west Page 40 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The WNBA unveils new playoff format
The WNBA announced a new playoff format today that will increase the number of potential games in the tournament and completely get rid of single-elimination games. It will remain an eight-team playoff, with teams seeded based on overall standings over a 36-game regular season, but the first- and se...

It’s fine, this is fine. No really, it’s fine
In the euphoria of the US’s latest “Dos a Cero” triumph over Mexico, most US fans probably joked with their friends that they would follow this up with a turgid and flat performance in Jamaica. Joke to mask the pain, because we all suspected it, just at differing levels. Maybe some thought they woul...

The NBA future is... WOWZA!
The NBA has never felt younger and more reliant on up-and-coming stars than it does today. Teams are beginning to utilize the draft more and more. We’ve seen plenty of tank-a-thons by teams in the last five years, and these efforts have panned out to varying degrees. For some, it has materialized in...

DK Metcalf’s meltdown against Green Bay might be window into cracks in Pete Carroll’s culture in Seattle
If you don’t live on the West Coast or just have not paid much attention, the Seattle Seahawks look to be falling apart at the seams. DK Metcalf’s ejection from Sunday’s 17-0 loss to the Green Bay Packers may sum up the season for Seattle. Maybe Metcalf was confused after being ejected. Or maybe he ...

Damian Lillard should have forced his way out of Portland
Hindsight is 20/20. But even then, sometimes people just don’t want to see what’s right in front of them....

Y’all must have Forgot! The Cowboys, Patriots and Chiefs sent out a stern reminder that they are for real this season
Order was mostly restored to the universe on Sunday. Following a bizarre Week 9 in which some of the best teams in the NFL lost to residents of Club .500 And Below, the top of the NFL mostly handled its business in Week 10, and some performances were quite convincing....

After the latest Dos Á Cero, it’s time to be excited about the USMNT again
Not getting too crazy about the U.S. men’s soccer team, not getting too crazy about the U.S. men’s soccer team, not getting too crazy about the U.S. men’s soccer team, not going too crazy about the U.S. men’s soccer team…...

The U.S. needs to beat Mexico tonight, so it better act like it
There isn’t one crescendo to World Cup qualifying, but the U.S. hosting Mexico tonight is just about as close it gets. They’ll play again in the spring of course, and both have other matches to negotiate. But this is one of the games that gets highlighted as soon as the schedule is announced, and ev...

Who needs triple-doubles anyway?
Believe it or not, the Washington Wizards are in a three-way tie for the top spot in the Eastern Conference 10 games into the season. Washington is flying under the radar at 7-3, while teams like the Bulls and Heat get everyone’s attention for improving their rosters in the offseason. But the Wizard...

2021 Rookie QB Rankings: A Fields of Dreams, the Lawrence of the land and Big Mac
We’ve reached the midway point of the NFL season, and rookie quarterbacks are always front and center, with some living up to the hype and others not as much. With that, let’s look at how the 2021 rookie class fared in Week 9....

LeBron James and the Lakers may need to admit they were wrong about Russell Westbrook sooner than they’d imagined
The Russell Westbrook experiment in Los Angeles has not clicked yet, and I don’t know if it ever will. LeBron James missing games with an injury doesn’t help, but things were scary even when he was playing. Acquiring Westbrook was a LeBron decision, made in place of trading for a much better shooter...

Western Conference beware, Nikola Jokić and the Denver Nuggets have a new weapon in their arsenal
The Denver Nuggets have struggled a bit to start the 2021-22 season. Following three consecutive campaigns with a win percentage of .630 or better, they are .500 following a 108-106 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday night. Still, there is encouragement for Nuggets fans, both from this game ...

Russell Westbrook went all 'unwritten rules enforcer' last night and that’s a shame
Ugh. Russell Westbrook has become a “guardian of the game” guy, and it couldn’t be more disappointing....

The Blackhawks are forced to face their reckoning, 11 years too late
The details are always worse than you can imagine, even if the overall arc of the story is exactly what we all expected. And so it proved as the Chicago Blackhawks released the findings of their internal investigation into how the organization handled accusations of sexual assault and harrassment by...

Burrow, Bengals bash Baltimore, Chiefs drop stink bomb on Titans, and Colts go 2021 NBA Playoffs on 49ers
Did you know yesterday was National Tight Ends Day? Of course you did, because no one shut up about it...

Week 7 NFL Powerless Rankings: The Chiefs keep falling, the Jets are real bad
We’re about halfway through the 2021 NFL season, and at this point, we can pretty much separate the serious contenders from the pretenders....

Week 7 NFL Betting Primer: Best Over/Under, Spread, Teaser, and Prop Bets
It was only inevitable to endure our first below-.500 week of the campaign. The key is to put that behind us and move on....

Dwight Howard in another Hollywood disaster? It’s too soon to tell, but yikes
If only the NBA season were the Colecovision game that the Lakers roster grew up playing, they could unplug it, and plug it back in....

