only way that he knows how
Cris Collinsworth didn’t need a thread, a notes app, or seven Instagram story slides to bid farewell to his longtime broadcasting partner, Al Michaels. He kept it brief, and gave the people what they wanted, and I’m sure Michaels chuckled when he saw it. ...

Mike McCarthy is taking a more hands-on approach to the draft process in Dallas, but will it matter to the man upstairs?
Now that we’re past the initial frenzy phase of NFL free agency, it’s time to focus on the draft. The Dallas Cowboys weren’t heavily involved in the free agent-free for all because they never really are, so once again, they’ll be looking to the draft to fill some holes in their roster. Like the one ...