tea Page 17 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
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...
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 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...
Women’s World Cup preview: Can the Japanese bookend the American’s dominance from Group C?
This should be pretty straightforward. It’s a matter of whether Spain or Japan advances from Group C as the winners, and who heads to the knockout stage as runners-up. That leaves Costa Rica and Zambia leaving Oceania early, but does anything exactly go to plan on the world stage? Group C has as cle...
World Cup Group B Preview: It’s time for Sam Kerr to take this itty bitty world by storm
We spilled some ink in these parts about Mallory Swanson by herself making the USWNT a threat to win the World Cup, before her unfortunate injury. But the US isn’t the only team with a player who is capable of grabbing a short tournament by the haunches, and the co-hosts Australia may have the bigge...
The USMNT looked terrible against Canada, and it doesn’t matter
It took until the 88th minute for the United States men’s national team’s C-squad to score a goal on home soil in a major-tournament quarterfinal and 15 seconds after play resumed for the offense to take place that gave Canada a golden opportunity to take it away. An uninspired first half, saved by ...
Christian Pulisic’s move to AC Milan is the USMNT’s biggest news of the summer
The most substantial story for the United States men’s national team this summer has nothing to do with the Gold Cup. Nor any of the drama surrounding Gregg Berhalter’s return to the Yanks’ helm. It was always where the best American male soccer player on the planet, Christian Pulisic, landed in the...
James Harden is chasing an ideal that doesn’t exist
It’s fair to ask the question, what does James Harden want? Is it a ring? Is it a lifestyle? Is it his own team? The 33-year-old former one-man wrecking crew is no longer an indestructible pinball, bouncing off of everything, and amassing high score after high score. No team is going to hand him the...
USMNT striker Jesús Ferreira is best against crappy teams
The surest bet for the United States men’s national team to score a goal is Jesús Ferreira against a shitty team. The FC Dallas striker has padded stats that look much more impressive than they are. In 20 appearances for the Yanks, Ferreira has 11 goals. He became the 29th American to score 10 or mo...
Stop hating on the NCAA for being spineless
Criticizing the NCAA is the lowest of low-hanging fruit. You can essentially pick the apples up off the ground, and have a roiling take. The latest punishments, or lack thereof, handed down to LSU football and men’s basketball last week were predictably lax and anything but a hindrance for schools t...
Team USA Basketball needs to bring back multi-year commitments
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And if it does break, fix it the same way you did after you originally broke it. Grant Hill, this is for you....
Now I can die peacefully as I’ve seen a Kenny Omega masterpiece live
Every sports fan has a checklist of things they have to see in person. These days it probably involves Shohei Ohtani. Maybe Connor McDavid turning some poor schmuck on a third pairing into unrecognizable goo (I saw him do it to Duncan Keith). LeBron in person maybe. The timeless ones are seeing a ga...
The Reggie Evans Bad Basketball Basketball Hall of Fame 2023 inductees
Studies have shown that negative news garners more of the public’s attention than positive news, so with that knowledge, I propose an alternative to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. The Basketball Hall of Fame has the prestige, but it doesn’t generate as much conversation as Twitter ramblings f...
Scoot Henderson went third, but is still the second-best player in this NBA draft class
Scoot Henderson is not the ideal 2023 NBA basketball player. That archetype is a 6-foot-7 or taller shooter with good defensive instincts. Henderson is 6-foot-2 and his jump shot is still a work in progress. With the profile of a franchise point guard prospect from 2002, Henderson is considered the ...
The USWNT better not have any centerbacks get hurt
We wondered out the USWNT would heading into the World Cup without Becky Sauerbrunn. The starting lineup should be ok, but how would Vlakto Andonovski answer the question of the eroded depth without the captain around? It would appear he’s decided to not answer it at all. ...
It was hard not to get a little giddy about the USMNT
Being a USMNT fan usually involves seeing things that aren’t there, or at least things that could be there but aren’t yet. It’s usually what the team could develop into, or dreaming about flashes being carried over into a full 90 minutes one day, or when an injured player or two returns or makes his...
Becky Sauerbrunn’s absence at the World Cup hurts more in the heart than on the field
The women’s World Cup continues to be a battle of attrition, even if it doesn’t start for another month. All the major powers are heading to Australia and New Zealand next month, seemingly with one hand tied behind their back, either through injury or strife within their programs (Canada and Spain)....
El Tri comes through in all its embarrassing, pathetic glory on an interesting night for the USMNT
US-Mexico games that count for something, even the CONCACAF Nations League, usually are more than just a result. They are a comment on where each program is at that moment, and most of the time where each is heading. Thursday night’s semifinal may have been the most definitive statement on both, inc...
Gregg Berhalter is pretty sure he’s getting the USMNT job back
There is something so very U.S. Soccer about taking nine months in their search for a new USMNT manager, going through two interim managers because the first one didn’t want to wait around and took a full-time job in the Middle East, and then ending up back where they started by re-hiring the guy th...
I swear, if robot umps do away with manager rants …
It’s hard to describe why Wednesday night’s wild ending to the Washington Nationals-Houston Astros game was so much fun. Maybe it’s because a 58-year-old man in a baseball uniform showed up to a postgame presser with photographic evidence of a blown call. Or it could have been that I have a friend w...