state Page 90 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

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...

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 ...

Fictional Hooper Bracket: Western U. Region - Round 2
The Western University Region is strictly for hoopers, and the matchups reflected that. Love & Basketball’s Monica Wright McCall and White Men Can’t Jump’s Sidney Dean adore the game, and people clearly rewarded them for it. The talent and force of Grandmama and Ty Crane were too much for Deacon Mos...

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...

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 ...

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...

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. ...

Fictional Hooper Bracket: The Rucker Region - Round 2
The only havoc in the first round of the Rucker Regional was a 5-12 upset, which has become almost commonplace in March Madnesses everywhere. We’ll see how things tighten up heading into the Silver Screen 16 with matchups like Kyrie Irving alter ego Uncle Drew getting his first real test of the tour...

Say Goodbye to J. Crossover
Damn, nobody in the NBA needed a possible 15 points in 12 minutes waiting on their bench for the playoffs?...

Urban Meyer didn’t know who Aaron Donald was
The dedicated, diligent, maniac of a competitor known as former Jacksonville Jaguars coach Urban Meyer, had some basic problems when putting together an NFL deadline. According to a report from The Athletic’s Jayson Jenks and Mike Sando, Meyer was not familiar with the best players in the NFL — you ...

Golden State’s good, bad, and ugly have all been on display
The Golden State Warriors’ penchant for losing games they have in hand is almost becoming legendary. They’re the fastest gunslingers in the West, but they could teach a masterclass in shooting themselves in the foot on too many occasions this season. On Sunday night, these Warriors had a victory in ...

The people who wanted Juwan Howard and Penny Hardaway fired a few months ago… where’d they go?
What started with a press conference and a “postgame scuffle” has turned into predictable praise. Because when you win, people conveniently forget that just a few weeks earlier they wanted you unemployed....

March Madness has turned to goo for MSU coach Tom Izzo
The time has come to downgrade Tom Izzo’s rep. For the lack of a better word, it has turned to goo....

After an all-time bad freshman campaign, where does Emoni Bates go from here?
Jalen Duren and Chet Homgren’s matchup in the Round of 32 provided a preview of two future lottery picks in the upcoming NBA Draft. Holmgren and Duren didn’t exactly light it up, but they gave scouts a glimpse of two future franchise cornerstones....

Dajuan Harris is the quiet force behind Kansas’ hoops success
Call him the stabilizer. The nickname fits Kansas’ Dajuan Harris. Losses were at a premium for KU this season, but adversity came to the Jayhawks doorstep more than most would imagine for a 30-win team. And the soothing presence in Lawrence was Harris....

Women can be so defensive
Montana State had a good season. The Bobcats were 14-6 in the Big Sky, finishing second in the league, and won the conference tournament without too much difficulty after regular-season champion Idaho State got knocked out in the quarterfinals....

After initial Madness, it’s March Moderation
After the wild and bracket-busting first day of men’s March Madness, Candace Parker saw the future on the postgame show. The future Hall of Famer said that after so many upsets on Thursday, coaches of higher-seeded teams would be able to point to that and get their squads focused on the challenge of...

Gregg Berhalter drops the ball on USMNT roster
Expected, disappointing. Two words that best describe my reaction to seeing the United States Men’s National Team’s roster for the final trio of octagonal World Cup Qualifying matches, beginning next week. Outside of the core, can’t-miss players and super-subs, which any soccer fan with a brain coul...

With Steph Curry ruled out indefinitely, what of these Warriors?
A once-promising season has turned into an injury-plagued campaign for the Golden State Warriors. The injury bug bit Golden State again Wednesday night in their 110-88 loss to Boston, when Steph Curry went down in the second quarter on a questionable play involving the Celtics’ Marcus Smart. Curry h...