stern Page 41 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The top 10 clutch scorers in the upcoming NBA Playoffs
The NBA playoffs are just around the corner, and we’ve got tight races in each conference heading down the stretch. Most top teams are usually led by players who can take a game over, especially in the fourth quarter/crunch time. Some players have been left off the list for various reasons like inju...
Evan Mobley has been great all season, but he’s been outplayed by Scottie Barnes for Rookie of the Year
The NBA Rookie of the Year vote has gotten even more complicated. Yesterday, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that Evan Mobley sprained his left ankle and is out for the next three games. This comes at an especially difficult time for the Cleveland Cavaliers, who have lost four of their last five ...
Giannis outshines Embiid in latest installment of the best rivalry in the NBA
Joel Embiid learned a valuable lesson in Tuesday night’s loss to the Milwaukee Bucks in the waning seconds. When you come at the king, you best not miss. Or at least go up for game-tying shots more aggressively when the king of weakside blocks is prowling....
Be patient, but more importantly, not cheap, Chicago
If Zach LaVine and Demar DeRozan thought backup was coming in the form of Lonzo Ball, Alex Caruso, or Patrick Williams, they might want to try buddy-copping their way out of the jam Chicago is in now. Fake argue like Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, or mix karate with charisma like Chris Tucker and J...
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...
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...
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. ...
The return of the Celtics
It wasn’t long ago that the Boston Celtics were viewed as one of the more underachieving teams in the NBA this season. ...
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 ...
Fictional Hooper Bracket: Hickory Region
Welcome to the old-head section of the bracket. There’s a lot of striped socks and short shorts in this region, so it’s only right that these games are played in the dusty gym in Hickory, Ind. JImmy Chitwood catches a break getting to play at home, but he’s not the upset that is looming in this regi...
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...
Kyrie Irving has his way with Orlando, scoring 60 points one game after Durant drops 53
If I told you Kyrie Irving was cooking on the court last night, you’d probably say, “OK, what’s new,” right? But Kyrie was on an entirely different level in Tuesday night’s 150-108 win against the Orlando Magic, going for 60 points in only 35 minutes of game action. Irving had 41 in the first half, ...
NCAA prospects who could turn into NBA All-Stars
As March Madness kicks off in a few days, the next class of NBA regulars will play in their final college games before transitioning into pre-draft prep, doing everything they can to hear their name called higher on June 23. Most of the top prospects for this summer’s draft will display their talent...
Chris Finch is the NBA’s Coach of the Year
The Minnesota Timberwolves’ surge up the NBA standings has been a warm fire during another frigid winter. For the past decade, this has been an utterly moribund franchise. The time was nearing for Karl-Anthony Towns to begin asking for an escape hatch as his super-max contract approached its expirat...
Klay’s offensive explosion against the Bucks was great, but he wanted more
Klay Thompson broke out of his shooting slump in a big way Saturday night in Golden State’s 122-109 win over Milwaukee. Thompson dropped 38 points on the Bucks with six rebounds and five assists, connecting on eight three-pointers in the process....
Goodbye and good riddance to Will Wade
It took way too long to oust Will Wade from his place atop LSU men’s basketball, but the deserved guillotine finally made its swift chop on Saturday afternoon, a major moment in the 4-year-plus NCAA investigation into wrongdoing surrounding his time in Baton Rouge. Wade was fired with cause, meaning...
Anyone banking on a Milwaukee Bucks championship repeat is in for a rude awakening
The Milwaukee Bucks took one on the chin Saturday night in prime time against the Golden State Warriors, falling in defeat 122-109. What’s even more concerning than the loss is that Warriors superstar Stephen Curry scored just eight points. Curry was on the floor for a total of 35 minutes. That stat...
Portland’s six-game losing streak is worse than you think
The Portland Trailblazers are not the worst team in the NBA. They’re far from it actually. However, their past six games would indicate otherwise. They’re tanking like there’s no tomorrow. Since their Feb. 24 matchup at home against the Golden State Warriors, the Trail Blazers have lost every game t...
What’s the future for Cuonzo Martin?
Throughout the years of covering Cuonzo Martin with my boots on the ground in Columbia, Missouri, musing to every whim of Mizzou athletics as the hometown daily newspaper’s sole beat reporter, I’ve learned a few things about the 50-year-old East St. Louis, Illinois native along the way. ...