sports Page 130 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Thank goodness the WNBA learned from last year’s all-star mistake
The WNBA decided to put minimal effort into one of its most prestigious individual honors this season. During last season’s All-Star Game, the league was embarrassed by the MVP trophy that winner — Kelsey Plum — could have dangled and referred to as “her little teacup.” Jewell Loyd was named MVP of ...
Brent Venables (pot) takes a shot at Miami (kettle)
This time last year, no college football writer had Oklahoma coach Brent Venables, or Miami skipper Mario Cristobal on their annual hot seat list. And for good reason as both coaches were in the first season of their respective contracts. Well a year and 14 losses combined later, any realistic fan o...
NCAA treating violations with the leniency of a Boulder beat cop on 4/20
The University of Tennessee was hit with an $8 million fine, among other penalties, on Friday for “hundreds” of NCAA violations. Former coach Jeremy Pruitt and his staff committed north of 200 infractions, and while pretty much all of them weren’t a huge deal individually, when you rattle them off i...
Northwestern’s problems go beyond the football program
What is going on in Evanston, Illinois? Northwestern’s perception as a pristine academic university that plays sports on the side had already gone through an inferno over the last week with the firing of football coach Pat Fitzgerald on Monday due to hazing allegations. Turns out, that wasn’t the on...
The next Olympics will be held without Russia and Belarus, but maybe not Russians and Belarusians
World sports fans in search of a natural antagonist for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris will have to find countries other than Russia and Belarus to root against. The IOC has decided not to invite the countries due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, which started mere days after the Beijing Winter Oly...
NBA 2K’s decision to put Sabrina Ionescu on the cover was based on race — not merit
Being a superstar is the lone requirement for receiving superstar treatment — like being on the cover of a video game. Well, that’s unless the league you play in has always been Black, and your whiteness has been hijacked as a marketing tool — providing you with superstar treatment when you aren’t a...
Skip and Rich are Undisputed, it could work
If Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez can share a set together then why not Richard Sherman and Skip Bayless? That was a one-time viral social media beef 10 years ago. Bayless is several controversies removed from that one. That A-Rod and Jeter beef stewed for decades, much of it with them next to each ...
Sports are awesome, but the business is fascinating
Something about summer in America will always feel more like the true transition of the year as opposed to New Year’s Day. The holiday has so much pomp and circumstance that it’s difficult to take the time to truly reflect on the year, and it is also very cold in much of the country. During the summ...
Women’s World Cup preview: The Americans will run into trouble in Group E
The most deceiving thing about the United States women’s national team’s chances of a three-peat isn’t that it has a major target on its back and therefore is part of the game plan to knock out from every other nation in Australia and New Zealand. That was true for the 2019 showcase in France. How’d...
The NFL’s leading rusher seems like an afterthought during the offseason
Running backs have been devalued for some time in the NFL. Top RB paydays pale compared to quarterbacks and wide receivers around the league. NFL offenses once coveted backs who could carry the rock 20-plus times each game and were willing to pay them accordingly. Now all that’s out there for the le...
How about some real stakes for the NBA In-Season Tourney?
If the NBA’s goal with its in-season tournament is to simply further pad its upcoming national television rights deals, that’s fine. A few more nationally televised contests will always increase the package, and the players on the floor for these games will compete. However, stars won’t change their...
Bob Iger isn’t only tone-deaf while speaking about the Hollywood strike
The internal changes at ESPN, dubbed as cost-cutting measures that included the layoffs of Suzy Kolber, Keyshawn Johnson, and many more, have been made perfectly clear. It’s only a way for those at the top to keep their pockets protected at whatever cost necessary. Disney owns 80 percent of ESPN and...
An MLB postseason without suspense is like a ham no burger
Be it actual, or unspoken, the rules change for most postseasons. Hockey leaves its 3v3 overtime format in the regular season so game No. 57 doesn’t last forever, but reinstalls the old rules for the playoffs, leaving open the possibility for four-hour marathons. What is and isn’t a foul changes in ...
Guess who Justin Jefferson left off his top 5 QB list?
The internet is a place that constantly gets people into trouble, especially when social media is involved. Whenever athletes want to be honest or “keep it real,” they usually do so on some social platform. Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson did not hold back when asked to rank his top...
Northwestern’s decision to keep Pat Fitzgerald’s assistants is proof that Northwestern isn’t a serious place
The “intellectual elite” are failing in Evanston. In the same week in which we discovered that Northwestern’s head football coach Pat Fitzgerald’s laughable two-week suspension should have led to his eventual firing for running a program that’s “allegedly” allowed hazing and racism to run rampant fo...
Mike Gundy eloquently dismantles Oklahoma for ending Bedlam
About 95 percent of the time, Mike Gundy’s rants are nails on a chalkboard, a car alarm at 5 a.m., or any alarm in the morning. However, the other 5 percent? Gold, Jerry, gold! The latest redeemable instance came at Big 12 media days, when the Oklahoma State head coach tore into Oklahoma, and justif...
Saudi Arabian money is bleeding into the sports world
In 2017, one of the top chess players in the world announced she wasn’t going to play at the World Championships this year in Saudi Arabia. Anna Muzychuk cited the conditions that women would have to play in on her Facebook post, she explained she didn’t want to be accompanied by a man when she trav...
World Cup Group D Preview: Can England complete the set?
The question in all sports has been that once you break through and win, does winning again become easier? Is the mental block gone? Or does the pressure simply build even more, as triumphs go from hoped for to expected? This is only one of the few things that England will be wrestling with at the W...
The Gold Cup was never about lifting another trophy for the US
The reinforcements won’t be coming from this group. Outside of goalkeeper Matt Turner — whose status as the unquestioned No. 1 goalkeeper for the United States men’s national team didn’t change after five games in this year’s CONCACAF Gold Cup — what player from this American squad that only defeate...
