Why Fred VanVleet invested in his midrange game
Toronto Raptors guard Fred VanVleet made growing his midrange game a priority in the offseason and explains why he felt it was an important step in his growth as a scorer.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Newfoundland and Labrador skip Greg Smith was open to anything with his rink down 7-1 to Nova Scotia at the Brier.
The record streak came to an end on Monday.
Maya Brady, playing for softball powerhouse UCLA, was the nation's freshman of the year in 2020.
Pacers forward Domantas Sabonis beat Nikola Vucevic to win the Skills Challenge, and Stephen Curry ran away with the 3-Point Contest.
Leonard won a championship with Popovich before forcing a trade after seven seasons with the San Antonio Spurs.
"I can only control what I can control."
Connor Murphy will likely become the latest player to meet with the NHL Department of Player Safety after landing a head shot on Tampa Bay's Erik Cernak.
It seemed Walter Gretzky both knew what he had in his son, and how best to handle it. It’s one of many reasons why he was the ultimate hockey dad.
In the NFL, you either have a franchise QB or you don't. Dallas does, yet Jerry Jones doesn't seem motivated to keep him around long-term.
TORONTO — The Toronto Raptors will have women in every on-air role on a televised game later this month. The NBA team made the announcement on International Women's Day. Meghan McPeak will have the play-by-play and national women's team star Kia Nurse will handle the analysis for a March 24 game against the Denver Nuggets on TSN. TSN host and reporter Kayla Grey will handle sideline duties, while Kate Beirness and Amy Audibert will host and provide analysis. The broadcasters also will participate in virtual events to share their experiences, as well as a virtual panel with students from Ryerson University's sport business programs. Sportsnet employed an all-female broadcast crew last March for an NHL game between the Calgary Flames and Vegas Golden Knights. “We wanted to highlight the contributions that women make individually — across so many broadcasts — by bringing them all together,” John Wiggins, Raptors vice-president of organizational diversity and inclusion, said in a statement. “Yes, we’re making a point. We hope this leads to more recognition of the many roles women play in pro sports. “And we especially hope that one of the takeaways from this is for girls at home who see Meghan or Amy or Kayla, and think — hey, I could do that. There’s a place for me in sports.” Meanwhile, the Raptors also announced a maximum of 3,500 fans will be allowed to attend home games at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Fla., starting March 19. The team started the year allowing a limited number of fans into the arena before the facility went fan-free in January because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 8, 2021. The Canadian Press
Comprised of shirts, leggings and a spacious gym bag, the capsule also includes a lavender colorway of NBA star Stephen Curry's latest sneaker the Curry Flow 8.
Our analysts reveal their favorite draft targets from the five NL Central teams.
Virginia moved past Florida State over the weekend to win the ACC regular season title. But who should you trust in the conference tournament?
MONTREAL — Former CF Montreal assistant coach Wilfried Nancy has been promoted to head coach. The MLS team made the announcement Monday. The 43-year-old Nancy has been an assistant coach with the first team since 2016. Nancy takes over for Thierry Henry, who resigned last month, citing family reasons. “I am very happy and proud to take on this new challenge,” Nancy said in a statement. “It’s even more special, since it’s with the club I’ve known since I came to Montreal." A native of France, Nancy joined CF Montreal to help coach its academy program when it debuted in 2011. Assistant coaches Kwame Ampadu and Laurent Ciman, goalkeeper coach Remy Vercoutre and fitness coach Jules Gueguen will complete Nancy’s staff. “After Thierry left, we decided to trust him and give him the opportunity to continue the work we started last season, with the same vision," said Montreal sporting director Olivier Renard. "It is also part of the club’s philosophy to consider and promote our own, as we did in the past for Jules Gueguen and Maxime Chalier (video analyst).” This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 8, 2021. The Canadian Press
A familiar program is back in the Big East tournament, and has been the hottest team in the league.
The NBA's mini-bubble in Atlanta for the All-Star Game apparently worked. No players, coaches or game officials tested positive for COVID-19 while in Atlanta, the NBA said Monday after the final tests were processed and results were returned to the league and the teams involved. That includes Philadelphia's Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons, a pair of All-Stars who had to miss the game and left Atlanta early after being flagged through contact tracing. A barber both saw before going to Atlanta tested positive, and that meant Embiid and Simmons were potentially exposed to the virus. By league policy this season they couldn't play Sunday night. “All players, coaches, and game officials were tested for COVID three times after arriving in Atlanta, including a final test immediately prior to last night’s All-Star Game," the league said in a statement Monday. “Each of those tests returned a negative result, confirming no one on the court for last night’s events was infected." Embiid and Simmons have continued to return negative tests as well. It's still unclear if they will be eligible to play when Philadelphia opens its second-half schedule in Chicago on Thursday. “So far, so good as far as their testing," 76ers coach Doc Rivers said. “They feel great. They both obviously wanted to play. We’re disappointed. Both of them, their biggest concern would be if they could play the first two games when we get back. So we don’t know the answer to that yet. That’s going to be really important for us. It would be tough to start the second half of the year and not have either one." All players and coaches who were involved in the game arrived in Atlanta on Saturday and left late Sunday following the game. Team LeBron, captained and selected by LeBron James, defeated Kevin Durant's Team Durant 170-150. Some players questioned why the game needed to be played during the pandemic, and those questions persisted Sunday after it was revealed Embiid and Simmons could not participate. But the league and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver insisted throughout the planning for the game that players would be safe in Atlanta. And just as was the case last summer in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, where the NBA held the end of its regular season and then the entire 2020 playoffs in a bubble at Walt Disney World, the plan worked. “Big shoutout to everybody that made this happen, to the players for coming down and participating, playing," Phoenix All-Star Chris Paul, who also serves as president of the National Basketball Players Association, said after the game. “There’s always a lot of back and forth on these different decisions, but once guys get here, I think they’re grateful for it." ___ More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports Tim Reynolds, The Associated Press
Collier's late father always said she was No. 1. She leaves Texas with a career-high better than Kevin Durant.
NYON, Switzerland — A Romanian soccer referee was suspended for the season after making “inappropriate” comments about a Black coach at a Champions League game, UEFA ruled on Monday. Paris Saint-Germain and Istanbul Basaksehir refused to continue playing on Dec. 8 because players believed fourth official Sebastian Coltescu racially insulted the Turkish club’s assistant coach, Pierre Webo. A UEFA investigation led to Coltescu facing the lesser charge of “inappropriate behaviour” for using the Romanian word for black, “negru,” to identify Webo. Coltescu is banned “from carrying out any referee’s function until the end of the 2020/21 season,” UEFA said its disciplinary committee decided. He must also attend a UEFA-approved educational course. “In the international context, correct use of language is essential to avoid situations such as those that occurred in the above-mentioned match,” UEFA said. The ban will apply to domestic games in Romania because Coltescu is no longer on the FIFA-managed list of officials approved for international games. Romania’s soccer federation decided before the game in Paris not to propose Coltescu for 2021, and the PSG-Basaksehir tie was his last on international duty. The game was completed 24 hours later with a different set of match officials brought in from the Netherlands. ___ More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports The Associated Press
The Raptors head into the second half in the thick of the playoff race and with a number of questions hanging over the team's future.
Most NBA All-Star Game bets that got a lot of attention from bettors won on Sunday night.