sports Page 354 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Debacle on ice: Olympics women’s figure skating was the opposite of heartwarming
The scene after the end of the women’s free skate was hard to watch Thursday — tears, screaming, and heartbreak pouring from the Russian athletes expected to sweep the podium, their Olympic experience destroyed by a doping scandal involving the country’s 15-year-old star, Kamila Valieva....

The SEC almost made $800 million last year — don’t tell us there isn’t enough to pay the players
The amount of money made off college athletes in this country is insane. ...

Tabloid Mails it in on coverage of trans athlete
Lia Thomas, the Penn swimmer whose teammates tried to get her banned from competition because she’s trans, turned in a dominant swim at the Ivy League championships Thursday. Her performance, along with that of Yale’s Iszac Henig, sparked coverage by the Daily Mail, and writer Alex Hammer provided a...

It's hard to even care about the MLB lockout
It feels strange to say this, but it’s hard to get too into baseball’s labor negotiations right now, to try to read the tea leaves of a 15-minute meeting on Thursday, who might be willing to budge on which issues, any of it....

Phil Mickelson doesn’t care about Saudi Arabia’s awful human rights record
Phil Mickelson will stop at nothing to spite the PGA Tour — not even willingly joining up with the Saudis’ new golf league while simultaneously acknowledging their human rights abuses....

So the Phoenix Suns are really good in clutch situations
The ability to come away victorious in close games is a great way to determine a team’s championship viability. The final five minutes of a close is when we get to see each team’s talent and coaching at the forefront. It’s when we get our best approximation of a team’s ceiling, and by golly, the Pho...

The Knicks are living a regression to the mean nightmare
I know I spend way too much of my time mocking the plight of New York Knick fans and their undeserved cockiness, but Thursday night’s fiasco felt like a turning point. They may finally be devoid of hope. For the third time in their last seven games, the Knicks squandered a lead of 20-points or mor...

Kupp was phenomenal this season, but he’s not the best WR in the league, yet
I know he had an amazing, arguably perfect year, but let’s chill out on the talk of Cooper Kupp being the greatest receiver in the game....

Mikaela Shiffrin’s response to failure is more important than failing
When I’m left sifting through the rubble, struggling to find any remnant of hope in the disaster that has befallen me, I try to remember advice my father never stops giving me: “You can’t control the things that happen to you, but you can control how you react to them.”...

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...

Please, please, please let us see Giannis vs. Embiid in the playoffs
Giannis Antetokounmpo has been playing at an MVP level for so long the media stopped giving him the award. It’s a level that very few players have reached. Depending on their side of the argument, people lament that Michael Jordan and/or LeBron James should have considerably more MVP trophies becaus...

Never a silver lining in this rivalry
Talk your shit, Natalie Spooner. ...

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....

You’ll be shocked to hear that the Cowboys reportedly did nothing about team exec who allegedly sexually harassed cheerleaders
Earlier today, ESPN reported that they had uncovered documents revealing that an upper executive in the Dallas Cowboys organization — described by some as an extended member of the Jones family — was accused of voyeurism by four Cowboys cheerleaders in 2015. ...

Kylian Mbappé continues to bend Champions League to his will
Kylian Mbappé is only 23, but his plunge into the world soccer scene keeps growing. The French dynamo, playing for his home country’s most successful club over the last dozen years, Paris Saint-Germain, as well as being an integral member of France’s national team, keeps scoring critical goals. Two ...

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. ...

Richard Sherman isn’t ready to enshrine Matthew Stafford in the Hall of Fame
The second the Rams’ Super Bowl win over the Bengals was final on Sunday, the narrative about Matthew Stafford’s Hall of Fame candidacy took off and hasn’t slowed down since....

Frisky NFL teams that could get friskier with the right QB
Watching the Rams walk a tightrope without a net this season was exhilarating. They traded two first round picks for Matthew Stafford, and people who hated the deal were a Tom Brady comeback away from laughing at Stan Kroenke and Los Angeles for being so frivolous with their assets. (I would’ve been...

Deion Sanders can’t make up his mind about how long he’ll be at Jackson State
No one has mastered the art of talking without saying anything like coaches. It’s called “coach speak.” Deion Sanders, however, is his own man. Instead of saying as little as possible, he always seems to find a way to say too much — even when it contradicts things he’s said in the past....

Have you ever dreamed of playing DI basketball? Now’s your chance
Are you a college student? Are you bored with constantly dominating your intramural games? Are you willing to transfer to a school in Indiana? If so, I have some interesting news for you....