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Good morning! Earn a Pro Bowl nod today. Coming up:
- 🏀 Freshman stars square off
- 🏅 Sanders’ questionable accolade
- 🧐 The best NFL series ever?
While You Were Sleeping: The freshmen are at it again
We begin this morning on basketball courts at various locations, because the results were worthy of a first mention. Quickly:
- In men’s college hoops, No. 1 Arizona is 21-0 after a thrilling 86-83 win on the road over BYU. This game showcased the Wildcats’ overall brilliance and the brimming potential of a talented Cougars team, led by possible No. 1 draft pick AJ Dybantsa, who scored 24 points. Fellow freshman Brayden Burries led Arizona with 29 points. They’re both part of an already historic freshman class.
- In the NBA, stars shone, too. Luka Dončić went for 46 points, 12 assists and seven rebounds in the Lakers’ road win over the Bulls. The Lakers (28-17) are a flawed yet talented mess, as our Power Rankings discussed this week. In Cleveland, meanwhile, hope is finally back with the 28-20 Cavaliers after Donovan Mitchell’s 45-point effort last night reasserted the team’s status as a contender.
Sure, the Super Bowl is still on the calendar, but it’s truly basketball season now. Onward:
News to Know
Justin Casterline / Getty Images
Sanders — yes, Shedeur — gets Pro Bowl nod
No rookie in the NFL inspires controversy among fans and dissidents like Shedeur Sanders, so allow me to sidestep any fandom wars by saying this: The Browns quarterback earned a spot in the Pro Bowl as an injury replacement yesterday, a source confirmed to The Athletic, which is just a strange reality. Sanders might turn out to be a good QB in this league, and we’ve seen talented signal callers thrive in the right situations after struggling in bad spots. But Sanders was simply not great in limited action this year: seven touchdowns, 10 interceptions and a 18.9 QBR. To compare, the league median in qualified QBR rankings this year was between Bo Nix’s 58.4 and Caleb Williams’ 58.3.
Sanders will replace Drake Maye, who’s playing the Super Bowl, on the roster. Read more here.
More news:
- USMNT defender Alex Freeman is moving from MLS side Orlando City to La Liga power Villarreal. It’s a big deal.
- The White House meeting with President Trump and major sports commissioners was postponed due to snow. More details inside.
- Philip Rivers removed himself from the Bills coaching search. See our full story.
- Mike McDaniel is finally, officially, the offensive coordinator for the Chargers. I’m excited to see what this offense actually looks like.
- Packers tackle Rasheed Walker was arrested at LaGuardia Airport on a gun charge. Read more here.
- Yoshinobu Yamamoto is joining Team Japan for the upcoming World Baseball Classic. Japan’s rotation is now stacked.
- Robert Flom, a Clippers fan blogger, tweeted a month ago that he would eat his post (literally) if the team went 15-3 across any stretch this season. He is now preparing to eat paper.
📰 Find more news here 24/7.
Best Ever? Was that actually the Super Bowl?
Steve Bisig / Imagn Images
There is a frankly toxic trope that surfaces every postseason in most sports, and it goes something like this: The championship game/series wasn’t the actual title matchup. That happened the round before between Semifinalist A and Semifinalist B. Real ball-knowers get it.
It’s an easy slope to fall down, and here I am, packing up a sled and riding down with glee. Because I still can’t stop thinking about Sunday’s NFC title game, which felt like a game between the NFL’s two best teams. And as “The Athletic Football Show” mentioned in its recap, the Rams and Seahawks may have completed the best season series in NFL history.
Consider:
- In their three-game series, the final score: Seattle 88, L.A. 85. Both teams were 11-3 in Week 16 for the Seahawks’ 38-37 overtime barnburner. Both had top-10 offenses and defenses, per multiple advanced stats. Per DVOA, a stat that measures a team’s overall success on each play compared to the league average, these teams were the best two in the NFL this year by far.
- For the Rams, it is little consolation. The entire team and coaching staff sounded incredulous that their season was over Sunday. As Jourdan Rodrigue wrote, this was indeed a Super Bowl-worthy team with one glaring issue: special teams.
- A lightning rod in that game, and the rivalry? Cooper Kupp, the Rams’ Super Bowl MVP in the 2021 season. The team cut Kupp last year, and he signed with the Seahawks in free agency … then caught the final touchdown pass of the NFC title game to beat his old team. This might be scripted. Michael Silver has a great, detailed report about the intense drama of Kupp’s breakup with L.A.
We’ll stop waxing about these two now. I’ll cherish watching all three games between the two teams this year. And of course, after all this, the Patriots could come out in two weeks and win the Super Bowl.
Let’s keep moving:
Watch Guide
📺 NBA: Bucks at 76ers
8 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock
I am fascinated by the endless, confusing misery Milwaukee is enduring this year, with superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo at the center of the weirdness, as Zach Harper mentioned yesterday. We may touch more on this later in the week.
📺 Soccer: USWNT vs. Chile
10 p.m. ET on TBS/HBO Max/Universo/Peacock
What more can we even say about Trinity Rodman at this point? She headlines a less experienced American roster than we’re used to seeing. Oh, and Rodman scored over the weekend in her USWNT return. The Chileans are ranked 47th in the world, too, so this should — key word — be an easy win.
Get tickets to games like this here.
Pulse Picks
David Berding / Getty Images
Jon Krawczynski is our excellent Timberwolves writer and a longtime Minneapolis resident. His column about the city in the aftermath of Alex Pretti’s death was equal parts gripping and heartbreaking. Make time for this today.
The Senators made “Heated Rivalry” jerseys that are understandably flying off the shelves. Julian McKenzie has the inside story on how the unis came to be. Genius, to be honest.
Mikaela Shiffrin is the winningest skier in the history of the sport. She also crashed out of the last Olympics. Can she overcome the hex this time around?
It’s high time for a check on the women’s college basketball top 25, where Sabreena Merchant wonders if Duke’s 11-game winning streak is legitimate or, as she terms it, a quirk.
NASCAR is ditching the “Roval” course this year. It’s another big win for the organization, as Jeff Gluck writes.
Yasiel Puig was one of MLB’s most exciting players. Now, he’s on trial.
Former Indiana coach Bob Knight’s legendary Purdue rant — “I’m f—ing tired of losing to Purdue” — turned 35 years old this week. No one still knows how it leaked.
Most-clicked in the newsletter yesterday: Andrew Marchand’s review of Tony Romo and Jim Nantz’s TV performance Sunday. The verdict: underwhelming.
Most-read on the website yesterday: ☝️