smith Page 37 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Coach K’s all-Duke ‘Duke’ Team
After Saturday’s regular-season finale against North Carolina, the last time Mike Krzyzewski will take the floor at Cameron Indoor Stadium, the Duke Blue Devils are only guaranteed two more games this season between the ACC and NCAA Tournaments....

Did Lovie Smith ever have a moral compass?
Somewhere at the beginning of his head coaching career, Lovie Smith got the label of being a pretty good guy. Maybe it’s because he went to church. Maybe it’s because he has a soft delivery when he speaks. He certainly commanded respect from his players, though that’s not indicative of much. Lovie c...

Strikes and Balks: A list of things ailing Major League Baseball
Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire aren’t walking through that door....

Jaylen Brown injury speaks to the fragility of Boston’s makeup
I almost wrote about the Celtics on Tuesday because I heard about these projections that had them with heavy title odds, but when I went to FiveThirtyEight to try to find them, it felt like I was trying to decipher binary code. So I held off to wait to see if anything came of the research I loosely ...

The best NCAA Women’s Tournament teams at each seed
For the first time this year, the NCAA Women’s Tournament will expand to 68 teams, matching the men’s showcase, which expanded to that number of teams chasing a national championship in 2011. That’s more chances for a longshot to make a run and take down the sport’s elite....

Nate McMillan’s tenure with the Hawks is downright Thibs-ian
The Hawks are lucky the Knicks are so disappointing or Stephen A. Smith would be melting down about them instead. The team that ended the Ben Simmons era in Philly, banished Julius Randle to a place from which he has yet to return, and competed with eventual NBA championship Milwaukee in the Eastern...

Zion might want to leave the Pelicans, but he really shouldn’t
Zion Williamson’s absence from the New Orleans Pelicans has of late led to tons of speculation about his future. Former teammate JJ Redick made the rounds on ESPN shows to talk about Zion’s lack of professionalism, even saying on First Take that he had even addressed it with Zion in front of the tea...

March Madness gets a head start as top six teams, seven of top 10 go down
If Saturday was a precursor to March Madness, then all of our brackets are more doomed than usual. Seven of the AP top 10 teams fell in a wild day of upsets, including every top six team. No. 1 Gonzaga, No. 2 Arizona, No. 3 Auburn, No. 4 Purdue, No. 5 Kansas, No. 6 Kentucky, and No. 9 Texas Tech all...

The best NCAA March Madness teams by seed
The NCAA Tournament has become one of the most unpredictable, edge-of-your-seat sporting events of the year due to its knockout nature. It’s a clash of college basketball styles coming together as the calendar turns from winter to spring, pitting teams that usually never see each other on the same c...

Get ready for the next bunch of NBA bigs
Glance around the basketball landscape and you’ll see skyscrapers cast a shadow over the courts again. A whole new host of bigs are on the verge of challenging the convention that the NBA is a guard’s league....

Where will these quarterbacks go?
I can’t remember an offseason that was filled with so much uncertainty for so many of the game’s elite signal-callers. It’s not just the big names, too. Several mid-tier starters and quarterbacks with Super Bowl experience are on the trade block, as well. With many of these teams looking to replace ...

NBA All-Star Saturday Night was fun, but changes couldn’t hurt
NBA All-Star Saturday Night was a blast this year. While the events may not have been the most exciting individually, each one added something unique to the evening. The Cavs brought home the Skill challenge trophies with their inspiring teamwork; Karl-Anthony Towns represented the big men and becam...

Getting a Black person to defend you against racism means you’ve hit rock bottom — the NFL proved that by hiring Loretta Lynch
Guilty people tend to do guilty things. The simple-minded do dumb stuff, like returning to the scene of the crime. The smarter ones will appoint someone from their accuser’s group to defend them. The NFL does a lot of stupid things, but they’ve never been dumb. Hiring Loretta Lynch as counsel is pro...

Jim Harbaugh can’t lose
Apparently, it’s possible to play poker, bet big on a hand, fold, and win anyway. At least, it’s possible if you’re Jim Harbaugh....

The Lakers might want to look into trading Anthony Davis after the season
The Lakers have been on the struggle bus all season long. Now the idea of the team trading Anthony Davis has been broached, and it might make more sense than people think. Stephen A. Smith talked about this on First Take and made some valid points. ...

Coach K’s succession mistake was bigger than choosing Scheyer over Amaker
Hours before Coach K’s dizzy spell sent him to the locker room in Duke’s win over Wake Forest, excerpts from Ian O’Connor’s upcoming book, Coach K: The Rise and Reign of Mike Krzyzewski” detailed a brief power struggle within Duke last year over Coach K’s plans to name his replacement. O’Connor’s in...

The path to an NBA championship is increasingly volatile
Neil Young gets credit for the line, “It’s better to burn out than to fade away,” but Kurt Cobain made it infamous. That dichotomy stuck with me, and it’s impossible not to see it in sports....

The Rams organization owns two of the worst rushing outputs by a Super Bowl champion in NFL history
The Los Angeles Rams are world champions after defeating the Cincinnati Bengals 23-20 in Super Bowl LVI Sunday night. Matthew Stafford and the Rams’ passing attack put on quite the show, but the same cannot be said for their running game. LA finished with one of the worst total rushing performances ...

Raheem Morris is the latest Black coordinator to win a Super Bowl who did not get a head coaching job
Raheem Morris got a bonus, but he won’t be getting a promotion....
